And the young man’s significant reasons and elaborate suppositions, and Fräulein’s creamy tone as she said she _quite_ understood. Miss Sinquier turned a key. S-s-s-st! “Butter fingers.” In a moment she must run. Terrible to forgo her great tureen.... She poked it. What magnitude to be sure! Impossible to tow it along. Under the circumstances, why not take something less cumbersome instead? There were the Caroline sauce-boats, or the best Anne teapot, hardly, if ever, in use. Her ideas raced on. And who could resist those gorgeous grapes, for the train? Together with their dish.... “Tudor, ‘Harry’!” she breathed. From the corridor came a hum of voices. Flinging her wrap about her, Miss Sinquier slipped quietly out by way of a small room, where the Canon preserved his lawn. Outside, the moon was already up—a full moon, high and white, a wisp of cloud stretched across it like a blindfold face. Oh Fame, dear! She put up her face. Across the garden the Cathedral loomed out of a mist as white as milk. “The damp,” she reasoned, “alone, would justify her flight.” She shivered. How sombre it looked in the lane. There were roughs there frequently, too. “Villains....” She felt fearfully her pearls. After all, the initial step in any career was usually reckoned the worst. Some day, at the King’s, or the Canary, or the Olive, in the warmth of a stage dressing-room, she would be amused, perhaps, and say: “I left my father’s roof, Sir, one sweet spring night—without so much as a word!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ V RAINDROPS were falling although the sky was visibly brightening as Miss Sinquier, tired, and a little uncertain, passed through the main exit of Euston terminus. She wavered a moment upon the curb. On a hoarding, as if to welcome her, a dramatic poster of Fan Fisher unexpectedly warmed her heart; it was almost like being met.... There stood Fan, at concert pitch, as Masha Olgaruski in _The Spy._ Miss Sinquier tingled. A thing like that was enough to give one wings for a week. She set off briskly, already largely braced. Before meeting Mrs. Bromley on the morrow much would have to be done. There was the difficulty of lodgement to consider. Whenever she had been in the metropolis before she had stayed at _Millars_ in Eric Street, overlooking Percy Place; because Mr. Millar had formerly been employed at the Deanery, and had, moreover, married their cook.... But before going anywhere she must acquire a trunk. Even Church dignitaries had been known to be refused accommodation on arriving at a strange hotel with nothing but themselves. She threw a glance upwards towards a clock. It was early yet! All the wonderful day stretched before her, and in the evening she would take a ticket perhaps for some light vaudeville or new revue. She studied the pleasure announcements on the motor-buses as they swayed along.