time. She knew Aunt
Adelaide to be capable of anything, even to calling upon Lord Peter
Bowen's family and enquiring if it were he to whom her niece was
engaged. She was too bewildered to know how to act. It would be so
like this absurd person to turn out to be a lord and make her still
more ridiculous. If he were Lord Peter, why on earth had he not told
her? Had he thought she would be dazzled?

Suddenly there flashed into Patricia's mind an explanation which caused
her cheeks to flame and her eyes to flash. She strove to put the idea
aside as unworthy of him; but it refused to leave her. She had heard
of men giving false names to girls they met--in the way she and Bowen
had met. He had, then, in spite of his protestations, mistaken her.
In all probability he was not staying at the Quadrant at all. What a
fool she had been. She had told all about herself, whereas he had told
her nothing beyond the fact that his name was Peter Bowen. Oh, it was
intolerable, humiliating!

The worst of it was that she seemed unable to extricate herself from
the ever-increasing tangle arising out of her folly. Miss Wangle and
Galvin House had been sufficiently serious factors, requiring all her
watchfulness to circumvent them; but now Aunt Adelaide had thrown
herself precipitately into the melee, and heaven alone knew what would
be the outcome!

Had her aunt been a man or merely a woman, Patricia argued, she would
not have been so dangerous; but she possessed the deliberate logic of
the one and the quickness of perception of the other. With her
feminine eye she could see, and with her man-like brain she could judge.

Patricia felt that the one thing to do was to get rid of her aunt for
the day and then think things over quietly and decide as to her plan of
campaign.

"Please, Aunt Adelaide," she said, "don't let's discuss it any more
to-day, I've had such a worrying time at the Bonsors', and my head is
so stupid. Come to tea to-morrow afternoon at half-past five and I
will tell you all, as they say in the novelettes; but for heaven's sake
don't get talking to those dreadful old tabbies. They have no affairs
of their own, and at the present moment they simply live upon mine."

"Very well, Patricia," replied Miss Brent as she rose to go, "I will
wait until to-morrow; but, understand me, I am your sole surviving
relative and I have a duty to perform by you. That duty I shall
perform whatever it costs me."

As Patrici