“Of course, dear, I’ve no illusions.  I’m not bad to look at—­indeed I sometimes quite admire my figure when I see myself after my bath in the cheval glass—­but I’m pretty well sure that one of the factors in Pet’s admiration for me was my income.  Mother, it seems, has a little of her own, from one of her aunts, and if the poor darling is taken—­though it is simply horrid considering that if—­only that she has talked so freely to Army—­I think I like ‘Army’ far better than ’Pet’—­Well I mean she’s been trying to tell him ever since he first came to call that when she is gone I shall have, all told, in my own right, Five thousand a year.  So I took the first opportunity of letting him know that Two thousand a year of that would be held in reserve for the work of the firm and for the Woman’s Cause generally....  Look here, I won’t babble on much longer....  I know you’re dying to make me confidences....  We’ll ring for tea to be sent in here, and whilst the waiter is coming and going—­Don’t they take such a time about it, when they’re de trop?—­we’ll talk of ordinary things that can be shouted from the house tops.

“I haven’t been to the Office for three days.  Does everything seem to be going on all right?”

David:  “Quite all right.  Bertie Adams tries dumbly to express in his eyes his determination to see the firm and me through all our troubles and adventures.  I wish I could convey a discreet hint to him not to be so blatantly discreet.  If there were a Sherlock Holmes about the place he would spot at once that Adams and I shared a secret....  But about Beryl—­” (Enter waiter....)

Honoria (to waiter):  “Oh—­er—­tea for two please.  Remember it must be China and the still-room maids must see that the water has been fresh-boiled.  And buttered toast—­or if you’ve got muffins...?  You have?  Well, then muffins; and of course jam and cake.  And—­would you mind—­you always try, I know—­bringing the things in very quietly—­here—?  Because Lady Fraser is so easily waked...”

(The Swiss waiter goes out, firmly convinced that Honoria’s anxiety for her lady mother is really due to the desire that the mother should not interrupt a flirtation and a clandestine tea.)

Honoria:  “Well, about Beryl?”

David:  “Beryl, I should say, is going to become a great woman of business.  But for that, and—­I think—­a curious streak of fidelity to her vacillating architect (’How happy could I be with either,’ don’t you know, he seems to feel—­just now they say he is living steadily at Storrington with his wife No. 1, who is ill, poor thing) ... but for that and this, I think Beryl would enjoy a flirtation with me.  She can’t quite make me out, and my unwavering severity of manner.  Her cross-questioning sometimes is maddening—­or it might become so, but that with both of us—­you and me—­retiring so much into the background she has to lead such a strenuous life and see one after the other the more important clients.  Of course—­here’s the tea...”