Another cab conveyed her to Brixton, and set her down before a block of recently built flats.  She ascended to the second floor, pressed the button of a bell, and was speedily confronted by a girl of the natty parlour-maid species.  This time she began by giving her name, and had only a moment to wait before she was admitted to a small drawing-room, furnished with semblance of luxury.  A glowing fire and the light of an amber-shaded lamp showed as much fashionable upholstery and bric-a-brac as could be squeezed into the narrow space.  Something else was perceptible which might perhaps have been dispensed with; to wit, the odour of a very savoury meal, a meal in which fried onions had no insignificant part.  But before the visitor could comment to herself upon this disadvantage attaching to flats, Beatrice joined her.

’I could hardly believe it!  So you have really looked me up?  Awfully jolly of you!  I’m quite alone; we’ll have a bit of dinner together.’

Miss.  French was in her most expansive mood.  She understood the call as one of simple friendliness.

’I wasn’t sure that you knew the address.  Got it at the shop?  They don’t go telling everybody, I hope—­’

‘Some one there seemed to know my name,’ said Nancy, whom the warmth and light and cheery welcome encouraged in the step she had taken.  And she explained.

’Ah, Mr. Clatworthy—­rum old cove, when you get to know him.  Yes, yes; no doubt he has heard me speak of you—­in a general way, you know.  Come into my snooze-corner, and take your things off.’

The snooze-corner, commonly called a bedroom, lacked one detail of comfort—­pure air.  The odour of dinner blending with toilet perfumes made an atmosphere decidedly oppressive.  Beatrice remarked on the smallness of the chamber, adding archly, ’But I sleep single.’

‘What’s your brother doing?’ she asked, while helping to remove Nancy’s jacket.  ’I passed him in Oxford Street the other day, and he either didn’t see me, or didn’t want to.  Thought he looked rather dissipated.’

‘I know very little about him,’ answered the visitor, who spoke and acted without reflection, conscious chiefly at this moment of faintness induced by fatigue and hunger.

‘Fanny’s in Paris,’ pursued Miss.  French.  ’Writes as if she was amusing herself.  I think I shall run over and have a look at her.  Seen Ada?  She’s been playing the fool as usual.  Found out that Arthur had taken the kid to his sister’s at Canterbury; went down and made a deuce of a kick-up; they had to chuck her out of the house.  Of course she cares no more about the child than I do; it’s only to spite her husband.  She’s going to law with him, she says.  She won’t leave the house in De Crespigny Park, and she’s running up bills—­you bet!’

Nancy tried to laugh.  The effort, and its semi-success, indicated surrender to her companion’s spirit rather than any attention to the subject spoken of.