ome day we may all be able to arrange to go
together, but Lady B's will be a gweat cwush, and I shall meet many
fwiends, and be so much engrossed. Mellicent would not enjoy herself
without you. She would know nobody."

There was a dead silence. Hector stared at his shoes; Peggy gave a
short, _staccato_ cough; and Arthur looked swiftly across the room, to
see how Mellicent bore herself beneath this unmerited snub. She was
seated on the sofa beside Eunice Rollo, slightly in advance of himself,
so that only a crimson cheek _was_ visible, and a neck reddened to the
roots of the hair, but Arthur saw something else, which touched him even
more than his old friend's distress--a little grey-gloved hand which
shot out from its owner's side and gripped the broad waist; a little
hand that stroked, and patted, and pressed close in sympathetic embrace.
Arthur's lips twitched beneath his moustache, but he said no word; and
presently Rosalind rose and took her departure, feeling the atmosphere
too charged with electricity to be agreeable.

Contrary to his usual custom, Arthur did not accompany her downstairs,
so that he returned from the door in time to hear the explosion of
indignation which followed her departure. Mellicent stamped up and down
the floor, breathless and tearful; Eunice stared at the floor; and Peggy
sat erect as a poker, with a bright spots of colour on either cheek, and
lips screwed into a tight little button of scorn.

"Don't speak to me!" she was saying. "Don't ask my opinion. I am
bereft of speech. Never, in all my existence, have I ever beheld such
an exhibition of snobbish disloyalty--"

"Mellicent, my mother has a ticket," put in Eunice. "You can go with
her and take my place. I have seen the Princess scores of times. Oh,
please don't cry, it isn't worth it, indeed it isn't!"

"I'd scorn to cry. I wouldn't condescend to shed a tear for the nasty
horrid thing!" cried Mellicent, mopping with her handkerchief at the
continuous stream which rolled down her cheeks. "It is she who should
cry, not I. If I _am_ poor and shabby, I know how to behave. I'm a
lady, and Rosalind Darcy is a c-cad. She _is_, and I don't care who
hears me say it! I've known her all my life, and she's ashamed to be
seen with me. I'll go home to-morrow, I will! I'll stay at home where
people love me, and don't choose their friends for the cl-clothes they
wear!"

Mellicent burst into fresh tears, and Peggy looked anxious