T-day it was a long, rambling tale of a hard-hearted dressmaker who, having had a new frock back for alteration, had taken upon herself to return the skirt, without the bodice, with an intimation that she was retaining the delayed portion until her long account was settled. Hence Mrs. Vivian found herself with what she called a most important engagement, without the equally important new frock to go in. Lorraine lay under the bedclothes, with only her head showing, and watched her a little coldly, as she moved restlessly about the room airing her woes. She had promised Madame Luce, over and over again, to settle in a week or two; and who would have believed the odious woman would serve her such a trick? Never again, if she had to go naked, would she order a garment from her of any description whatever. And the friends she had sent to her as customers! Why, half the woman’s trade was owing to her introduction. “Perhaps the friends don’t pay their bills,” Lorraine suggested in a tired voice. Mrs. Vivian drew herself up a little haughtily. “I do not think there is any occasion to cast reflections on my friends, even if you do not choose to be sociable to them,” which remark was intended as a dignified hit at Lorraine’s invincible determination to maintain friendly relations with her mother, without having anything whatever to do with her mother’s friends. As many previous hits, it fell quite harmlessly; it was doubtful if Lorraine even heard it, half hidden there in the bedclothes with her tired eyes. “I suppose it isn’t any use reminding you that your personal expenditure exceeds mine?” she hinted, “and that you have already far overstepped the allowance we stipulated?” “You do not have time to go about as much as I do, and it makes a great difference not having hosts of friends.” “You don’t seem to get much pleasure out of them,” Lorraine could not resist saying, knowing as she did how much of her salary went into the pockets of these so-called friends, in order to buy their adherence. “Do I get much pleasure out of anything?” irritably. “My only child is one of the first actresses in London, and what is it to me? Do I have the pleasure of going about with her? or living with her? or taking any part in her success?” “I suppose it isn’t such a small thing to live by her. If I were not successful, we could certainly not live here. It might have been Islington and omnibuses,” and she smiled. “As if that were all. Probably, as real companions we might have been even happier in Islington.” Lorraine stiffened. “Companions!… Ah, I, with whom else ever dancing attendance, and changing in identity every few months?” But she made no comment, for the days of her hot-headed, deep-hearted judging were over; and from behind inscrutable eyes she looked upon the things that one sees without seeming to see them, and accepted facts that hurt her very soul, with a callous, cynical air that defied the keenest shafts of probing.