Old letters, old bills, a receipt or two, a few ancient telegrams about nothing in particular, dozens of letters dealing earnestly with forgotten accounts, an interminable correspondence between Anita and a house agent--she turned the pages one by one, sorting the sheep from the goats. Presently she came to an old letter typewritten on plain paper--Anita, like her dependent, had used a small portable typewriter for years. The letter was unfinished; halfway through the princess had changed her mind, or probably substituted another for this and had tossed the rejected scrap aside to be gathered to the heap which had accumulated and which was now being sorted. She read the letter through as far as it went; she was sourly amused. Anita must have been in a careless mood when she threw this away. The old instinct of service told her that it ought to be destroyed at once. She gripped the paper to tear it, thought better of her impulse, and began to consider certain possibilities. To say that she felt bitterly against Anita Bellini at that moment would be to grade her emotion charitably. She was getting old, was she? She had lost her looks and was unlikely to get a job in the chorus. Anita had taken it for granted that she would be forever satisfied with the humiliating position of companion. Capri was to be a kind of bonus. The princess was a woman of temperament, sometimes feverishly elated, sometimes savagely depressed. Yet in all her permutations of mood, she had been consistently contemptuous of her hireling. Greta grew red and hot and cold at the memory of the insults which this woman had heaped upon her, and the hand that held the letter shook. And then an idea began to take shape in her mind; it was half formed when she called Mrs. Hobbs. “Get my address book.” She was a systematic woman, and entered without fail the location even of chance acquaintances who might be of no value to her. She ran her thumb down the index till it stopped at “D”; the last entry on the crowded page was “Peter Dawlish.” “Give me an envelope, please, and my fountain pen; and take this letter to the post--no, bring my little typewriter.” The obedient Mrs. Hobbs carried the tiny machine, which was a replica of Anita’s, and laid it on the invalid’s lap. Greta inserted the envelope, typed the address, and while the instrument was being removed, inserted the torn sheet of paper and licked down the flap of the envelope. “Go to the general post office--you’d better take a bus each way--and post this. If anybody asks you whether you’ve posted a letter for me, you’re to say no.” It was not the first time Mrs. Hobbs had received similar instructions. The houses in Severall Street are not equipped with letter boxes, and postmen have learned by experience that inserting letters under doors which are backed by coarse fibre mats is a difficult and sometimes an impossible proposition. Peter heard the heavy rat-tat of the postman and, going downstairs, opened the door.