lly abominable," said the girl, "and I've got a
lot to do."

He paused at the door.

"Don't forget you can move into Cavendish Mansions to-morrow. I'll send
the key round, and the day you move in, Jaggs will turn up for duty,
bright and smiling. He doesn't talk a great deal----"

"I don't suppose you ever give the poor man a chance," she said
cuttingly.

Chapter IX

Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was a representative of a numerous class of women who
live so close to the border-line which separates good society from
society which is not quite as good, that the members of either set
thought she was in the other. She had a small house where she gave big
parties, and nobody quite knew how this widow of an Indian colonel made
both ends meet. It was the fact that her menage was an expensive one to
maintain; she had a car, she entertained in London in the season, and
disappeared from the metropolis when it was the correct thing to
disappear, a season of exile which comes between the Goodwood Race
Meeting in the south and the Doncaster Race Meeting in the north.

Lydia had been surprised to receive a visit from this elegant lady, and
had readily accepted the story of her friendship with James Meredith.
Mrs. Cole-Mortimer's invitation she had welcomed. She needed some
distraction, something which would smooth out the ravelled threads of
life which were now even more tangled than she had ever expected they
could be.

Mr. Rennett had handed to her a thousand pounds the day after the
wedding, and when she had recovered from the shock of possessing such a
large sum, she hired a taxicab and indulged herself in a wild orgy of
shopping.

The relief she experienced when he informed her he was taking charge of
her affairs and settling the debts which had worried her for three years
was so great that she felt as though a heavy weight had been lifted from
her heart.

It was in one of her new frocks that Lydia, feeling more confident than
usual, made her call. She had expected to find a crowd at the house in
Hyde Park Crescent, and she was surprised when she was ushered into the
drawing-room to find only four people present.

Mrs. Cole-Mortimer was a chirpy, pale little woman of forty-something.
It would be ungallant to say how much that "something" represented. She
came toward Lydia with outstretched hands.

"My dear," she said with extravagant pleasure, "I am glad you were able
to come. You know Miss Briggerland and Mr. Brigger