“Decidedly!” replied Mrs. Montmorency, her head still moving and increasing the raffish angle of her hat. “Decidedly! I should think so, indeed! Why, good gracious me, yes!” “If you know all about it, there’s no call for me to tell you.” “None whatever—decidedly not! What did you say?” “Oh, you’re—you’re Saturday!” said Emma. Mrs. Montmorency stiffened. “Any sauciness, and out you go—bag and baggage, lock, stock and barrel!” “You wouldn’t part with the barrel—not if you thought there was anything in it,” returned Emma, with asperity. “I think, Emma, you forget who you’re speaking to. Now, what did you say about the rooms?” “Let ’em, that’s all. Twenty-one shillings a week for the two upstair fronts and the sitting, and they’ll stay three weeks like as not.” “This comes of my going out!” declared Mrs. Montmorency. “It means that I can’t go out, and that’s what it _does_ mean! Who, may I ask, please, have you let my rooms to at such a price?” “Old fellow and his daughter.” “Daughter, indeed! Decidedly, I should say so. A nice thing altogether. Well! it’s what I expected—no more, no less.” “You can tell ’em to go if you’re not satisfied—I ’aven’t sheeted the beds yet.” “That’s at my pleasure, and one more piece of sauciness and you’ll be the one to go. But I’ll charge them for the cruet—ninepence a week, and any breakages will be double—double. And now, please, what are the names of the precious pair?” “Didn’t ask.” “No, you wouldn’t—decidedly not. You’d turn my house into a warren for all the rag-bag and nameless vagabonds in the town. I’ll see them myself, and you can be sure I’ll have my say, too.” “Then I should take off my ’at and straighten up a bit first—for you look for all the world like a needle in a hay-stack.” Emma walked from the room and slammed the door. Mrs. Montmorency rose from her chair and, approaching the mirror on the mantelshelf, Narcissus-fashion surveyed her own loveliness therein. Seemingly she found Emma’s counsel good, for she removed her hat and cast it upon a chair, where it was crushed in the emotional crisis that followed. Her hair she pawed and patted into some pretensions to order—her face she enriched with a fresh crust of powder. From a scent-spray, convenient to hand, she directed a jet of some heliotrope-coloured fluid upon her bosom. This done, she straightened her figure and passed out into the passage, with primmed lips. To avoid the impression that by letting a room she sacrificed the privilege of entering it at will, she turned the handle of Eliphalet’s door, without knocking, and walked inside. It happened that the old actor had closed his eyes for a few moments and was sleeping—his back toward her. Mrs. Montmorency sniffed, but, failing to awaken him, circumnavigated the table until his features, lit up by the cast-down glare of the incandescent gas, confronted her own. For a moment she looked and then, with a curious throttled cry, turned about and fled.