"Resting, Dolly, but always open to a good offer. Same old firm. Lily and Skinner. The original firm makes boots; we mar them. The trouble is that I can't find anything to skin; I tried Rabbit's, the rival boot-shop, but even they wanted cash. However, Lily's quite content to go on resting, so that's all right." "My dear," exclaimed Dorothy, in affected dismay, "you're not still living with that dreadful girl?" "Oh, go to hell!" said Sylvia, sharply, and strode off down Bond Street. "What an attractive girl!" Olive exclaimed. Dorothy stared at her in bewilderment. "What do _you_ see attractive in _her_?" "She's just the sort of person who would amuse the great man," Olive declared. "I'm sorry that I bore him so much." Olive seized her hand. "Dorothy," she murmured, reproachfully, "you know you don't bore him. He was only saying yesterday that he wished he could ride with you in the Row." "You'd better get Sylvia Scarlett to share the flat with you," went on Dorothy. "How can you say things like that? You know I love you better than anybody in the world. You know how beautiful I think you, how clever, Dorothy; it's really unkind to suggest that any other girl could take your place." "If you're so anxious to know her," Dorothy continued, "I'll write and ask her to come and see us." "Dorothy, you quite misunderstand me." "I shouldn't like you to think I would stand in the way of your meeting anybody you took a fancy to, man or woman." Olive protested again and again that Dorothy had utterly misjudged her and that she never wished to see Sylvia Scarlett again. The argument lasted so long and the whole question of whether or not Sylvia should be invited to Halfmoon Mansions assumed such importance that after lunch Dorothy wrote and invited Sylvia, and not merely Sylvia, but Lily as well, to come and have tea with them the next day. She told herself when she had posted the letter that she was probably committing a great folly by introducing to her friends two people who knew so much about her, and she asked herself in amazement what mad obstinacy had led her into such a course of action. "Most girls would avoid her," she thought. "But if I avoid her, she'll despise me; and I _do_ hate the way she can make people look idiotic." Dorothy was not accustomed to analyze her emotions much; she was usually too fully occupied with the analysis of her features; but before she went to sleep that night she had admitted to herself that she was thoroughly frightened of Sylvia. In the morning a messenger-boy brought the answer. MULBERRY COTTAGE, TINDERBOX LANE, W.