“Now I am going to ask you something,” Julian said.  “Will you let me have tea with you to-day, and—­and—­come out with me some evening to the Empire or somewhere, instead?”

The lady nodded her fringed head.

“Certainly, my dear,” she responded.  “Proud to give you tea, I’m sure.”

Suddenly she bounced up, scattering Jessie over the floor.  She promenaded to the door, opened it and yelled: 

“Mrs. Brigg!  Mrs. Brigg!”

The expostulating feet of the old person ascended wearily from the lower depths of the house.

“Lord!  Lord!  Whatever is it now?” she wheezed.

“Please bring up tea for me and this gentleman.”

The lady assumed the voice of a sucking dove.

“Tea!  Why, I thought you’d be out to—­”

The lady shot into the passage and shut the door behind her.  After a moment she put her head in and said to Julian: 

“I’ll be back in a minute.  She’s in a rare tantrum.  I must go down and help her.  Pardon.”

And she vanished like a flash.

Julian sat feeling rather guilty.  To distract himself he got up and looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece.  Most of them were of men, but there were two or three girls in tights, and there was one of a stout and venerable woman, evidently highly respectable, seated in an arm-chair, with staring bead-like eyes, but a sweet and gentle mouth.  Her hair was arranged in glossy bands.  Her hands held a large book, probably a Bible.  Julian looked at her and wondered a little how she chanced to be in this galère.  Then he started and almost exclaimed aloud.  For there, at the end of the mantelpiece, was a cabinet photograph of Marr.  He was right then in his suspicion.  The lady of the feathers was also the lady at the “European.”

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said a voice behind him.

There was a clatter of crockery.  His hostess entered bearing a tray, which held a teapot, cups, a large loaf of bread, and some butter, and a milk-jug and sugar-basin.  She plumped it down on the table.

“Mrs. Brigg wouldn’t make toast,” she explained.  “And I didn’t like to keep you.”

“Let’s make some ourselves,” said Julian, with a happy inspiration.

He felt that to perform a common and a cosey act must draw them together, and awaken in the lady’s breast a happy and progressive confidence.  She was evidently surprised at the suggestion.

“Well, I never!” she ejaculated.  “You are a queer one.  You are taking a rise out of me now!”

“Not at all.  I like making toast.  Give me a fork.  I’ll do it, and you sit there and direct me.”

She laughed and produced the fork from a mean cupboard which did duty as a sideboard.

“Here you are, then.  ’Cut it pretty thick.  It ain’t so high class, but it eats better.  That’s it.  Sit on this stool, dear.”

She kicked an ancient leather one to the hearth, and Julian, tucking his long-tailed frock coat under him, squatted down and thrust forward the bread to the bars of the grate.  The lady opened the lid of the teapot and examined the brew with an anxious eye.