That idiot of a Sydney! If I could hope he’d feel it, I’d smash the glass of that frame and run red-hot hat-pins into his portrait. I have been furiously angry to-day, in turns with the three typists, with Still Waters, and with Cicely—but none of this counts, compared with my fury against the lover who has come too late! It’s his fault. It’s all his fault—all that’s just happened—all that will happen during the mad “arrangement” of this next year. And when that year’s up, where will it find me? A little richer, perhaps, by what’s left of my desperately-won salary, but back in the over-crowded labour-market, the world of working-women who lose looks and youth and spirits in the struggle for daily bread. Oh, it’s all very well to be plucky, and to treat everything as a joke, and to live from one Saturday matinée to another, making the most of life in London as a bachelor-girl—while you’re twenty-one. What becomes of the “bachelor-girl” of forty-five? And fifty? That, I suppose, I shall have to wait and find out for myself, thanks to Mr. Sydney Vandeleur! Why couldn’t he have left things as they were at the Carlton?— But I’ve had enough of this. It has “done me up” completely. I am going to bed. * * * * * This morning I feel, if anything, angrier with Sydney Vandeleur than I did before. He’s done it now! He _has_ written. His note lies before me on our wobbly little breakfast-table with the metal coffee-pot and the green Bruges crock full of lilac (bought out of my “rise”!) screening me from Cicely’s anxious eyes as I read: “_My dearest Monica_, “_I have never called you so before. That was a mistake. Anything is a mistake that keeps us two apart. Dear, I want to come and see you at once, but cannot get out of some odious ‘arrangements’ of the Mamma’s for this week-end._ “_Let me come on Monday afternoon, and, though I don’t deserve it, be kind to me then._ “_Till then, and ever_, “_Your devoted S. V._” Now _I_ have written; and pretty quickly too. “_My dear Sydney_, “_It was kind of you to write to me to congratulate me again on my engagement to Mr. Waters, which I suppose is the meaning of your note. You suggest calling; is this to congratulate me for the third time? If so, I can only hope that my happiness will keep pace with your good wishes for it! But I am afraid that I shall not be able to receive them in person on Monday, as it is the very day that I hope to be going off to Sevenoaks, on a visit to my fiancé’s mother._ “_Please give my very kindest regards to Lady Vandeleur, and believe me_ “_Sincerely yours_, “_Monica Trant_.” There! CHAPTER X “HIS” MOTHER’S INVITATION