and regarded her niece with a long, non-committal stare. Patricia
walked over to her.

"Hullo, Aunt Adelaide! Who would have thought of seeing you here."

Miss Brent looked up at her, received the frigid kiss upon one cheek
and returned it upon the other.

"A peck for a peck," muttered Patricia to herself under her breath.

"We've been talking about you," said Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe
ingratiatingly.

"How strange," announced Patricia indifferently. "Well, Aunt
Adelaide," she continued, turning to Miss Brent, "this is an unexpected
pleasure. How is it you are dissipating in town?"

"I want to speak to you, Patricia. Is there a quiet corner where we
shall not be overheard?"

Miss Wangle started, Mrs. Craske-Morton rose hurriedly and made for the
door. Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe looked uncomfortable. Miss Brent's
directness was a thing dreaded by all who knew her.

"You had better come up to my room, Aunt Adelaide," said Patricia.

As she reached the door, Mrs. Craske-Morton turned. "Oh! Miss Brent,"
she said, addressing Patricia, "would you not like to take your aunt
into my boudoir? It is entirely at your disposal."

Mrs. Craske-Morton's "boudoir" was a small cupboard-like apartment in
which she made up her accounts. It was as much like a boudoir as a
starveling mongrel is like an aristocratic chow. Patricia smiled her
thanks. One of Patricia's great points was that she could smile an
acknowledgment in a way that was little less than inspiration.

When they reached the "boudoir," Miss Brent sat down with a suddenness
and an air of aggression that left Patricia in no doubt as to the
nature of the talk she desired to have with her.

Miss Brent was a tall, angular woman, with spinster shouting from every
angle of her uncomely person. No matter what the fashion, she seemed
to wear her clothes all bunched up about her hips. Her hair was
dragged to the back of her head, and crowned by a hat known in the dim
recesses of the Victorian past as a "boater." A veil clawed what
remained of the hair and hat towards the rear, and accentuated the
sharpness of her nose and the fleshlessness of her cheeks. Miss Brent
looked like nothing so much as an aged hawk in whom the lust to prey
still lingered, without the power of making the physical effort to
capture it.

"Patricia," she demanded, "what is all this I hear?"

"If you've been talking to Miss Wangle and Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe, Aunt
Adelaide, heaven only knows