"Father--can't you guess, Kitty?--father has gone away. There is some other woman." "No?" gasped Kitty. "Ha! ha! ha! ha!" and she shook with long peals of silvery laughter. "Well, of all the funny things! Ha! ha! ha!" "Funny!" and Salvina looked at her sternly. "What, don't you see the humour of it? Father turning into the hero of a novelette. Romance and red herrings! Passion and potatoes! Ha! ha! ha!" "If you had seen the havoc it wrought, you wouldn't have had the heart to laugh." "Oh well, mother was crying. That I understand. But that's nothing new for her. She'd cry just as much if he were there. The average rainfall is--how many inches?" Salvina's face was stern and white. "A mother's tears are sacred," she said in low but firm protest. "Oh, dear me, Sally, I always forget you have no sense of humour. Well, what are you going to do about it?" and her own sense of humour continued to twitch and dimple the corners of her pretty mouth. "I told you. We cannot afford to keep up the house--we must go back to apartments in Spitalfields." Instantly Kitty's face grew as serious as Salvina's. "Oh, nonsense!" she said instinctively. The thought of her family returning to the discarded shell of apartments was humiliating; her own personality seemed being dragged back. "We can't pay the rent. We must give a quarter's notice at once." "Absurd! You'll only save a few shillings a week. Why can't you let apartments yourselves? At least you would preserve a decent appearance." "Is it worth while having the responsibility of the rent? There's only mother and I--we shan't need a house." "But there's Lazarus!" "He'll have a place of his own. He'll marry before our notice expires." "That same Jonas girl?" "Yes." "Ridiculous. Small tradespeople, and dreadfully common, all the lot. I thought he'd got over his passion for that bold black creature who's been seen licking ice-cream out of a street-glass. To connect us with that family! Men are so selfish. But I still don't see why you can't remain as you are--let your drawing-room, say, furnished." "But it isn't furnished." "Not furnished. Why, I've sat on the couch myself." "Yes," said Salvina, a faint smile tempering her deadly gravity. "You are the only person who has ever done that. But there's no couch now. Father smuggled all the furniture away in a van." Again Kitty's silver laughter rang out unquenchably. "And you don't call that funny! Eloped with the chairs! I call it killing." "Yes, for mother," said Salvina. "Pooh! She'll outlive all of us. I wish you were as sure of getting the furniture back. She's not a bad mother, as mothers go, but you take her too seriously." "But, Kitty, consider the disgrace!"