at price the Duchess of Doncaster? And I was
just going to wish you a nice day to-morrow for your holiday, too.'

Nina seated herself at the table to write the letter. An electric light
burned directly over her frizzy head. She wrote a weak but legible and
regular back-hand. She hated writing letters, partly because she was
dubious about her spelling, and partly because of an obscure but
irrepressible suspicion that her letters were of necessity silly. She
pondered for a long time, and then wrote: 'Dear Mr. Belmont,--I
venture----' She made a new start: 'Dear Sir,--I hope you will not think
me----' And a third attempt: 'My dear Father----' No! it was
preposterous. It could no more be written than it could be said.

The situation was too much for simple Nina.

Suddenly the grand circular hall of the Majestic was filled with a
clamour at once charming and fantastic. There was chattering of musical,
gay American voices, pattering of elegant feet on the tessellated
pavement, the unique incomparable sound of the _frou-frou_ of many
frocks; and above all this the rich tones of Mr. Lionel Belmont. Nina
looked up and saw her radiant father the centre of a group of girls all
young, all beautiful, all stylish, all with picture hats, all
self-possessed, all sparkling, doubtless the recipients of the dandy
supper.

Oh, how insignificant and homicidal Nina felt!

'Thirteen of you!' exclaimed Lionel Belmont, pulling his superb
moustache. 'Two to a hansom. I guess I'll want six and a half hansoms,
boy.'

There was an explosion of delicious laughter, and the page-boy grinned,
ran off, and began whistling in the portico like a vexed locomotive. The
thirteen fair, shepherded by Lionel Belmont, passed out into the
murmurous summer night of the Strand. Cab after cab drove up, and Nina
saw that her father, after filling each cab, paid each cabman. In three
minutes the dream-like scene was over. Mr. Belmont re-entered the hotel,
winked humorously at the occupant of the pagoda, ignored the bureau, and
departed to his rooms.

Nina ripped her inchoate letters into small pieces, and, with a tart
good-night to Miss Bella Perkins, who was closing her ledgers, the hour
being close upon twelve-thirty, she passed sedately, stiffly, as though
in performance of some vestal's ritual, up the grand staircase. Turning
to the right at the first landing, she traversed a long corridor which
was no part of the route to her cubicle on the ninth floor. T