Metropole he inquired for Mrs.
Damerel; her rooms were high up, and he ascended by the lift. Sunk in a
deep chair, her feet extended upon a hassock, Mrs. Damerel was amusing
herself with a comic paper; she rose briskly, though with the effort of
a person who is no longer slim.

'Here I am, you see!--up in the clouds. Now, _did_ you get my letter?'

'No letter, but a telegram.'

'There, I thought so. Isn't that just like me? As soon as I had sent
out the letter to post, I said to myself that I had written the wrong
address. What address it _was_, I couldn't tell you, to save my life,
but I shall see when it comes back from the post-office. I rather
suspect it's gone to Gunnersbury; just then I was thinking about
somebody at Gunnersbury--or somebody at Hampstead, I can't be sure
which. What a good thing I wired!--Oh, now, Horace, I _don't_ like that,
I don't really!'

The young man looked at her in bewilderment.

'What don't you like?'

'Why, that tie. It won't do at all. Your taste is generally very good,
but that tie! I'll choose one for you to-morrow, and let you have it
the next time you come. Do you know, I've been thinking that it might
be well if you parted your hair in the middle. I don't care for it as a
rule; but in your case, with your soft, beautiful hair, I think it would
look well. Shall we try? Wait a minute; I'll run for a comb.'

'But suppose some one came--'

'Nobody will come, my dear boy. Hardly any one knows I'm here. I like to
get away from people now and then; that's why I've taken refuge in this
cock-loft.'

She disappeared, and came back with a comb of tortoise-shell.

'Sit down there. Oh, what hair it is, to be sure! Almost as fine as my
own. I think you'll have a delicious moustache.'

Her personal appearance was quite in keeping with this vivacity. Rather
short, and inclining--but as yet only inclining--to rotundity of figure,
with a peculiarly soft and clear complexion, Mrs. Damerel made a gallant
battle against the hostile years. Her bright eye, her moist lips, the
admirable smoothness of brow and cheek and throat, bore witness to
sound health; as did the rows of teeth, incontestably her own, which she
exhibited in her frequent mirth. A handsome woman still, though not
of the type that commands a reverent admiration. Her frivolity did not
exclude a suggestion of shrewdness, nor yet of capacity for emotion, but
it was difficult to imagine wise or elevated thought behind that narr