Ede, trying to button his dirty nightshirt across his hairy chest. 'I'm not going to listen to that noise all night. Kate, you g-go and tur-r-rn them out.'

'I'm sorry, dearie,' said Mrs. Ede, seeing her daughter-in-law's distress.
'I'll soon send them away.'

'Oh no! I'd rather go myself,' said Kate.

'Very well, dear. I only thought you might not like to go down among a lot of rough people.'

The noise downstairs was in the meanwhile increasing, and Ralph grew as angry as his asthma would allow him. 'They're just killing me with their noise. Go down at once and tell them they must leave the house instantly. If you don't I'll go myself.'

Mrs. Ede made a movement towards the door, but Kate stopped her, saying:

'I'll go; it's my place.' As she descended the stairs she heard a man's voice screaming above the general hubbub:

'I'll tell you what; if Miss Beaumont doesn't wait for my beat another night, I'll insist on a rehearsal being called. She took the concerted music in the finale of the first act two whole bars before her time. It was damned awful. I nearly broke my stick trying to stop her.'

'Quite true; I never saw the piece go so badly. Bret was "fluffing" all over the shop.'

Kate listened to these fragments of conversation, asked herself how she was to walk in upon those people and tell them that they must keep quiet.

'And the way Beaumont tries to spoon with Dick. She nearly missed her cue once with sneaking after him in the wings.'

A peal of laughter followed. This sally determined Kate to act; and without having made up her mind what to say, she turned the handle of the door and walked into the room.

The three gas-burners were blazing, wine-glasses were on the table, and Mr. Lennox stood twisting a corkscrew into a bottle which he held between his fat thighs. On the little green sofa Miss Lucy Leslie lay back playing with her bonnet-strings. Her legs were crossed, and a lifted skirt showed a bit of striped stocking. Next her, with his spare legs sprawled over the arm of the easy-chair, was Mr. Montgomery, the thinnest being possible to imagine, in grey clothes. His nose was enormous, and he pushed up his glasses when Kate came into the room with a movement of the left hand that was clearly habitual. On the other side of the round table sat Mr. Joe Mortimer, the heavy lead, the celebrated miser in the Cloches. A tall girl standing behind him playfully twisted his back hair. He addressed paternal admonitions to her from time to time in an artificially cracked voice.

'Please, sir,' said Kate pleadingly, 'I'm very sorry, but we cannot keep open house after eleven o'clock.'

A deep silence followed this announcement. Miss Leslie looked up at Kate curiously. Mr. Lennox stopped twisting the corkscrew into the bottle, and the low comedian, seizing the opportunity, murmured in his mechanical voice to the girl behind him, 'Open house! Of course, she's quite right. I knew there was a draught somewhere; I felt my hair blowing about.'

Everybody laughed, and the merriment still contributed to discountenance the workwoman.

'Will he never speak and let me go?' she asked herself. At last he did speak, and his words fell upon her like blows.

'I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Ede,' he said in a loud, commanding voice. 'I made no agreement with you that I wasn't to bring friends home with me in the evening.