Nobody gave a thought to the quiet virtues of the industrious, patient, unaffected daughter who had devoted herself to the duty of caring for and attending upon her utterly selfish parents,--and certainly nobody ever remembered that her spinster-hood was the result of a too lofty and faithful conception of love, or that her nature was in very truth an exceptionally sweet and gracious one, and her intelligence of a much higher order than is granted to the average female. In that particular section of human beings among whom she had lived and moved, her career was considered useless because she had failed to secure a mate and settle down to bear the burden and brunt of his passions and his will. And so, as she had never displayed any striking talent, or thrust herself forward in any capacity, or shown any marked characteristic, and as the world is over full of women, she was merely one of the superfluous, who, not being missed, was soon forgotten. CHAPTER V On that same eminently tragic afternoon when Mr. Polydore May found it necessary to change his white flannels so soon after putting them on, and his wife had to think seriously of a crape poppy for her bonnet, two ladies sat in the charmingly arranged drawing-room of a particularly charming flat in Mayfair enjoying their afternoon tea. One was a graceful little woman arrayed in a captivating tea-gown; the other, a thin, rather worn-looking creature with a pale face and bright hair tucked closely away under a not very becoming felt hat, garbed in a severely plain costume of dark navy serge. The butterfly person in the tea-gown was Miss Sophy Lansing, a noted Suffragette, and the authoress of a brilliantly witty satire entitled “Adam and His Apple,” which, it was rumoured, had made even the Dean of St. Paul’s laugh. The tired-featured woman with the air of an intellectual governess out of place, was no other than the victim of the morning’s disastrous “death by drowning,”--Diana May. Dead in Devonshire, she was alive in London, and her friend, Sophy Lansing, was sitting beside her, clasping her hands in a flutter of delight, surprise and amusement all commingled. “You dear!” she exclaimed. “How ever did you manage to get away? I never was so astonished! Or so pleased! When I got your note by express messenger, I could hardly believe my eyes! What time did you arrive in town?” “About midday,” replied Diana. “I felt comfortably drowned by that time,--and I lunched at the Stores----” “Drowned!” cried Sophy. “My dear, what _do_ you mean?” Diana released her hands from her friend’s eager grasp and took off her hat. There was a gleam of whimsical humour in her eyes.