Enid Crofton looked at her odd-looking visitor with astonishment.  Who on earth could this be?  Certainly not Piper’s wife.  A feeling of intense relief came over her when the strange-looking woman came towards her with a soft, gliding step, and handed her a card on which was written: 

Madame Flora

Ladies’ wardrobes, gold teeth, and old jewellery purchased at the
highest prices known in the trade

“I do ’ope you will excuse me coming up like this,” she said again, and her queer Cockney voice sounded quite pleasantly in Enid Crofton’s ears.  “I’ve not got very long, and I’ve been ’ere since four o’clock.”

As she spoke she did not look at the pretty young lady sitting by the fire.  Her dark eyes were glancing furtively round the attractively furnished bedroom, as if appraising everything that was there, from the uncommon-looking high brass candlesticks on the dressing-table to the pink silk covered eiderdown and drawn linen coverlid on the bed.

Perhaps because she was so extraordinarily relieved, Enid Crofton spoke to this somewhat impudent old-clothes woman very graciously.

“I’m sorry,” she began, “but I’ve nothing in the least suitable for you, Madame Flora.  It’s a pity you wasted your time waiting for me.  There are several other people in Beechfield with whom I expect you might have done business.”  She smiled as she spoke.

“I wish I’d thought of that, Modam.”  The woman spoke with a touch of regret.  “But your maids expected you might be back any minute, and I did want to meet you, for Piper’s that down on ’is luck, I sometimes don’t know what to do with ’im!  Instead of wanting to employ ex-soldiers, as in course they ought ter, people seem just to avoid them—­”

“Piper?” repeated Enid Crofton in a low, hesitating voice.  “Then are you Mrs. Piper?”

Was it conceivable that this strange-looking old thing was Piper’s wife?

“I’ve been Mrs. Piper eighteen years,” replied Madame Flora composedly, “but I’ve always kep’ on my business, Modam.  It’s not much of a business now, worse luck!  Ladies won’t part with their clothes, not when they’re dropping off them.  In old days, if Piper was down, I was up, so we was all right.  But we’ve both struck a streak of bad luck.”

For a few moments neither of them spoke.  Mrs. Crofton was staring, astonished, at her visitor, and through her shallow mind there ran the new thought of how very, very little any of us know of other people’s lives.  After her first shock of dismayed surprise to find that Piper was married at all, she had imagined Piper’s wife as something young and, of course, in a way, attractive and easily managed.

“Did you ever come down to my house in Essex?” she asked, still trying to speak pleasantly.

“No, Modam, I never was there.  Piper and I ‘as always kep’ clear of each other’s jobs, and I wouldn’t be interfering now, but that the matter’s becoming serious.  Piper’s worse than no good when ’e’s idle.”  She hesitated, then went on, “If ’e’s to keep off ’is failing, ’e must be working.”