"She is a what?" Julien asked blankly.
A smile played about Lady Anne's lips.
"My dear Julien," she exclaimed, "you know, you never did understand me! I repeat that she is a milliner and that she is a dear friend of mine, and I am going just as I am to tell her that I have come to spend the night. She will have to find me rooms, she will have to help me find employment."
Kendricks, who had come by the same train, and whom Julien was there to meet, was hovering in the background. Julien, seeing him, could do no more than nod vaguely.
"Lady Anne," he began,—
"You needn't bother about that," she interrupted. "We were always good friends, weren't we?" she added carelessly. "Besides, to call me 'Lady' anything would be rather ridiculous under the present circumstances."
"Well, Anne, then," he said, "please let me get my bearings. I understand that you were engaged to Harbord—you weren't forced into it, I suppose?"
"Not at all. I tried to run along the usual groove, but I came up against something too big for me. I don't know how other girls do it. I simply found I couldn't. Samuel Harbord is rather by way of being something outrageous, you know."
"Of course he is," Julien agreed, with sudden appreciation of the fact.
"You needn't be so vigorous about it. I remember your almost forcing him on to me the day you called to say good-bye."