Jenny fumed with indignation. "Your mother? Why, when she's got half a bottle of gin to cry with over her darling Ireen or darling Winnie, she's _very_ glad to pawn what her darlings get given to them." "You've got very good," said Irene, bitterly sarcastic, "since this night out." "Which you meant for me to spend out from the moment you introduced me to him." "What do you take me for?" inquired Irene rashly. "I take you for what you are--a rotter. God! and think what you will be one day--I know--a dirty old woman in a basement with a red petticoat and a halfpenny dip and a quartern of gin." Irene's imagination was not extensive enough to cap this prophecy, so she poked the fire instead of making the attempt. "Nobody wants you to stay here," she muttered. "Don't you worry yourself. I'm going upstairs to pack my things up now." Jenny was not able to make a completely effective departure with cab at the door and heaped-up baggage, because her taxi back from Victoria and the payment of a week's board at Stacpole Terrace had exhausted her ready money. However, she had the satisfaction of seeing her portmanteau, her hatbox and a small bag stacked in tapering stories upon the bedroom floor, there to await the offices of Carter Paterson. Mrs. Dale emerged from the kitchen at the rumor of change and, as morning did not evoke sentiment, indulged in a criticism of Jenny's personal appearance. "I don't like that hat of yours and never did," she announced. "I can't get used to these new-fangled fashions and never shall." "What of it?" said Jenny, with marked indifference. "Oh, nothing at all, if it pleases you. You've got to wear it and I suppose there's nothing more to be said. But I think that hat is vulgar. Vulgar it would have been called when I was a girl. And I can't think what you want to go all of a sudden for like this. It isn't often I make a beefsteak pudding." Jenny was in a flutter to be away. "Good-bye, Mrs. Dale," she said firmly. "Well, good-bye, Jenny. You mustn't mind shaking hands with me all covered in suet. As I say, it's very seldom I do make a beefsteak pudding. I won't disturb my old man. He's busy this morning. Come and tell us how you get on soon."