immediate danger, but that she had better put on her
lifebelt.
It was a relief to be roused from these forebodings by
Miss Van Vluyck's arrival.
"Well, my dear," the new-comer briskly asked her hostess,
"what subjects are we to discuss to-day?"
Mrs. Ballinger was furtively replacing a volume of Word-
sworth by a copy of Verlaine. "I hardly know," she said,
somewhat nervously "Perhaps we had better leave that
to circumstances."
"Circumstances?" said Miss Van Vluyck drily. "That means,
I suppose, that Laura Glyde will take the floor as usual,
and we shall be deluged with literature."
Philanthropy and statistics were Miss Van Vluyck's
province, and she resented any tendency to divert their
guest's attention from these topics.
Mrs. Plinth at this moment appeared.
"Literature?" she protested in a tone of remonstrance.
"But this is perfectly unexpected. I understood we were
to talk of Osric Dane's novel."
Mrs. Ballinger winced at the discrimination, but let it pass.
"We can hardly make that our chief subject—at least not
too intentionally," she suggested. "Of course we can let
our talk drift in that direction; but we ought to have some
other topic as an introduction, and that is what I wanted
to consult you about. The fact is, we know so little of
Osric Dane's tastes and interests that it is difficult to make
HYLAND
