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and that. We’ll go to Ross’s. They have a proper respect for my appetite.”

They walked in silence to Ross’s, where Buzzy mounted the stairs to the tea-room two at a time. The suitcases worried her not at all, even though she carried the one with the damaged handle with two fingers thrust beneath the flap of the lid.

“You should have been a man, Buzzy,” said Patricia, when they were seated at a table overlooking the street.

Buzzy pointed a large and theatening finger at Patricia.

“If you’re going to be so frightfully original in your remarks during your stay with us, Miss Weybourn, there’s going to be another earthquake,” she replied with assumed ferocity. “What are you going to have? The usual?”

Patricia nodded.

“I’ll be good,” she promised.

They ate, saying little and eyeing éach other with a natural curiosity.

When they had finished eating, Buzzy produced a cigarette case and proffered it to Patricia.

“Have a gasper, Pat,” she invited, “then lean back, or forward, and tell me all about yourself. Hide nothing from your aunt Buzzy. First, how goes the glad-rag business?”

Patricia accepted a cigarette and lit it carefully at Buzzy’s lighter before she answered.

“I’ve got the sack, Buzzy. I’m wandering at large upon the face of the earth; and I’m fed up with everything.”

Buzzy lit a cigarette for herself, squinting speculatively through the manly clouds of smoke which she blew.

“What is it?” she asked calmly. “Shortage in the cash? Or an overplus of shieks?”

Patricia sneered at the ash-tray and addressed the empty tea-pot.