"You're flattering me now." "Anyway," said Camilla, "I don't see why everybody that knows her isn't mad about Ailsa Paige.

She has _such_ high principles, such ideals, such wonderful aspirations--" She clasped her hands sentimentally: "At times, Phil, she seems too ethereal, scarcely of earth--and yet I breakfasted with her and she ate twice as much as I did.

_How_ does she keep that glorious figure!" Plumpness was the bane and terror of Camilla's life.

Her smooth, suave white skin was glossy and tight; distracting curves, entrancing contours characterised her now; but her full red lips fairly trembled as she gazed at her parents' portraits in her bedroom, for they had both been of a florid texture and full habit; and she had now long refused sugar and the comforts of sweetmeats dear to the palate of her age and sex.

And mostly was this self-denial practised for the sake of a young and unobservant friend, one Stephen Craig, who had so far evinced no unusual inclination for her, or for anything except cigars and masculine society of his own age and condition.
She managed to get Philip Berkley to talk about Stephen, which ingenuity soothed her.