. He turned to the girl: "What's this
game, Florrie? You had better give it up. If you expect me to run all
over London looking for you every time you happen to have a tiff with
your auntie and cousins you are mistaken. I can't afford it."

Tiff--was the sort of definition to take one's breath away, having regard
to the fact that both the word convict and the word pauper had been used
a moment before Flora de Barral ran away from the quarrel about the lace
trimmings. Yes, these very words! So at least the girl had told Mrs.
Fyne the evening before. The word tiff in connection with her tale had a
peculiar savour, a paralysing effect. Nobody made a sound. The relative
of de Barral proceeded uninterrupted to a display of magnanimity. "Auntie
told me to tell you she's sorry--there! And Amelia (the romping sister)
shan't worry you again. I'll see to that. You ought to be satisfied.
Remember your position."

Emboldened by the utter stillness pervading the room he addressed himself
to Mrs. Fyne with stolid effrontery:

"What I say is that people should be good-natured. She can't stand being
chaffed. She puts on her grand airs. She won't take a bit of a joke
from people as good as herself anyway. We are a plain lot. We don't
like it. And that's how trouble begins."

Insensible to the stony stare of three pairs of eyes, which, if the
stories of our childhood as to the power of the human eye are true, ought
to have been enough to daunt a tiger, that unabashed manufacturer from
the East End fastened his fangs, figuratively speaking, into the poor
girl and prepared to drag her away for a prey to his cubs of both sexes.
"Auntie has thought of sending you your hat and coat. I've got them
outside in the cab."

Mrs. Fyne looked mechanically out of the window. A four-wheeler stood
before the gate under the weeping sky. The driver in his conical cape
and tarpaulin hat, streamed with water. The drooping horse looked as
though it had been fished out, half unconscious, from a pond. Mrs. Fyne
found some relief in looking at that miserable sight, away from the room
in which the voice of the amiable visitor resounded with a vulgar
intonation exhorting the strayed sheep to return to the delightful fold.
"Come, Florrie, make a move. I can't wait on you all day here."

Mrs. Fyne heard all this without turning her head away from the window.
Fyne on the hearthrug had to listen and to look on too. I shall not try
to f