“What a delightful name!” she said. “I’m sure Miss Ainslie must be a delightful old lady with ringlets and a vinaigrette and a mourning-brooch.” “I haven’t seen her for years,” said Colonel Ascot. “I will tell you about her when we meet again. Do let it be soon!” “Perhaps you would drop in for tea to-day?” she suggested, expunging from her mind several other engagements. “I shall be alone.” “That will make up for my curtailed luncheon-party,” said he. He made his excuses to his guests, and after allowing him a liberal time in which he could leave the house, Lady Hampshire rose also. “You are not going yet, dear Cynthia?” asked the Duchess. “I wanted to talk to you about the advantage of doing your shopping at Mason’s. And the danger of it,” she added, catching Lady Hampshire’s kind understanding eye. Lady Hampshire felt torn between conflicting interests. Here, she unerringly conjectured, there was fish to fry for Agatha, and yet other fish, so to speak, who perhaps wanted to fry. Agatha demanded a more immediate attention. The duchess’s complication must wait: she was dining with her to-morrow. Colonel Ascot was going to see Agatha: nothing must prevent Lady Hampshire from hearing what his business was. She went across the Square, and let herself into her own house. There were half a dozen telegrams lying on the hall table, but without dreaming of opening any, she went straight to her bedroom and locked the door. Someone--probably the second footman--was being funny at the servants’ dinner, for shrieks of laughter ascended from the basement. As a rule, she loved to know that her household was enjoying itself, but to-day that merriment left her cold, and next moment she was in Agatha’s house and pursing her lips into the shrill whistle with which she always summoned Magsby. “I left a note addressed to M. S.,” she said; “I want it.” The words were yet in her mouth, when the bell of Agatha’s front door rang in an imperious manner, and Lady Hampshire peeped cautiously out through the yellow muslin blinds. On the doorstep was standing an old, old man with a long white beard. He leaned heavily on a stick, and wore a frayed overcoat. She tip-toed back from the window. “Give me the note,” she said, “and wait till I get upstairs. Then answer the door, and tell Methuselah that Miss Ainslie will be down in a moment.” Lady Hampshire stole up to Agatha’s room, and hastily assumed her grey wig, her spectacles, her rouge, her large elastic-sided boots, her lip-salve, her creaking alpaca gown, and with the envelope containing bank-notes for £250, addressed in Agatha’s dramatic sloping handwriting to the messenger of M. S., descended again to her sitting-room. Methuselah rose as she entered, and she made him her ordinary prim Agatha bow, and spoke in Miss Ainslie’s husky treble voice. “The messenger of M. S.,” she observed. “Quite so.” “That is my name for the present,” said the old man in a fruity tenor.