Norah regarded the not very costly engagement-ring of intertwined pansies bedewed with diminutive diamonds. In her own room this ring always adorned the third finger of her left hand, and while she was about the house during the day the third finger of her right hand; but when her father came back from the city it had to be concealed, with old letters and dance programs and moldering flowers, in a basket of girlish keepsakes, the key of which was continually being left on her dressing-table and causing her moments of acute anxiety in the middle of supper. If it was not a valuable ring, it was much the prettiest she had ever possessed, and it seemed to Norah monstrous that a father should have the power to banish such a token of seniority from the admiration of the world. What would happen if after supper to-night she announced her engagement? Some time or other in the future of family events one of the daughters would have to announce her engagement, and who more suitable than herself, the eldest daughter? Was there, after all, so much to be afraid of in her father? Was not this tradition of his fierceness sedulously maintained by her mother for her own protection? When she looked back at the past, Norah could see plainly enough how all these years the mother had hoodwinked her children into respecting the head of the family. He might not be conspicuously less worthy of reverence than the fathers of many other families she knew, but he was certainly not conspicuously more worthy of it. The romantic devotion their mother exacted for him might have been accorded to a parent who resembled George Alexander or Lewis Waller! But as he was—rather short than tall (he was the same height as herself), fussy (the daily paper must remain folded all day while he was at the office, so that he could be helped first to the news as he was helped first to everything else), mean (how could she possibly dress herself on an allowance of £6 5s. a quarter?)—such a parent was not entitled to dispose of his daughter; a daughter was not a newspaper to be kept folded up for his gratification.
"For I am beautiful," she assured her reflection. "It's not conceit on my part. Even my girl friends admit that I'm beautiful—yes, beautiful, not just pretty. Father ought to be jolly grateful to have such a beautiful daughter. I'm sure he has no right to expect beautiful children."
A figure moved like a shadow in the depths of one of the rooms in the house opposite, and Norah leaned a little farther out of the window to catch more sunbeams for her hair; but when the figure came into full view she was disgusted to find it was only the servant, who flapped a duster and withdrew without a glance at herself. "If father persists in keeping me hidden away in West Kensington," she grumbled, "he can't expect me to marry a duke. No, I'm eighteen, and I'll marry Wilfred—at least I'll marry him when he can afford to be married, but meanwhile I will be engaged. I'm tired of all this deception." Norah was pondering the virtue of frankness, when she heard a step behind her and, turning round, saw her mother's wonted expression of anxiety and mild disapproval.
"Oh well," said Norah, quickly, to anticipate the reproach on her lips, "this is the only place I can dry my hair. And, mother, I can't wait any longer to be engaged to Wilfred. I'm going to have it out with father to-night."
Mrs. Caffyn looked frightened, which was what Norah intended, for she felt in no mood to argue the propriety of sitting at an open window with her hair down, and had deliberately introduced the larger issue.
"My dear child, I hope you will do nothing of the kind. Father has been very worried during the last month by that horrid theater advertisement which upset Canon Wilbraham so much, and he won't be at all in the right mood."
Norah sighed patiently, avoided pouting, because she had been warned by a girl friend whose opinion she valued against spoiling the shape of her mouth, and with a shrug of her shoulders turned away and went on brushing her hair.
"My dear child," Mrs. Caffyn began, deprecatingly.
"Oh well, I can't sit in any other room! Besides, the kids are playing down below, and I can't keep an eye on them from anywhere else as well as I can from here."
"Playing in the front garden?" repeated Mrs. Caffyn, anxiously. Anything positive done by any of her children always made her anxious, and she hurried across to the window to call down to them. The two little girls had managed to smear themselves from head to foot with grimy garden-mold, and most unreasonably Mrs. Caffyn could not see that their grubbiness was of no importance compared with the question of whether Norah's hair was not always exactly the color of mignonette buds. She began to admonish them from the window, and they defended themselves against her reproaches by calling upon their eldest sister to testify that what they had done they had done with her acquiescence, since she had not uttered a word against their behavior. Norah declared that she could not possibly go down-stairs without undoing all the good of her shampoo, and in the end Mrs. Caffyn, after ringing ineffectually for her second daughter or one of the servants, had to go down herself and rescue Gladys and Marjorie from the temptations of the front garden.