beauties and slender youths pause to gaze at snowpeaks from an
Alpine summit.

It was Ursula Gillow--dear old Ursula, on her way to Scotland--and she
and Susy fell on each other's necks. It appeared that Ursula, detained
till the next evening by a dress-maker's delay, was also out of a job
and killing time, and the two were soon smiling at each other over
the exquisite preliminaries of a luncheon which the head-waiter had
authoritatively asked Mrs. Gillow to "leave to him, as usual."

Ursula was in a good humour. It did not often happen; but when it did
her benevolence knew no bounds.

Like Mrs. Melrose, like all her tribe in fact, she was too much absorbed
in her own affairs to give more than a passing thought to any one
else's; but she was delighted at the meeting with Susy, as her wandering
kind always were when they ran across fellow-wanderers, unless the
meeting happened to interfere with choicer pleasures. Not to be alone
was the urgent thing; and Ursula, who had been forty-eight hours alone
in London, at once exacted from her friend a promise that they should
spend the rest of the day together. But once the bargain struck her mind
turned again to her own affairs, and she poured out her confidences
to Susy over a succession of dishes that manifested the head-waiter's
understanding of the case.

Ursula's confidences were always the same, though they were usually
about a different person. She demolished and rebuilt her sentimental
life with the same frequency and impetuosity as that with which she
changed her dress-makers, did over her drawing-rooms, ordered new
motors, altered the mounting of her jewels, and generally renewed the
setting of her life. Susy knew in advance what the tale would be; but
to listen to it over perfect coffee, an amber-scented cigarette at
her lips, was pleasanter than consuming cold mutton alone in a mouldy
coffee-room. The contrast was so soothing that she even began to take a
languid interest in her friend's narrative.

After luncheon they got into the motor together and began a systematic
round of the West End shops: furriers, jewellers and dealers in old
furniture. Nothing could be more unlike Violet Melrose's long hesitating
sessions before the things she thought she wanted till the moment came
to decide. Ursula pounced on silver foxes and old lacquer as promptly
and decisively as on the objects of her surplus sentimentality: she knew
at once what she wanted, and valued it more