if she
represented a large crowd.

"There!" she said. She dusted a little blue vase and put it further
back. "Now you're nice and tidy. No, you go back there, you ugly thing!"
pouting at a photograph, "you're not wanted to-day! Come out more in the
light, Lady Charles! We want you to be seen. _That's_ better!"

From the depths of an arm-chair, where she was hidden, Mrs. Luscombe,
who was watching her with intense irritation, said sharply--

"Who do you expect to-day?"

"Oh! how you startled me, Mummy! I didn't know you were there.... Isn't
it funny, when you wear that dark red dress, _just_ the colour of the
armchair, one doesn't see you?"

She went on humming in the low, sweet voice, "_La violette double,
double--la violette double-ra-ra._"

"Pray stop that, Flora. My nerves won't bear it. Who did you say you
expect?"

"Mr. Rathbone, darling, if you _must_ know. Mr. John Ryland Rathbone, to
be exact. You know he's one of the Catford Rathbones, don't you, Mummy?"

"What's a Catford Rathbone?"

"Dear mamma!" she laughed. "It's quite a good old family. One of the
untitled aristocracy."

"I thought you told me his father was a farmer?"

"No, dear--that's a little mistake. I told you his father had _taken_ to
farming--as a hobby. Besides, that's just what I mean--a fine old yeoman
stock--the backbone of the country."

"Why are you praising up this Mr. Backbone--or Rathbone--so much? Is he
in love with you?"

Flora laughed coquettishly, putting on her Russian Princess manner. It
was voluble, disdainful, and condescending. She often changed, quite
suddenly, from an _ingenue_ to a _grande dame_, and then to an
adventuress and back again before you knew where you were.

"Of course he's in love with me. What of that? Poor boy, he must take
his chance like the others! '_La violette double, double----_' Oh, I
forgot, dear. I beg your pardon."

"What's he coming here for?" pursued the relentless mother.

Miss Luscombe now became a soubrette of a somewhat hooligan type, and
pretended to throw a little feather duster she was holding into the
depths of the arm-chair.

"That remains to be seen. But I'm a girl who knows how to take care of
herself. I shall keep him in his place, old dear. Don't you worry."

"I don't."

There was a ring at the door. Flora blushed genuinely, and put some
powder on. She became sweet and tactful again, and refined, the amiable
woman of the world. She helped her mother out of the ar