,' said Arthur Twemlow.

'Yes, do, Twemlow, there's a good chap,' he welcomed the idea. And with
that he wafted them impulsively into the street.

Then Stanway stood waiting by his equipage for Ethel and Milly. He spoke
to no one, but examined the harness critically, and put some curt
question to Carpenter about the breeching. It was a chilly night, and
the glare of the lamps showed that Prince steamed a little under his
rug. Ten minutes elapsed before Ethel came.

'Here we are, father,' she said with pleasant satisfaction. 'Where's
mother?'

'I should think so!' he returned. 'The horse taking cold, and me waiting
and waiting. Your mother's had to go to Aunt Hannah's. What's become of
Milly?' He was losing his temper.

Milly had to traverse the whole length of the corridor. The Mayor
heartily congratulated her. The middle-aged violinist from Manchester
spoke to her amiably as one public artist to another, and the conductor,
who was with him, told her, in an unusual and indiscreet mood of
candour, that she had simply made the show. Others expressed the same
thought in more words. Near the entrance stood Harry Burgess, patently
expectant. He was flushed, and looked handsomely dandiacal and rakish as
he rolled a cigarette in those quick fingers of his. He meant to explain
to her that the happy idea of the wreath was his own.

He accosted her unceremoniously, confidently, but she drew away, with a
magnificent touch of haughtiness.

'Good-night, Harry,' she said coldly, and passed on.

The rash and conceited boy had not divined, as he should have done, that
a prima donna is a prima donna, whether on the stage in a brilliant
costume, or traversing a dingy corridor in the plain blue serge and
simple hat of a manufacturer's daughter aged eighteen. Offering no reply
to her formal salutation, he remained quite still for a moment, and then
swaggered off to the Tiger.

'Look here, my girl,' said Stanway furiously to his youngest. 'Do you
suppose we're going to wait for you all night? Jump in.'

Milly's lips did not move, but she faced the rude blusterer with a
frigid, angry, insolent gaze. And her girlish eyes said: 'You've got me
under your thumb now, you horrid beast! But never mind! Long after you
are dead and buried and rotten, I shall be famous and pretty and rich,
and if you are remembered it will only be because you were my father. Do
your worst, odious man; you can't kill me!'

And all the way home the cruel, j