Yes, and this was the scene that met her gaze: her niece, her poor brother's child, Lady Anastasia's great-granddaughter (who had already been reproved for forgetting that she belonged to "OUR FAMILY"), standing at the front door of her abode to repeat the offence for which she had been taken to task--namely, "talking to one of the impossible people who live about here!" The way in which Aunt Anastasia stalked past the young man was more withering than the most annihilating glance she could have given him. To me she said, in a voice that matched her look: "Beatrice, come into the house." I went into the drawing-room. She followed me. Then the storm broke! Of all the many "rows" I've had since I came to live with Aunt Anastasia, this did, as Million would have said, "take the bun." "Beatrice!" She threw my name at me as if it had been a glove thrown in my face. "Beatrice! Little cause as I have to think well of you, I did at least trust you!" "You've no reason, Auntie," said I, holding myself as stiff as she did (which was pretty ramroddy). "You've no reason not to trust me." "What?" A bitter little laugh. "No sooner is my back turned, no sooner have I left you alone in the house, than you betray my confidence. How do I find you, after all that I said to you only the other evening on this same subject? Standing there on the doorstep, just as if you'd been poor Million, poor little gutter-bred upstart, preparing to receive----" "I wasn't 'preparing to receive' anybody!" hotly from me. "No?" with icy satire from Aunt Anastasia. "You were not even going to ask the young man in? You stood there, like a scullery-maid indulging in a vulgar flirtation with a policeman." "I wasn't, I wasn't." "I heard you giving him an address where he could write to you, doubtless?" "Write to me? It was nothing of the kind," I took up, ready to stamp with rage. "It was--it was Million's address I was going to give to that young man." "A likely story! Million, indeed!" "You don't believe me? How dare you not, Aunt Anastasia? Look! Here's the proof!" And I held out to her the oval silver brooch with the raised "Nellie" upon it. "Look! This is Million's brooch. She dropped it on the 'bus the other morning. And the young man from next door found it. And he came round to return it----" "Yes. As soon as he had made certain, or had been assured, that you would be alone," declared my Aunt Anastasia, with unyielding accusation in every angle of her. "To return Million's brooch! Oh, Beatrice, you must think me very unsophisticated!" The thin lips curled. "This is an excuse even thinner than that about the garden-hose the other evening. No doubt there have been others. How long have you been carrying on this underhand and odious flirtation with that unspeakable young cad?"