"Samuel," she said, "I've written my letter to Lady Bray. I've asked her to come on the seventeenth. You'd better write yours and enclose it with mine. You know what to say. I mean you know what sort of thing she likes from you. I've also written and asked the Colles's to come to dinner on the eighteenth to meet her. They're sure to accept if they know they're going to meet her, and I think they ought to be useful. Write your letter now, will you?" The Rev. Samuel nodded assent. "I will," he added. Then he turned to his daughter. "Good-bye, Sally." She put her hands on his shoulders--knowing all his frailty--and kissed him. Then she walked out of the room. When she had closed the door, the clergyman sat down again to his desk and read again through the sentences he had read to Sally. "I suppose she didn't think it very true," he said to himself, "but it is--it is true--its pomps and its vanities, ah--" Then he took out a sheet of note-paper, and picking up his pen, he began-- "My dear Lady Bray--" CHAPTER VI When Sally stepped off the 'bus at Knightsbridge on that November evening, her mind was seething with indignation. To lay a wager! It was an insult! Did he think her acquaintance was to be bought for a sum of money? It would not be long before he found out his mistake. And what a sum! Ten pounds! It was ridiculous! What man would spend all that money simply upon the mere making of an acquaintance? Of course she knew that if ever she did speak to him again, he would never pay it. It was quite safe to boast like that--it was a boast. Ten pounds! Why with ten pounds she could buy a real silk petticoat, a new frock, a new hat, another feather boa--all of the most expensive too, and still have money in her pocket. All the amiable and interested impressions that she had obtained of him went when he made that bet. It was so easy to boast--so cheap. But if he thought that the sound of that sum of money had impressed her, he would learn his mistake. She caught another 'bus on to Hammersmith and tried vainly to forget all about it. Miss Hallard was home from the School of Art before her. In the bedroom which they shared in a house on Strand-on-Green, she was combing out her short hair, her blouse discarded, her thin arms bent at acute angles, and between her lips a Virginian cigarette. "Wet?" she said laconically, without turning round. "Dripping." Sally threw her hat on the bed. "If you bought umbrellas instead of cheap silk petticoats--" "I knew you'd say that," said Sally. "Was it raining when you walked from the tram?" "No. It's stopped now. But it was up in town, and all the 'buses were full up inside." "Cheerful," said Miss Hallard. She twisted her hair into some sort of shape and secured it indiscriminately with pins.