‘Are you ready now, dear?’ she asked.

’Oh, I can’t possibly come to-day, mother.  Didn’t Miss Smithson tell you?  I’m awfully sorry I can’t.  But there’s a very important case on.  I can only stay a minute.’

‘But, my child, we have arranged to take you to the theatre,’ Leonora was on the point of expostulating.  She checked herself, and placidly replied:  ‘I’m sorry, too.  When shall you be free?’

’Might be able to get off to-morrow.  I’ll slip out in the morning and send you a telegram.’

’I should like you to try and be free to-morrow, my dear.  You seem as if you needed a rest.  Do you take any exercise?’

‘As much as I can.’

‘But you know, Rose——­’

‘That’s all right, mater,’ Rose interrupted confidently, patting her mother’s arm.  ’We can look after ourselves here, don’t you worry.  Have you seen Mr. Twemlow yet?’

‘Not yet.  Why?’

’Nothing.  But he called to see me yesterday.  We’re great friends.  I must run back now.’

Leonora departed with the girl’s hasty kiss on her lips, realising that she had fallen to the level of a mere episodic interest in Rose’s life.  The impassioned student of obstetrics had disappeared up the staircase before Leonora could reach the double-doors of the entrance.  The mother was dashed, stricken, a little humiliated.  But as she arranged the folds of her beautiful dress in the hansom which was carrying her away from Lamb’s Conduit Street towards South Kensington, she said to herself firmly, ’I am not a ninny, after all, and I know that Rose will be ill soon.  And there are things in that hospital that I could manage better.’

‘Mr. Twemlow came to see you just after you left,’ said Harry when he restored Milly to her mother at half-past five.  ’I asked him to join us at dinner, but he said he couldn’t.  However, he’s coming to the theatre, to our box.’

‘You must excuse us from dining with you to-night, Harry,’ was Leonora’s reply.  ‘We’ll meet you at the theatre.’

‘Yes, Harry,’ said Millicent coldly.  ‘We really can’t come to-day.’

‘The hand of the Lord is heavy upon me,’ Harry murmured.  And he repeated the phrase on leaving the hotel.

Neither he nor Millicent had shown much interest in Rose’s defection.  The dandy seemed to be relieved, and Millicent said, ’How stupid of her!’ Milly had returned from the visit to Mr. Louis Lewis in a state of high self-satisfaction.  Leonora was told that Mr. Lewis was simply the most delightful and polite man that Milly had ever met; he would be charmed to see Mrs. Stanway, and would make an appointment.  Meanwhile Milly gave her mother to understand that the affair was practically settled.  She knew the date when the tour of Princess Puck started, and the various towns which it would include; and Mr. Lewis had provided her with a box for the next afternoon at the Queen’s Theatre, where the piece had been most successfully produced