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afraid. But which of them causes the other, or whether they’re both symptoms of something else, I don’t know. What with Trimmer’s mental healing, and Henderson going nudist—”
    “No!”
    “Fact. There she is, at the next table. That’s why she’s so brown.”
    “And her frock so badly cut. If you can’t be naked, be as ill-dressed as possible, I suppose.”
    “I sometimes wonder whether a little normal, hearty wickedness wouldn’t be good for a great many of us.”
    At this moment. Miss Mollison, from three places away on the same side of the table, leaned across her neighbours and screamed something.
    “What?” screamed Phoebe.
    Miss Mollison leaned still further, compressing Dorothy Collins, Betty Armstrong and Mary Stokes almost to suffocation.
    “I hope Miss Vane isn’t telling you anything too blood-curdling!”
    “No said Harriet, loudly. “Mrs. Bancroft is curdling my blood.”
    “How?”
    “Telling me the life-histories of our year.”
    “Oh!” screamed Miss Mollison, disconcerted. The service of a dish of lamb and green peas intervened and broke up the formation, and her neighbours breathed again. But to Harriet’s intense horror, the question and reply seemed to have opened up an avenue for a dark, determined woman with large spectacles and rigidly groomed hair, who sat opposite to her, and who now bent over and said, in piercingly American accents: “I don’t suppose you remember me, Miss Vane? I was only in college for one term, but I would know you anywhere. I’m always recommending your books to my friends in America who are keen to study the British detective story, because I think they are just terribly good.”
    “Very kind of you,” said Harriet, feebly.
    “And we have a very dear mutooal acquaintance,” went on the spectacled lady.
    Heavens! thought Harriet. What social nuisance is going to be dragged out of obscurity now? And who is this frightful female?
    “Really?” she said, aloud, trying to gain time while she ransacked her memory. “Who’s that. Miss—”
    “Schuster-Slatt” prompted Phoebe’s voice in her ear.
    “Schuster-Slatt.” (Of course. Arrived in Harriet’s first summer term. Supposed to read Law. Left after one term because the conditions at Shrewsbury were too restrictive of liberty. Joined the Home Students, and passed mercifully out of one’s life.)
    “How clever of you to know my name. Yes, well, you’ll be surprised when I tell you, but in my work I see so many of your British aristocracy.”
    Hell! thought Harriet. Miss Schuster-Slatt’s strident tones dominated even the surrounding uproar.
    “Your marvellous Lord Peter. He was so kind to me, and terribly interested when I told him I was at college with you. I think he’s just a lovely man.”
    “He has very nice manners,” said Harriet. But the implication was too subtle. Miss Schuster-Slatt proceeded:
    “He was just wonderful to me when I told him all about my work.” (I wonder what it is, thought Harriet.) “And of course I wanted to hear all about his thrilling detective cases, but he was much too modest to say anything. Do tell me, Miss Vane, does he wear that cute little eyeglass because of his sight, or is it part of an old English tradition?”
    “I have never had the impertinence to ask him,” said Harriet.
    “Now isn’t that just like your British reticence!” exclaimed Miss Schuster-Slatt; when Mary Stokes struck in with “Oh, Harriet, do tell us about Lord Peter! He must be perfectly charming if he’s at all like his photographs. Of course you know him very well, don’t you?”
    “I worked with him over one case.”
    “It must have been frightfully exciting. Do tell us what he’s like.”
    “Seeing,” said Harriet, in angry and desperate tones, “seeing that he got me out of prison and probably saved me from being hanged, I am naturally bound to find him delightful.”
    “Oh!” said Mary Stokes, flushing scarlet, and shrinking from Harriet’s furious