eroine whenever
possible--I think she only once married her,--yet still the creature
remained immortal in Mrs. Gustus's public personality. She concealed or
transformed everything that did not seem artistic. Her notebook was a
tangle of self-deceptions. The rest of the Family knew this. They never
pretended to believe her.

Kew and Jay were skilled romancers, fact was clay in their hands.
Nobody had ever taught them such a dull lesson as exact truthfulness.
If they built the bare bones of their structures fairly accurately,
they placed the whole in an artificial light, altering in some
effective way the spirit of the facts. Education had impressed the
importance of technical truthfulness on Kew. But he was a quick
talker, and in order to keep him in line with his tongue, nature had
made him quick of wit, quick in argument, and unconsciously quick in
making and seeing loopholes for escape.

He was at present perfectly comfortable in his anomalous position
regarding a search round the sea-coast for a Jay he knew to be in the
Brown Borough.

"If I am going to work, I must go," said Anonyma. "Russ and I will go
together as far as the Underground."

She looked at herself in the glass. The scarlet bird in her hat had an
arresting expression. As she was putting on her gloves she said, "I'm
sorry, Kew, about your disappointment, not finding Nana at home last
night. But I told you so."

She had no fear of this much-shunned phrase.

"Never mind," said Kew mildly. "We'll put Christina on the track
to-morrow."

Mr. Russell said a polite Good-bye to his Hound, and accompanied
his friend Anonyma to the Underground. That was a fateful little
journey for him.

As he turned from Anonyma's side at the bookstall, he noticed a 'bus
positively beckoning to him. It had a lady conductor, and she was poised
expectantly, one hand on the bell and the other beckoning to Mr. Russell.
His nature was docile, and the 'bus was bound for Chancery Lane, his
destination. He mounted the 'bus.

I need hardly tell you that a 'bus that makes deliberate advances to the
public is the rarest sight in London. The self-respecting 'bus looks upon
the public as dust beneath its tyres. Even a Brigadier-General with red
tabs, on his way to Whitehall, looks pathetically humble waggling his
cane at a 'bus. All 'bus-drivers have a kingly look; it comes from their
proud position. The rest of the world is only worthy to communicate with
that noble race by mea