her; and she sat down and began to write. She wrote a few words,
stopped, and bit the end of the pencil.

"It's dreadful when gentlemen will quarrel about you," she said in a
tone and with an air in which gratified vanity forced itself firmly
through the affectation of distress.

"What gentlemen?" said Pollyooly.

"Mr. Vance and my fiongsay, Mr. Reginald Butterwick," said Flossie. "I
don't know how he found out that Mr. Vance is friendly with me; and I'm
sure there's nothing in it--I told him so. But he's that jealous when
there's a gentleman in the case that he can't believe a word I say. It
isn't that he doesn't try; but he can't. He says he can't. He's got a
passionate nature; he says he has. And he can't do anything with it.
It runs away with him; he says it does. And now it's Mr. Vance. How
he found out I can't think--unless it was something I let slip by
accident about his taking me to the Chelsea Empire. He's so quick at
taking you up--Reginald is; and before you know where you are, there he
is--making a fuss. And what's going to happen I don't know."

Her effort to look properly distressed failed.

Pollyooly was somewhat taken aback by the flood of information suddenly
gushed upon her; but she said calmly:

"But what's he going to do?"

"He's going to knock the stuffing out of Mr. Vance--he said he would.
And he'll do it, too--I know he will. He's done it before. There was
a gentleman friend of mine who lives in the same street as me in
Hammersmith; and he got to know about him--not that there was anything
to know, mind you--but he thought there was. And he blacked his eyes
and made his nose bleed. You see, Reginald's a splendid boxer; he
boxes at the Chiswick Polytechnic. And if he goes for Mr. Vance he'll
half kill him--I know he will. Reginald's simply a terror when his
blood's up."

"But Mr. Vance is very big," said Pollyooly in a doubting tone.

"But that makes no difference; bigness is nothing to a good boxer,"
said Flossie with an air of superior knowledge. "Mr. Butterwick says
he doesn't mind taking on the biggest man in England, if he's not a
boxer. And he knows that Mr. Vance isn't a boxer, because I asked him
about boxing--knowing Reginald put it into my head--and he told me he
didn't know a thing about it. And he'd have no chance at all against
Reginald. And I let it out when I was telling Reginald that Mr. Vance
was a friend of mine--only just a friend of mine--and he