She nodded brightly, opened the door with her latch-key, and entered the cool dark house.
Very slowly she dragged herself up to her pretty sitting-room, and shut the door. She winced as her eye fell on the old familiar sights—Quain, and Foster, and Mitchell Bruce, the Leitz under its glass shade, and the box of what she was pleased to dub 'ivory toys.' Then her eye fell on her own reflection in the draped mirror, and she walked straight up to the white, strong, sensitive face.
"Who cares?" she said defiantly. "Not you nor I! What does it matter? Ay de mi! What does anything mean? What is success or failure after all?"
From which soliloquy you will be able to form a pretty definite idea of my heroine's age.
CHAPTER III.
"ADOLESCENT INSANITY."
"Rather than go through all that strain again," said Mona the next morning, "I would throw up the whole thing and emigrate."
She was leaning back on the pillows, her hair all tumbled into curls after a restless night, her hands playing absently with the lace on her morning wrapper. "Why doesn't the coffee come?"
As she spoke, the maid came in with a tempting little tray. Mona was a lodger worth having.
"You look ill, miss," said the girl.