The woman whom she had regarded as a social butterfly sat beside her on the bed and placed a friendly arm round her neck. "Don't cry, you dear thing," she cooed gently. "There is nothing to cry about. You are a bit overwrought, of course; but, as it happens, you have scored heavily off all of us--and not least off the creature who upset you. Now, do try and come with me. Here are your slippers. The corridor is empty. It is only a few steps." "Come with you?" "Yes, you are shivering with the cold, and my room is gloriously warm." "But----" "There are no buts. Marie will bring a basin of nice hot soup. While you are drinking it she will set your stove going. I know exactly how you feel. The whole world is topsyturvy, and you don't think there is a smile in your make-up, as that dear American man who carried you here would say." Helen recovered her senses with exceeding rapidity. Mrs. de la Vere was already leading her to the door. "What! Mr. Spencer--did he----" "He did. Come, now. I shall tell you all the trying details when you are seated in my easy chair, and wrapped in the duckiest Shetland shawl that a red headed laird sent me last Christmas. Excellent! Of course you can walk! Isn't every other woman in the hotel well aware how you got that lovely figure? Yes, in that chair. And here is the shawl. It's just like being cuddled by a woolly lamb." Mrs. de la Vere turned the keys in two doors. "Reggie always knocks," she explained; "but some inquisitive cat may follow me here, and I am sure you don't wish to be gushed over now, after everybody has been so horrid to you." "You were not," said Helen gratefully. "Yes, I was, in a way. I hate most women; but I admired you ever since you took the conceit out of that giddy husband of mine. If I didn't speak, it arose from sheer laziness--a sort of drifting with the stream, in tow of the General and that old mischief maker, Mrs. Vavasour. I'm sorry, and you will be quite justified to-morrow morning in sailing past me and the rest as though we were beetles." Then Helen laughed, feebly, it is true, but with a genuine mirth that chased away momentarily the evergrowing memory of Millicent's injustice. "Why do you mention beetles?" she asked. "It is part of my every day work to classify them." Mrs. de la Vere was puzzled. "I believe you have said something very cutting," she cried. "If you did, we deserve it. But please tell me the joke. I shall hand it on to the Wraggs." "There is no joke. I act as secretary to a German professor of entomology--insects, you know; he makes beetles a specialty." The other woman's eye danced. "It is all very funny," she said, "and I still have my doubts. Never mind. I want to atone for earlier shortcomings. I felt that someone really ought to tell you what took place in the outer foyer after you sank gracefully out of the act. Mr. Bower----"