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HEN she awoke in the morning she told herself that he would very likely not come at all, and so much the better—but when he knocked at her door she was pleased all the same.

"I have had nothing to eat yet, Miss Winge. Could you give me a cup of tea and some bread?"

Jenny looked about her in the room.

"Yes, but the room isn't done yet."

"I'll shut my eyes while you lead me on to the balcony," said Gram from behind the door. "I am dying for a cup of tea."

"Very well, half a minute." Jenny covered her bed with the counterpane, tidied the dressing-table, and changed her dressing-jacket for a long kimono. "Come in, and please go and sit on the balcony while I get your tea." She brought out a stool and placed some bread and cheese on it.

Gram looked at her bare, white arms in the long, fluttering sleeves of the dark blue kimono with a pattern of yellow and purple iris.

"What a pretty thing you have on. It looks like a real geisha dress."

"It is real. Cesca and I bought these in Paris to wear at home in the morning."

"It is a capital idea, I think, to go about like that and look pretty when you are alone. I like it."

He lit a cigarette and gazed at the smoke as it rose in the air.

"Ugh! At home the maid and my mother and sister used to look like anything in the morning. Don't you think women ought always to make themselves look as pretty as possible?"

"Yes, but it isn't always possible when you have to do housework."