Ethel caught Belle's rather sceptical eye and, with exquisite coolness, entirely ignored its suggestion that she was shamming. "Yes, mamma, dear. I shall go to bed almost at once. There's nothing like sleep for anæmia. Of course I shall have to read for a little while, because insomnia goes with my complaint, but I shall fall off as soon as I can. Please don't come in to-night, in case you disturb me. I'll tell Ellen to put my hot milk in a thermos."
Belle burst into another laugh. "You beat the band," she said. "Any one would think that your school was for the daughters of royalty. I know exactly what Nicholas Kenyon will call you."
Ethel turned towards her sister with raised eyebrows. With her rather retroussé nose, fine, wide-apart eyes and soft round chin she looked very pretty and amazingly self-composed. Her poise was that of a woman who had been a leader of society for years. "Yes? And what will that be?"
"The queen of the Flappers," said Belle.
Ethel picked up her book, carefully placing the marker. "Oxford slang leaves me cold," she said, loftily.
"I certainly hope that he'll call her nothing of the sort," said Mrs. Guthrie. "'Flapper.' What a terrible word! What does it mean?"
"It means girls under seventeen who have discovered all the secrets of life, the value of a pair of pretty ankles and exactly how to get everybody else to do things for them. It's the best word I heard in England."
"Nicholas Kenyon sounds to me rather a precocious boy," said Ethel.
"Boy! Nicholas Kenyon a boy—! Well!" Belle acknowledged herself beaten. She could find no other words.
The little mother put her arm, with great affection, around the shoulders of her youngest child, of whom she was extremely proud and a little frightened. "Never mind, darling," she said. "Belle doesn't mean anything. It's only her fun."