“I’ve told him, thanks. How fearfully hot it is here, and how stuffy”—I sniffed with distaste—“after the country!” “Yes, isn’t it?—one’s almost consoled for Her being away, in that lovely, soft, pure air of Ballycool! Good night!” The last sort of night I thought I’d have! But once back in my familiar little camp-bed in Marconi Mansions, I tucked my cotton dressing-gown round me because no sheets had been left out, and fell into that dreamless trance of utter tiredness. I slept like a log all night. (_Next day._) _How_ the flat seems to have shrunk! and what a state Cicely has left it in! Has she moved _all_ our ramshackle furniture since I was here last? Used that table to be right in the middle of the room, choking it up like this?—and where’s my dear print of “Kitty Fisher” that used to hang just _there_, where she’s put that framed oil-sketch of—what on _earth_? It looks like a study, by Blossom, of that coloured tie of Sydney’s—and there’s a little red “_sold_” label on it. I suppose he bought it for her out of one of the shows at the Grafton Gallery. The couch, too, is littered with books ... Marinetti ... Schnitzer ... Tangore ... Strindberg’s “_Stronger Woman_” ... a slender volume, “_The Everlasting Mercy_,” inscribed “_To Cicely, from her devoted S. V._” * * * * * H’m! Cicely among the intellectuals? Well, I suppose some of us are made adaptable as water, taking the shape of any vessel we’re poured into by Man. Perhaps—perhaps I might have been the same, if—— But I do wish she’d had the _souplesse_ or the _something!_ to throw away, before she left, this litter of florists’ half-dead flowers, expensive stale roses and carnations, that fills up every one of our pots and crocks. I’d better do it, I suppose.... Also I’d better wash up my breakfast-things—and Cicely’s of the day before, which are heaped upon the kitchen table. On the top of an oily quarter-pound of butter there’s a very dirty note. “_Dear Miss I am unable to come to-day has my little girl is queer hoping no inconvenence yrs truely mrs skinner._”