"Not exactly pleased, ma'am--nor displeased; I think, if anything, he was more pleased than not." "That will do," Mrs. Vane said shortly; and Parker retired, much relieved in her mind by having come off, as she considered, so well. Mrs. Vane proceeded to electrify the household the next morning by declaring that she must at once go up to London in order to see her dentist. She announced her intention at a time when the General, much to his annoyance, could not possibly accompany her. She said to him very sweetly that she had chosen that hour on purpose because she did not want to put him to needless inconvenience, and that she preferred to go with Parker only as her companion. She hated to be seen, she said, when she was in pain. The General fumed and fretted; but, as he had an important meeting to attend at Whitminster that day, he could but put his wife into the train and give Parker endless injunctions to be careful of her mistress. Parker promised fervently to do all that lay in her power; and with a serene smile Flossy listened to the General's orders and her maid's asseverations with equal tranquility. They had the carriage to themselves; and not until the train was nearly to London did Mrs. Vane rouse herself from the restful semi-slumber in which she seemed to have passed the journey. Then she sat up suddenly, with a curiously wide-awake and resolute air, and addressed herself to her maid. "I shall not require you at all to-day, Parker. I brought you only because the General would never have allowed me to come alone; but I dislike being attended by any one when I go to the dentist's or to the doctor's. You may wait at the railway-station until I come back. I may be only an hour, or I may be gone all day." "The General's orders, ma'am," began Parker, with a gasp; but her mistress cut the sentence short at once. "I suppose you understand that you are my servant and not the General's?" she said. "You will obey my orders, if you please." She gave the maid some money, and instructions to spend as much as she pleased at buffet and book-stalls until her return. "Enjoy yourself as much as you like and as much as you can," said Mrs. Vane carelessly--"only don't stir from the station, for when I come back I shall want you at once." She installed the faithful Parker safely in the waiting-room, and then went out and got into a cab--not a hansom cab; Mrs. Vane did not wish to be seen in her drive through the London streets. The address which she gave to the cabman was not that of her dentist, but of the lodgings at present tenanted by her brother.