If Norah had been a journalist like her suitor, Wilfred Curlew, she would have described the resolution she made on that September morning as an epoch-making resolution, for since the effect of it was rapidly and firmly to set her on the path of independence it certainly deserved one of the great antediluvian epithets. Some months ago the Hadens had moved from their house in Trelawney Road because the landlord was so disobliging--as a matter of fact, he was unwilling to wait any longer for the arrears of rent--and they were now inhabiting Shelley Mansions, a gaunt block of flats built on the frontier of West Kensington to withstand the vulgar hordes of Fulham, and as such considered the ultimate outpost of gentility. Most of the tenants, indeed, like the Foreign Legion, were recruited from people who found that their native land was barred to them for various reasons; but if Shelley Mansions lacked the conveniences of civilized flat-life, such as lifts and hall-porters, they possessed one great convenience that was peculiar in West Kensington--nobody bothered about his neighbor's business. Mrs. Haden's elder daughter, Doris, was no longer at home, having recently gone on the stage and almost immediately afterward married; and the small flat, with two empty spare rooms so useful for boxes, was comparatively much larger than the Caffyns' house in Lonsdale Road, the respectability and solid charms of which were spoiled by overcrowding. Mr. Haden was supposed to be in Burma; but people in the secure heart of West Kensington used to say that Mr. Haden had never existed, a topic that Norah remembered being debated at school, to the great perplexity of the younger girls, who could not imagine how, if there was no Mr. Haden, there could possibly be a Doris and Lily Haden. Nowadays, with years of added knowledge, Norah would have liked to ask her friend more particularly about her absent father; but she was of a cautious temperament, and decided it was easier to accept the Oriental interior of the Shelley Mansions drawing-room as evidence of the truth of the Burmese legend. Her instinct was always against too much intimacy with anybody, and she rather dreaded the responsibility of a secret that might interfere with the freedom of her relations with Lily. Whatever the origins of the household, she decided it was a much more amusing household than the one in Lonsdale Road, and if No. 17 could have achieved the same atmosphere by banishing Mr. Caffyn to Burma, Norah would willingly have packed him off by the next boat.