out of the room, to the
astonishment of three puzzled and rather frightened adults. Her shame
was now notorious. "Baby! Great baby!" she gnashed at her own
inconceivable silliness. Had she no pride?... And now she was in the
gloom of the lobby, and she could hear Florrie in the kitchen softly
whistling.... She was out in the dark lobby exactly like a foolish,
passionate child.... She knew all the time that she could easily
persuade her mother to leave her alone with Florrie in the house; she
had levers to move her mother.... But of what use, now, to do that?

CHAPTER XII
THE TELEGRAM

I

It was the end of February 1880. A day resembling spring had come,
illusive, but exquisite. Hilda, having started out too hurriedly for the
office after the midday dinner, had had to return home for a proof which
she had forgotten.

She now had the house to herself, as a kingdom over which she reigned;
for, amid all her humiliation and pensive dejection, she had been able
to exert sufficient harsh force to drive her mother to London in company
with Miss Gailey. She was alone, free; and she tasted her freedom to the
point of ecstasy. She conned corrected proofs at her meals: this was
life. When Florrie came in with another dish, Hilda looked up
impatiently from printed matter, as if disturbed out of a dream, and
Florrie put on an apologetic air, to invoke pardon. It was largely
pretence on Hilda's part, but it was life. Then she had the delicious
anxiety of being responsible for Florrie. "Now, Florrie, I'm going out
to-night, to see Miss Orgreave at Bleakridge. I shall rely on you to go
to bed not later than nine. I've got the key. _I may not be back till
the last train_." "Yes, miss!" And what with Hilda's solemnity and
Florrie's impressed eyes, the ten-forty-five was transformed into a
train that circulated in the dark and mysterious hour just before
cockcrow. Hilda, alone, was always appealing to Florrie's loyalty.
Sometimes when discreetly abolishing some old-fashioned, work-increasing
method of her mother's, she would speak to Florrie in a tone of sudden,
transient intimacy, raising her for a moment to the rank of an
intellectual equal as her voice hinted that her mother after all
belonged to the effete generation.

Awkwardly, with her gloved hands, turning over the pages of a book in
which the slip-proof had been carelessly left hidden, Hilda, from her
bedroom, heard Florrie come whistling down the attic stairs. Florri