Vida was not so hurried, apparently, but what she could stand there taking in the picture of Sara and Cecil climbing about their big, kind cousin, with Jean and Mr. Freddy looking on. 'Children!' Their mother waved a handkerchief. 'Here's another friend! Chil---- They're too absorbed to notice,' she said apologetically, turning to find Vida had left the window, and was saying good-bye to Borrodaile. 'Oh, yes,' he agreed, 'they won't care about anybody else while Geoffrey is there.' Lord Borrodaile stooped and picked up a piece of folded paper off the sofa. 'Did I drop that?' He opened it. '_Votes for_----' He read the two words out in an accent that seemed to brand them with foolishness, even with vulgarity. 'No, decidedly I did not drop it.' He was conveying the sheet to the wastepaper basket as one who piously removes some unsavoury litter out of the way of those who walk delicately. Miss Levering arrested him with outstretched hand. 'Do you want it?' His look adjured her to say, 'No.' 'Yes, I want it.' 'What for?' he persisted. 'I want it for an address there is on it.' CHAPTER XI It was Friday, and Mrs. Fox-Moore was setting out to alleviate the lot of the poor in Whitechapel. 'Even if it were not Friday,' Vida said slyly as her sister was preparing to leave the house, 'you'd invent some errand to take you out of the contaminated air of Queen Anne's Gate this afternoon.' 'Well, as I told you,' said the other woman, nervously, 'you ask that person here on your own responsibility.' Vida smiled. 'I'm obliged to ask people here if I want to see them quietly. You make such a fuss when I suggest having a house of my own!' Mrs. Fox-Moore ignored the alternative. 'You'll see you're only making trouble for yourself. You'll have to pay handsomely for your curiosity.' 'Well, I've been rather economical of late. Maybe I'll be able "to pay."' 'Don't imagine you'll be able to settle an account of that kind with a single cheque. Give people like that an inch, and they'll expect a weekly ell.' 'Are you afraid she'll abstract the spoons?' 'I'm not only afraid, I _know_ she won't be satisfied with one contribution, or one visit. She'll regard it as the thin end of the wedge--getting her nose into a house of this kind.' Irresistibly the words conjured up a vision of some sharp-visaged female marauder insinuating the tip of a very pointed nose between the great front door and the lintel. 'I only hope,' the elder woman went on, 'that I won't be here the first time Donald encounters your new friend on the doorstep. _That's_ all!' Wherewith she departed to succour women and children at long range in the good old way. Little Doris was ill in bed. Mr. Fox-Moore was understood to have joined his brother's coaching party. The time had been discreetly chosen--the coast was indubitably clear. But would it remain so? To insure that it should, Miss Levering had a private conference with the butler. 'Some one is coming to see me on business.'