that question after Mrs. Meldrum had answered a few of mine.




CHAPTER II


Flora Saunt, the only daughter of an old soldier, had lost both her
parents, her mother within a few months. Mrs. Meldrum had known them,
disapproved of them, considerably avoided them: she had watched the girl,
off and on, from her early childhood. Flora, just twenty, was
extraordinarily alone in the world--so alone that she had no natural
chaperon, no one to stay with but a mercenary stranger, Mrs. Hammond
Synge, the sister-in-law of one of the young men I had just seen. She
had lots of friends, but none of them nice: she kept picking up
impossible people. The Floyd-Taylors, with whom she had been at
Boulogne, were simply horrid. The Hammond Synges were perhaps not so
vulgar, but they had no conscience in their dealings with her.

"She knows what I think of them," said Mrs. Meldrum, "and indeed she
knows what I think of most things."

"She shares that privilege with most of your friends!" I replied
laughing.

"No doubt; but possibly to some of my friends it makes a little
difference. That girl doesn't care a button. She knows best of all what
I think of Flora Saunt."