Frances would have found it difficult to explain what her secretarial duties were during that year. Principally to go with Miss Eppendorfer everywhere that she went--to the shops, the bank, the dentist. She was too nervous to go out alone; she wouldn’t stir without her “little pal”; and, as far as Frances could see, she had no other friends. There were a few people who telephoned, and who very rarely dropped in to see her, but she never got invitations of any sort. It puzzled Frances; she could see no reason why Miss Eppendorfer shouldn’t be popular; in the first place, she was a quite successful writer, which should have brought some sort of fame, and in the second place, she had an excellent disposition. They lived together, all day and every day, month after month, those two women, without a sharp or a violent word, with the exception of the two famous Scenes, to be described later. And these didn’t exactly count, for the authoress was not altogether responsible, altogether herself then.... Of course, there were times when relations were a bit strained, but not often. And the remarkable, the admirable thing was, that they were _not_ congenial, not in any way suited to each other; it was simply their common kindliness and good temper that so preserved harmony. Lack of friends was not the only point to puzzle Frankie; there were other mysteries. It was a long time before she could understand Miss Eppendorfer, or appraise her with any justice. At first she saw much to disgust her. The slatternliness, above all, the shameless lack of pride. She used to look across the supper table at the pallid, faded blonde creature, with uncombed hair, still dressed in a wrapper over her nightdress, and wonder how, _how_ ...! Even this, though, she learned to condone when she saw that it sprang not so much from neglect as from awful weariness. The poor soul was either hectic with excitement, flying from shop to shop, restaurant to restaurant, taking every meal away from home for perhaps a week, or else she couldn’t make up her mind even to walk round the corner for a breath of air, would stay shut up in the flat for days. She dressed well enough when she went out; she spent money lavishly on her clothes and wore them with a conspicuous and rather vulgar sort of style, but she didn’t really care; had no sort of decent pride in her body. Didn’t trouble much about cleanliness, for instance.