“O! obnoxious old age. O! hideous horror. O! youthful years all gone. O! childhood spent. Decrepitude at hand.... Infirmities drawing near....” Interrupted by Mary’s hearty laugh. “Yes,” Miss Sinquier decided, crossing into Regent Street, “should Mrs. Bromley bid me declaim, I’ll do Diamond.” Her eyes brightened. How prettily the street swerved. As a rule, great thoroughfares were free from tricks. She sauntered. “A picture-palace.” And just beyond were the playhouses themselves. Theatreland! Shaftesbury Avenue with its slightly foreign aspect stretched before her. With a springing foot she turned up it. Oh, those fragile glass façades with the players’ names suspended! There was the new Merrymount Theatre with its roguish Amorini supporting torches and smiling down over gay flower-boxes on to the passers-by. And beyond, where the burgeoning trees began must be Panvale Priory itself. Miss Sinquier surveyed it. It looked to be public offices.... On the mat, dressed in a violet riband, with its paw in the air, lay a great sly, black, joyous cat. “Toms!” She scratched it. Could it be Mrs. Bromley’s? In the threshold, here and there, were small brass plates, that brought to mind somehow memorial tablets to departed virtue at home. Miss Sinquier studied the inscriptions. Ah, there showed hers! “M-m-m!” she murmured, commencing to climb. Under the skylight a caged bird was singing shrilly. As much to listen, as to brush something to her cheeks, Miss Sinquier paused. If a microscopic mirror could be relied upon she had seldom looked so well. Scrambling up the remaining stairs with alacrity, she knocked. A maid with her head wreathed in curl-papers answered the door, surveying the visitor first through a muslin blind. Miss Sinquier pulled out a card. “Is Mrs. Bromley in?” she asked. The woman gazed at her feet. “Mrs. Bromley’s gone!” she replied. “I suppose she won’t be long?” “She’s in Elysium.” “At the——?” “Poor Mrs. Bromley’s dead.” “Mrs. Bromley _dead._..?” “Poor Mrs. Bromley died last night.” Miss Sinquier staggered. “Impossible!” “Perhaps you’d care to come in and sit down?” Miss Sinquier hesitated. “No, no, not if ... _is_? Oh!” she stammered. “She was taken quite of a sudden.” “One can hardly yet believe it!” “She’ll be a loss to her world, alas, poor Betty Bromley will.” Miss Sinquier swallowed. “I should like to attend the funeral,” she said. “There’s no funeral.” “No funeral?” “No invitations, that is.” Miss Sinquier turned away. The very ground under her seemed to slide.... Mrs. Bromley dead! Why, the ink of her friendly note seemed scarcely dry! On the pavement once more she halted to collect herself. Who was there left at all? At Croydon, there was a conservatoire, of course— She felt a little guilty at the rapidity of the idea. Woolgathering, she breasted the traffic in St. Martin’s Lane. She would turn the situation over presently more easily in the Park.