Jane-Anne stood still in the middle of the room and hung her head.
"It's Magnolia Bloom," she mumbled.
"It's what?" Mr. Wycherly demanded.
"Magnolia Bloom," she repeated, her cheeks very hot indeed beneath the powder.
"Is that some new kind of flour?" asked Mr. Wycherly, "and if so why in the world do you not wash your face?"
"It's not flour, sir, it's powder—face powder—to make one white and pretty? Don't you like it?"
Mr. Wycherly sat back in his chair gazing in speechless wonder at Jane-Anne. That a girl who admired Lord Byron's poetry, who could learn the Greek alphabet in two evenings, who showed a real appreciation of what was noble and uplifting in the history of her country, could make such an absolute guy of herself in all good faith was to him quite incomprehensible. Boys did not do these things. He was fairly nonplussed.
"Where did you get this—ahem—bloom?" he asked quietly.
"I bought it, sir, with that eighteenpence."
"Have you much more of it?"