he rooms were packed with the gazing throng which, in the afternoon
hours, trickles heavily between the tables, like the Sunday crowd in a
lion-house. In the stagnant flow of the mass, identities were hardly
distinguishable; but Lily presently saw Mrs. Bry cleaving her determined
way through the doors, and, in the broad wake she left, the light figure
of Mrs. Fisher bobbing after her like a row-boat at the stern of a tug.
Mrs. Bry pressed on, evidently animated by the resolve to reach a certain
point in the rooms; but Mrs. Fisher, as she passed Lily, broke from her
towing-line, and let herself float to the girl's side.

"Lose her?" she echoed the latter's query, with an indifferent glance at
Mrs. Bry's retreating back. "I daresay--it doesn't matter: I HAVE lost
her already." And, as Lily exclaimed, she added: "We had an awful row
this morning. You know, of course, that the Duchess chucked her at dinner
last night, and she thinks it was my fault--my want of management. The
worst of it is, the message--just a mere word by telephone--came so late
that the dinner HAD to be paid for; and Becassin HAD run it up--it had
been so drummed into him that the Duchess was coming!" Mrs. Fisher
indulged in a faint laugh at the remembrance. "Paying for what she
doesn't get rankles so dreadfully with Louisa: I can't make her see that
it's one of the preliminary steps to getting what you haven't paid
for--and as I was the nearest thing to smash, she smashed me to atoms,
poor dear!"

Lily murmured her commiseration. Impulses of sympathy came naturally to
her, and it was instinctive to proffer her help to Mrs. Fisher.

"If there's anything I can do--if it's only a question of meeting the
Duchess! I heard her say she thought Mr. Bry amusing----"

But Mrs. Fisher interposed with a decisive gesture. "My dear, I have my
pride: the pride of my trade. I couldn't manage the Duchess, and I can't
palm off your arts on Louisa Bry as mine. I've taken the final step: I
go to Paris tonight with the Sam Gormers. THEY'RE still in the elementary
stage; an Italian Prince is a great deal more than a Prince to them, and
they're always on the brink of taking a courier for one. To save them
from that is my present mission." She laughed again at the picture. "But
before I go I want to make my last will and testament--I want to leave
you the Brys."

"Me?" Miss Bart joined in her amusement. "It's charming of you to
remember me, dear; but really----"

"You'