Flossie had her dwelling-place in a second floor bed-sitting-room of a lodging house in Queen’s Square, Bloomsbury; but the drawing-room floor being for the moment vacant, Flossie had persuaded her landlady to let her give her party there; it seemed as if fate approved of the idea.  The room was fairly full when Joan arrived.  Flossie took her out on the landing, and closed the door behind them.

“You will be honest with me, won’t you?” pleaded Flossie, “because it’s so important, and I don’t seem able to think for myself.  As they say, no man can be his own solicitor, can he?  Of course I like him, and all that—­very much.  And I really believe he loves me.  We were children together when Mummy was alive; and then he had to go abroad; and has only just come back.  Of course, I’ve got to think of him, too, as he says.  But then, on the other hand, I don’t want to make a mistake.  That would be so terrible, for both of us; and of course I am clever; and there was poor Mummy and Daddy.  I’ll tell you all about them one day.  It was so awfully sad.  Get him into a corner and talk to him.  You’ll be able to judge in a moment, you’re so wonderful.  He’s quiet on the outside, but I think there’s depth in him.  We must go in now.”

She had talked so rapidly Joan felt as if her hat were being blown away.  She had difficulty in recognizing Flossie.  All the cocksure pertness had departed.  She seemed just a kid.

Joan promised faithfully; and Flossie, standing on tiptoe, suddenly kissed her and then bustled her in.

Flossie’s young man was standing near the fire talking, or rather listening, to a bird-like little woman in a short white frock and blue ribbons.  A sombre lady just behind her, whom Joan from the distance took to be her nurse, turned out to be her secretary, whose duty it was to be always at hand, prepared to take down any happy idea that might occur to the bird-like little woman in the course of conversation.  The bird-like little woman was Miss Rose Tolley, a popular novelist.  She was explaining to Flossie’s young man, whose name was Sam Halliday, the reason for her having written “Running Waters,” her latest novel.

“It is daring,” she admitted.  “I must be prepared for opposition.  But it had to be stated.”

“I take myself as typical,” she continued.  “When I was twenty I could have loved you.  You were the type of man I did love.”

Mr. Halliday, who had been supporting the weight of his body upon his right leg, transferred the burden to his left.

“But now I’m thirty-five; and I couldn’t love you if I tried.”  She shook her curls at him.  “It isn’t your fault.  It is that I have changed.  Suppose I’d married you?”

“Bit of bad luck for both of us,” suggested Mr. Halliday.

“A tragedy,” Miss Tolley corrected him.  “There are millions of such tragedies being enacted around us at this moment.  Sensitive women compelled to suffer the embraces of men that they have come to loathe.  What’s to be done?”