"No making up," I bargained.
"I will do nothing," she agreed, "to bring the artificial blush to your cheek, dear woman. The game we are going to play is, believe me, not rouge et noir."
Compliments have sometimes been offered to me on the length and the colour of my hair, but they mostly came from maids at Chislehurst who wanted the afternoon off to go and meet their sweethearts; for the rest, people troubled very little about my looks, and I suppose I had not paid an extravagant amount of attention to them. Certainly Miss Katherine, when she assumed management and command, did effect some notable improvements. She persuaded me not to look in the mirror whilst the task was in progress, and when I was allowed to take a glance, I gasped with astonishment, beamed with satisfaction.
"That's it!" cried Miss Katherine. "That's exactly the right kind of smile we want. Ah," regretfully, "it's slipping. And now it's gone!" She imitated the tricks of the photographer when he is taking portraits of defensive babies; I assured her the ability to grin was not in my line. "Practise, Weston dear," she counselled. "Remember that with hair like yours you need never say dye."
Miss Muriel offered no remark upon the alteration, but Mrs. Hillier gave compliments, and declared she was reminded of the time when we first met; she advised me not to mar the effect by wearing one of the hats I usually pinned on before leaving the house. Noticing that I wavered, she insisted on accompanying me to a milliner's establishment near the Chatham and Dover station. When, later, I entered the shop in London Street, Millwood came forward, without first putting on his spectacles, and not recognising me, said:
"Well, lady, and what can we do for you this morning?"
Subsequently, he delivered a lecture on the impossibility of regarding women-folk as anything like sensible beings so long as they devoted nearly all their time, and the whole of their thoughts, to fashion. "You don't find me spending money, and going to shops, and fussing about, just in order to make myself better looking than I really am." I answered that, more than once, I had been tempted to call his attention to the fact.
Quartermaster-Sergeant Cartwright dashed in soon after mid-day. He had called, it seemed, at Gloucester Place, and had been sent on to London Street.
"A flying visit," he announced to Peter. I was in the back room, looking once more at my reflection in the mirror. "Tell the lady to hurry up. Only five days leave, and a thousand and one urgent matters to see to. Mention that I'm pressed for time, will you."
He was tall, broad, and middle-aged; very smartly set up, and with, apart from his quick deportment, the air of a man accustomed to give orders, and expecting them to be obeyed. This I gained from the first sight of him over the curtained glass of the door.