she was annoyed at the interruption.
Here's Kitty Vesey, lookin' SUCH a dog! Hello, Kitty! where did you get
that hat, where did you get that tile? But that wasn't the colour of
your hair last week, Kitty!'

'Don't feel any kind of a dog'--Mrs. Vesey's pout, though becoming, was
genuine. 'I'm in a perfectly furious rage, my dears, and I'm coming home
to cry, just as soon as I've had an ice. What do you think--they won't
let me have Val for Captain Wynne's part in 'The Outcast Pearl'--they
say he's been tried before, and he's a stick. Did you ever hear of such
brutes? They want me to act with Major Dalton, and he's MUCH too old for
the part.'

'Kitten,' said Mrs. Mickie, with conviction, 'Valentine Drake on the
stage would be fatal to your affection for him.'

'I don't care, I won't act with anybody else--I'll throw up the part.
Haven't I got to make love to the man? How am I to play up to such an
unkissable-looking animal as Major Dalton? I shall CERTAINLY throw up
the part.'

'Don't do anything rash, Kitty. If you do, they'll probably offer it to
me, and I warn you I won't give it back to you.'

'Oh, refuse it, like a dear! I am dying to put them in a hole. It's
jealousy, that's what it is. Goodbye, Mrs. Jack, I've had a lovely time.
Val and I have been explaining our affection to the Archdeacon, and he
says it's perfectly innocent. We're going to get him to put it on paper
to produce when Jimmy sues for a divorce, aren't we, Val?'

'You're not going?' said Mrs. Jack Owen.

'Oh, yes, I must. But I've enjoyed myself awfully, and so has everybody
I've been talking to. I say, Mickie, dear--about tomorrow afternoon--I
suppose I may bring Val?'

'Oh, dear, yes,' Mrs. Mickie replied. 'But you must let me hold his
hand.'

'I don't know which of you is the most ridiculous,' Mrs. Owen remarked;
'I shall write to both your husbands this very night,' but as the group
shifted and left her alone with Mrs. Gammidge, she said she didn't know
whether Mrs. Vesey would be quite so chirpy three weeks hence. 'When
Mrs. Innes comes out,' she added in explanation. 'Oh, yes, Valentine
Drake is quite her property. My own idea is that Kitty won't be in it.'

Where the road past Peliti's dips to the Mall Madeline met Horace Innes.
When she appeared in her rickshaw he dismounted, and gave the reins to
his syce. She saw in his eyes the look of a person who has been all
day lapsing into meditation and rousing himself from it. 'You are