pantry, deep in the manufacture of a certain sort of canape. "Why,
he was all in a heap over her!" continued Alix elegantly, as she
sampled a small piece of smeared toast with a severe and wrinkled
brow. "Try a little mustard in it," she suggested, adding
confidentially, "You know Cherry is really too pretty for any use!
The rest of us can diet for complexion or diet for figures, and
this hat will be becoming or that dress will always look well--but
Cherry, why, she just knocks us all galley-west! What's the use of
struggling and brushing your hair and worrying about your clothes,
when a girl like Cherry will come along and sit down and have
everybody staring!"

"She is, of course, quite extraordinary!" Peter conceded as he
punched two small holes in the top of a tin of olive oil. The oil
welled up through the holes and he wiped his fingers on a corner
of Alix's apron.

"It's just the difference," Alix said, "between being nice
looking, which half the women in the word are, and being a beauty.
I remember that when Cherry was only about ten I used to look at
her and think that there was something rather--well, rather
arresting about her face. It was such an aristocratic little face.
I remember her in those old bluejacket blouses--"

"Yes, I do, too!" Peter said quickly, straightening up from
restoring the vinegar demijohn to an obscure position in a lower
cupboard. "Well--These have to go in the oven now; I'll take them
out. Aren't you going to change for dinner? It's after six now!"

"Since you ask me, I'll see what frock Deshabille has laid out!"