"Don't forget that we must pay some calls this afternoon, Mildred."
Mildred was standing by the window of their beautiful drawing room. The window-boxes had just been filled with lovely spring flowers; she was bending over them and with deft fingers arranging the blossoms and making certain small alterations, which had the effect of grouping the different masses of color more artistically than the gardener had done.
"Yes, mother," she said, half turning her handsome head and glancing back at her parent. "We are to make calls. I am quite agreeable."
"I wish you would take an interest, Mildred; it is so unpleasant going about with people who are only just 'quite agreeable.' Now, when I was a young girl——"
"Oh, please, mother, don't! The times have completely changed since you were young; enthusiasm has gone out of fashion. I am nothing if I am not fashionable! Of course, if calls have to be made, I shall make them. I'll put on my most becoming bonnet, and my prettiest costume, and I'll sit in the carriage by your side, and enter the houses of those friends who happen to be at home, and I'll smile and look agreeable, and people will say, 'What an amiable woman Miss Anstruther is!' I'll do the correct thing of course, only I suppose it is not necessary for my heart to go pitter-patter over it. By the way, have you made out a list of the unfortunates who are to be victimized by our presence this afternoon?"
Mrs. Anstruther sighed, and gazed in some discontent at her daughter.
"It is so disagreeable not to understand people," she said. "I don't profess to understand you, Mildred. If you will give me my visiting-book I can soon tell you the places where we ought to go. And oh, by the way, should we not call on Hilda Quentyns? she has taken a house somewhere in West Kensington."
"You don't mean to tell me that the Quentyns are in town?" said Mildred, turning sharply round and gazing at her mother.
"Of course; they have been in London for some time. I met Lady Malvern yesterday, and she gave me Hilda's address. She seems to have gone to live in a very poky place. See, I have entered the name in my address-book—10, Philippa Road, West Kensington."
"Then of course we'll go to her—that will be really nice," said Mildred with enthusiasm. "We might go to Hilda first and spend some little time with her."