immons 'an old woman.' Well, d'you know, I believe he _is_ ...
a wise old woman."

_Norie_: "Well: bide a wee, till our firm is doing a roaring
business: I can pretend then to take in a male partner, p'raps.
Rose and Lilian are very hard-working and we can't afford to lose
them yet. If you appeared one morning dressed as a young man they
might throw up their jobs and go elsewhere..."

_Vivie_: "You may be quite sure I won't let _you_ down. Moreover I
haven't the money for any vagaries yet, though I have an instinct
that it is coming. You know those Charles Davis shares I bought at
5_s._ 3_d._? Well, they rose to 29_s._ whilst you were away; so I
sold out. We had three hundred, and that, less commissions, made
about L350 profit; the boldest coup we have had yet. And all because
I spotted that new find of emery powder in Tripoli, saw it in a
Consular Report....

"I want to be rich and therefore powerful, Norie! Then people will
forget fast enough about my shameful parentage."

_Norie_: "How _is_ she? Do you ever hear from or of her now?"

_Vivie_: "I haven't heard _from_ her for two years, since I left her
letters unanswered. But I hear _of_ her every now and again. No. Not
through Crofts. I suppose you know--if you take any interest in that
wretch--that since he married the American quakeress he took his
name off the _Warren Hotels Company_ and sold out much of his
interest. He is now living in great respectability, breeding race
horses. They even say he has given up whiskey. He has got a son and
has endowed six cots in a Children's hospital. No. I think it must
be _mother_ who has notices posted to me, probably through that
scoundrel, Bax Strangeways ... generally in the _London Argus_ and
the _Vie-de-Paris_--cracking up the Warren Hotels in Brussels,
Berlin, Buda-Pest and Roquebrune. _What_ a comedy!...

"There's my Aunt Liz at Winchester--Mrs. Canon Burstall--won't know
me--I'm too compromising. But I'm sure her money-bags have been
filled at one time--perhaps are still--out of the profits on
mother's 'Hotels.'..."

_Norie_: "I didn't remember your aunt was married ... or rather I
suppose I did, but thought she was a widow, real or _soi-disant_..."

_Vivie_: "So she is, after four years of happy married life! My
'uncle' Canon Burstall--Oh what a screaming joke the whole thing
is!... I doubt if he was aware he had a niece.... Don't you remember
he was killed in the Alps last autumn?..."

_Norie_: "I remembe