for it was all in depth. It was pretty in a style
suggesting a combination of Watteau, Dresden China, and the top of a
biscuit tin. All the woodwork was white, relieved here and there by pink
drapery and cunningly selected water colours of more or less the same
tint. From the roof, at close intervals, hung little baskets of paper
roses. The back part of the room was glazed over, which showed that it
lay below the well of a tall building. Symmetrically ranged were little
tables, some large enough for four persons, mostly however meant for
two, but Victoria noticed that they were all untenanted; in fact the
room was empty, save for a woman who on her hands and knees was loudly
washing the upper steps of a staircase leading into a cellar, and for a
tall girl who stood on a ladder at the far end of the room critically
surveying a picture she had just put up.

Victoria hesitated for a moment. The girl on the ladder looked round and
jumped down. She was dressed in severe black out of which her long white
face, mantling pink at the cheeks, emerged like a flower; indeed
Victoria wondered whether she had been selected as an attendant because
she was in harmony with the colour scheme of the shop. The girl was
quite charming out of sheer insignificance; her fair hair untidily
crowned her with a halo marred by flying wisps. Her little pink mouth,
perpetually open and pouting querulous over three white upper teeth,
showed annoyance at being disturbed.

'We aren't open,' she said with much decision. It was clearly quite bad
enough to have to look forward to work on the morrow without
anticipating the evil.

'Oh,' said Victoria, 'I'm sorry, I didn't know.'

'We open on Monday,' said the fair girl. 'Sharp.'

'Yes?' answered Victoria vaguely interested as one is in things newly
born. 'This is a pretty place, isn't it?'

A flicker of animation. The fair girl's blue eyes opened wider.
'Rather,' she said. 'I did the water colours,' she explained with pride.

'How clever of you!' exclaimed Victoria. 'I couldn't draw to save my
life.'

'Coloured them up, I mean,' the girl apologised grudgingly. 'It was a
long job, I can tell you.'

Victoria smiled. 'Well,' she said, 'I must come back on Monday and see
it finished if I'm in the City.'

'Oh, aren't you in the City?' asked the girl. 'West End?'

'No, not exactly West End,' said Victoria. 'I'm not doing anything just
now.'

The fair girl gave her a glance of faint suspicion.

'O