t_, and coming up with
great frequency to the surface to breathe. And when one had once walked
down the steps and found one's way into the tank, it was an extremely
pleasant one, and quite artistic. It seemed original, too. There was
something almost freakish in being answered by the parlourmaid (who was
suitably like a fish in manner and profile), "Miss Luscombe is at home,
and will you please step downstairs?" when one had rung the bell on the
ground floor. And Miss Luscombe's ringing laugh with its three soprano
notes and upward cadence always greeted one charmingly and cordially,
and one always liked her; one couldn't help it. Her great fault was that
she was never alone. She existed in an atmosphere of teaparties and
'afternoons'; like the Lotus-Eaters, she lived in 'that land where it
was always afternoon'.

For an obscure person she led a singularly public life. In her existence
there seemed no secrets, no shadows, no contrasts, and no domesticity.
One could never imagine her except in what she regarded as full dress,
nor without, by her side, a perpetual bamboo table with three little
shelves in it, in which were distributed small cut pieces of very yellow
cake with very black currants, sandwiches, made of rather warm thin
bread and butter, pink and white cocoanut biscuits, and constant relays
of strong dark tea made in a drab china teapot. On crowded
afternoons--in fact, every other Thursday--little coffee cups containing
lumpy iced coffee were also handed round. When they had music there were
lemonade, mustard and cress sandwiches, and a buffet.

Even when Miss Luscombe was entirely alone she did not seem so. She had
got into the habit of talking always as if she were surrounded by
crowds, and said so much about the celebrities who ought to have turned
up that one felt almost as depressed as if they had really been there.
Sometimes they came, for there was no one like Miss Luscombe for
firmness. Also, she was never offended and was hospitality itself, and
she had a way of greeting one that was a reward for all one's
trouble--it seemed much more trouble than it really was, somehow, just
to step down into the tank. And she was so charming no one could help
being flattered till the next visitor arrived, when she was even more
charming.

After the Fancy Ball she had got hold of Valentia, who came to see her
on one of those Thursdays that she had pointed out as peculiarly her
own--one of _my_ Thursdays. She real