"Not quite as large," I replied, "and it is not like your rooms, Duchess, but it does very well for us, and it is certainly better and more stimulating than a cottage in the country." "Ah, Westenra, you are as terribly independent as ever," said the Duchess. "What the girls of the present day are coming to!" She sighed as she spoke. "But you are a very pretty girl all the same," she continued, giving me an approving nod. "Yes, yes, and this phase will pass, of course it will pass." "Why have you come to see us to-day, Victoria?" asked my mother. "My dear friend," replied the Duchess, dropping her voice, "I have come to-day because I am devoured with curiosity. I mean to drop in occasionally. Just at present, and while the whole incident is fresh in the minds of our friends, you would scarcely like me to ask you to my receptions, but by-and-by I doubt not it can be managed. The fact is, I admire you both, and very often think of you. The Duke also is greatly tickled at the whole concern; I never saw him laugh so heartily about anything. He says that, as to Westenra, she is downright refreshing; he never heard of a girl of her stamp doing this sort of thing before. He thinks that she will make a sort of meeting-place, a sort of bond between the West and the--the--no, not the East, but this sort of neutral ground where the middle-class people live." The Duchess looked round the big room, and then glanced out at the Square. "Harrison had some difficulty in finding the place," she said, "but the British Museum guided him; it is a landmark. Even we people of Mayfair go to the British Museum sometimes. It is colossal and national, and you live close to it. Do you often study there, Westenra? Don't go too often, for stooping over those old books gives girls such a poke. But you really look quite comfortable here." "We are delightfully comfortable," I said. "We enjoy our lives immensely." "It is very nice to see you, Victoria," said mother. Then I saw by the look on mother's face that while I had supposed her to be perfectly happy, all this time she had been more or less suffering. She had missed the people of her own kind. The Duchess looked her all over. "You are out of your element here, Mary," she said, "and so is this child. It is a preposterous idea, a sort of freak of nature. I never thought Westenra would become odd; she bids fair to be very odd. I don't agree with the Duke. I don't care for odd people, they don't marry well as a rule. Of course there are exceptions. I said so to the Duke when----" "When what?" I said, seeing that she paused. "Nothing, my love, nothing. I have come here, Westenra, to let you and your mother know that whenever you like to step up again I will give you a helping hand." "Oh, we are never going back to the old life," I said. "We could not afford it, and I don't know either that we should care to live as we did--should we, Mummy? We know our true friends now."