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She rose to her feet and confronted the girl, separated from her by a row of stalls.

“Why, I never heard of such a thing!” she cried. “Do you know to whom you are speaking, young woman? Do you know who I am?”

“Of course. Mrs. Percival Quesne Langham, and a snob.”

Mrs. Langham dilated, amazed at such daring.

“Snob ?” she squeaked incredulously.

“What else?”’ asked Patricia, smiling coldly. “Why, else, do you call yourself ‘Quesne’ when you were christened ‘Queenie’?”

The question was in the worst of taste, and Patricia knew it. She knew, also, that the public taste is never high, and the resultant laughter in the audience gratified her.

“Oh!” gasped Mrs. Langham. “Oh!”

She recognised that she was in a tight corner—that her social career was in the balance. She upbraided herself for ever having disclosed the ghastly secret of her baptismal name to this unspeakable creature in a moment when credit for the purchase of a gown was essential. Now she would be called Quesne to her face, and Queenie behind her back. The name would damn her. Already she discerned a pained expression upon the faces of her friends on the committee.

She adopted the tactics of weaker women. She glared at Patricia for a moment, then, with a faint sniff, fumbled for the fragment of cambric which was by courtesy her handkerchief.

“I never was so insulted,” she moaned piteously, as she sank into her seat; “never!”

She bowed her head, valiantly choking back the urge to retort in her accustomed manner—to answer insult with insult—to speak her mind about this shameless, insolent creature who dared to humiliate her thus. But instinct warned her that the time was inopportune. She must wait.