The Splendid Folly

professional women. Excellent cuisine; man-servant; m

ailies. She was well-pleased with the wording of it, considering that it combined both veracity a

e afterthought conveyed by the moderate terms delicately indicated that the hospitality was not entirely of a gratuitous nature. The man-servant, on closer inspection, resolved himself into a

tion of hospitality allotted for her use. She did the work of two servants and ate rather less than one, and, seeing that she received no wages and was incurably conscientious, Mrs. Lawrence found the arrangement eminently satisfactory. Possibly Miss Bunting herself regarded the matter with somewhat less enthusiasm, but she was a plucky little person and made no complaint. As

less servants, smoothing the path of the boarders, and generally enabling Mrs. Lawrence to dev

musicians whose earnings did not yet warrant their launching out into the independence of flat life. This meant that three times a year, when the schools closed for their regular vacations, a general exodus took place from 24 Brutton Square, and Mrs. Lawrence was happily enab

uirements. She was thus occupied one afternoon towards the end of April. The spring sunshine poured in through the windows, lending an added cheerfulness of aspect to th

able raiment, and carefully coiffured hair. There was nothing whatever of the boarding-house keeper about her; in fact, at first sight, she rather gave the impressi

act that they were dealing with, a thoroughly shrewd, calculating business woman, who was bent on making every penny out of th

t impressions are everything, and that pupil of Signor Baroni's,

-help. "I put a few flowers in the vases

tin's is rather a special case. To begin with, she has engaged a private sitting-room

e to a lady offering a home from home to musical students, though possibly had Mrs. Lawre

e would be compelled after Easter to seek fresh rooms. "But she caters specially for musical students, and as she is therefore obliged to keep the schools pleased,

f a bed-room and sitting-room opening one into the other

ence per scuttle." (This was in pre-war times, it must be remembered, and the scuttles were of painfully meagre proportio

was of a quite different domestic period and made no pretensions as to fitting. It lay

ld twopenny-worth more coal than the ot

twopence out of one of her boarders, but she hated having the fact so clearly pointed out t

ger box," she pr

the lining only holds two more

wrence

ually measured the amount it cont

ith the others. It was when you told me to put the eightpe

duties, Miss Bunting.

enkins

suggested, but Miss Jenkins, a young art-student of independent

e subject of twopennyworth of coal. At the same time I haven't the remotest intention of paying twopence extra for those two lumps of exces

r state between Mrs. Lawrence and her boarders, h

buke. "You will receive Miss Quentin on her arrival and attend to her comfort.

Diana and a large quantity of luggage on board, the former found herself met in the hall by a che

iana up to her rooms on

r, staggering manfully b

in's

th the daffodils that gleamed from a bowl on the table like a s

ana hesitatingly, "you

ng laughed

out, and she asked me to see that you had every

seemed such a jolly, bright little thing

it? . . . Thank you so much for thinking of it-it was kind of you." And she held out her hand with th

and from that moment onward became one of

ly. "Will you have it up here-or in the dining-ro

e. I can't possibly

xtra if you have it up here. 'All meals served in rooms, sixpence extra,'" she read out, poin

ded it with

n. I've never lived in a boarding-house before, you know; I had rooms in the house of an old servant of ours. Well, here goes!"-twisting the frame

s regards conforming to the rules at No. 24-provided she paid her bills promptly and without too careful a scrutiny of the "extras." Bunty, indeed, retained few illusions

d Diana, when the lady-help reappear

iling reply. "But most

nt

t you brought two cups? I wanted you to

for two' would have been charged to

round with astonishment. "

nodded h

l have tea out of my tooth-glass"-glancing towards the washstand in the adjoining room where that arti

nt downstairs to pour out tea in the dining-room for the rest of the boarders, it was with that pleasantly

rovided, and in fixing up a few pictures, recklessly hammering the requisite nails into the walls in happy disregard of R

ckly exchanging her travelling costume for a filmy little dinner dress of some

-as it appeared to Diana in that first dizzy moment of arrival-dozens of young women varying from twenty to thirty years of age. In reality there were but a

ana observed a vacant place; presumably its owner was dining out. She also noticed that she alone among the boarders had attempted to make any kind of evening toilet. The others had

wed a little as the meal progressed, and when the musical students, Miss Jones and Miss Allen, had elicited that she was

o passed quickly down the room and took the vacant place at the table, murmuring a curt apology to Mrs. Lawr

xclaimed. "I had no ide

f nodded a br

me time. But I didn't know that you were c

to give them up, and Signor B

as the advantage of being only quarter of an hour's walk from Grellingham

rather off-hand manner, had never sought to become better acquainted with her. It was generally supposed that she was a Russian, and she was undoubtedly a highly gifted musician, but there was something oddly disagreeable and repellent about her personality. Whenever Diana had thought

tentative efforts to draw her into conversation. The results were meagre, however, the Russian confining herself to monosyllabic answers until some one-one of the musical

ermontof apparently awo

s further possibilities

vais a most overrated actre

reement greeted t

ed Miss Jones. "No one three years ago-and to-da

ccessfully if that part has been previously written sp

tain personal acrimony that seemed to flavour Miss Lermontof's criticism of the popular actress. Finally, with the idea of averting a quarre

was with them a

ommented Miss Lerm

nist," said Diana. "Do you

narrowed suddenly, and she regarded Diana w

episodes which had linked them together. The man of mystery invariably exerts a peculiar fascination over the feminine mind. Hence the unme

t before replying to Diana's

n't allow myself to become too

flush, and her manner indicated that, as far

sleep that night it was to dream that she and Errington were trying to find each other through the gloom of a thick fog, whilst all the