“Oh, well now, that’s very nice. I get giddy on a ladder. You came just at the right moment. Can you manage it? It’s very heavy. The first time I’ve ever seen you making yourself useful, my dear.” This enabled Lola to get in her first point. “Mother never allows me to be useful,” she said, “and really doesn’t understand the sort of thing that I can do best.” She stretched up, hung the cord over a brass bracket and straightened it. “Well, you can certainly do this job! Go on and do the rest while you’re at it. I was looking forward to a very tiring afternoon. I didn’t want to have any of the maids to help me. They resent being asked to do anything that is outside their regular duty.” And so Lola proceeded, hating to get her hands dirty and not very keen on indulging in athletics, but with a determination made doubly firm by the fleeting sight of Fallaray. Miss Breezy was in an equable mood that afternoon,—less pompous than usual, less consumed with the importance of being the controlling brain in the management of the Fallaray “establishment,” as she called it in the stilted language of the auctioneer. She became almost human as she watched Lola perform the task which would have put her to a considerable amount of physical inconvenience. When one is relieved of anything in the nature of work, equability is the cheapest form of gratitude. The room was a particularly nice one, large, with a low ceiling and two windows which overlooked Dover Street. It didn’t in the least indicate the character of the housekeeper because not a single thing in it was her own except a few books. Everything else had been given to her by Lady Feo, and like the pictures, had been discarded from one or other of the rooms below. The Sheraton sofa had come from the drawing-room. A Dowager Duchess had sat on it one evening after dinner and let herself go on the question of the Feo gang. It had been thrown out the following morning. The armoire of ripe oak, made up of old French altarpieces—an exquisite thing worth its weight in gold—had suffered a similar fate. Rappé the ubiquitous photographer had taken a picture of Lady Feo leaning against one of its doors. It turned out badly. In fact, the angel on the other door looked precisely as though it were growing on Lady Feo’s nose. It might have been good art but it was bad salesmanship. Away went the armoire. The story of all the other things was the same so that the room had begun to assume the appearance of the den of a dealer in old furniture. There were even a couple of old masters on the walls,—a Reynolds and a Lely, portraits of the members of Lady Feo’s family whose faces she objected to and whose admonishing eyes she couldn’t bear to have upon her when she came down to luncheon feeling a little chippy after a night out. These also were priceless. It had become indeed one of the nicest rooms in the house. Every day it added something to Miss Breezy’s increasing air of dignity and beatitude.