mpt and dishevelled, in a sort
of smiling rage with the world, and now they're spruce and jaunty and
flamboyantly decorative, like a geranium bed with religious convictions.
Laura Kettleway was going on about them in the lift of the Dover Street
Tube the other day, saying what a lot of good work they did, and what a
loss it would have been if they'd never existed. 'If they had never
existed,' I said, 'Granville Barker would have been certain to have
invented something that looked exactly like them.' If you say things
like that, quite loud, in a Tube lift, they always sound like epigrams."

"I think you ought to do something about Louise," said the dowager.

"I'm trying to think whether she was with me when I called on Ada
Spelvexit. I rather enjoyed myself there. Ada was trying, as usual, to
ram that odious Koriatoffski woman down my throat, knowing perfectly well
that I detest her, and in an unguarded moment she said: 'She's leaving
her present house and going to Lower Seymour Street.' 'I dare say she
will, if she stays there long enough,' I said. Ada didn't see it for
about three minutes, and then she was positively uncivil. No, I am
certain I didn't leave Louise there."

"If you could manage to remember where you _did_ leave her, it would be
more to the point than these negative assurances," said Lady Beanford;
"so far, all we know is that she is not at the Carrywoods', or Ada
Spelvexit's, or Westminster Abbey."

"That narrows the search down a bit," said Jane hopefully; "I rather
fancy she must have been with me when I went to Mornay's. I know I went
to Mornay's, because I remember meeting that delightful Malcolm What's-
his-name there--you know whom I mean. That's the great advantage of
people having unusual first names, you needn't try and remember what
their other name is. Of course I know one or two other Malcolms, but
none that could possibly be described as delightful. He gave me two
tickets for the Happy Sunday Evenings in Sloane Square. I've probably
left them at Mornay's, but still it was awfully kind of him to give them
to me."

"Do you think you left Louise there?"

"I might telephone and ask. Oh, Robert, before you clear the tea-things
away I wish you'd ring up Mornay's, in Regent Street, and ask if I left
two theatre tickets and one niece in their shop this afternoon."

"A niece, ma'am?" asked the footman.

"Yes, Miss Louise didn't come home with me, and I'm not sure where I left
h