“I won’t forget,” said Mavis, making an effort to go.  But as voices raised in angry altercation could be heard immediately outside the front door, Miss Meakin detained Mavis, asking, in the politest tone, advice on the subject of the most fashionable material to wear at a select dinner party.

“I’ve quite given up ‘Browning,’” she told Mavis, “he’s so old-fashioned to up-to-date people.  Now I’m going to be Mrs Napper, when the Littlehampton season comes round, I’m going in exclusively for smartness and fashion.”

Mavis making as if she would go, and the disturbance not being finally quelled, Miss Meakin begged Mavis to stay to lunch.  She repeatedly insisted on the word lunch, as if it conveyed a social distinction in the speaker.

Mavis had got as far as the door, when it burst open and an elderly woman of considerable avoirdupois broke into the room, to sink helplessly upon a flimsy chair which creaked ominously with its burden.

Miss Meakin introduced this person to Mavis as her aunt, Mrs Scatchard, and reminded the latter how Mavis had rescued her niece from the clutches of the bogus hospital nurse in Victoria Street so many months back.

“That you should call today of all days!” moaned the perspiring Mrs Scatchard.

“Why not today?” asked her niece innocently.

“The day I’m disgraced to the neighbourhood by a ‘visitor’ being turned out of doors.”

“I knew nothing of it,” protested Miss Meakin.

“And Mr Scatchard being a government official, as you might say.”

“Indeed!” remarked Mavis, who was itching to be off.

“Almost a pillar of the throne, as you might say,” moaned the poor woman.

“True enough,” murmured her niece.

“A man who, as you might say, has had the eyes of Europe upon him.”

“Ah!” sighed Miss Meakin.

“And me, too, who am, as it were, an outpost of blood in this no-class neighbourhood,” continued Mrs Scatchard.

Mavis wondered when she would be able to get away.

“My father was a tax-collector,” Mrs Scatchard informed Mavis.

“Indeed!” said the latter.

“And in a most select London suburb.  Do you believe in blood?”

“I think so.”

“Then you must come here often.  Blood is so scarce in North Kensington.”

“Thank you.”

“Why not stay and have a bit of dinner?”

“Lunch,” corrected Miss Meakin with a frown.

“We’ve a lovely sheep’s heart and turnips,” said Mrs Scatchard, disregarding her niece’s pained interruption.

Mavis thanked kindly Mrs Scatchard, but said she must be off.  She was not permitted to go before she promised to let Miss Meakin know the result of her visit to Mr Napper.