'Your carriage has long left, my dear. There is no way that you are going to leave until I judge you fit to do so. Now, Marie and Tom, take her up!'.

'How dare you! No!', screamed Astrid, who in that moment found herself in the close presence of a burly male servant and Marie. Unheard of as it was to be touched by mere servants, she felt the outrage of having her wrists seized and drawn behind her by Tom, whose grip she could find no way of escaping from without utter indignity. At the same tune, Marie took her elbow.

'To be bathed, Ma'am?', Marie asked her mistress.

'Yes, you and Amy will see to it. Have me called when it is done', Julia replied to screams from Astrid who was being propelled towards the double doors of the drawing room. Hustled into the great hallway, Astrid fought bitterly against the hands that, as she felt then, were impelling her to her doom.

'Release me! Ah, you beasts, how dare you lay hands on me!', she screeched to no avail. Bundled slowly upstairs, her feet kicked frantically until Tom wheeled her about and, with no more effort than it would take to lift a kitten, slung her over his shoulder. 'No! No! No!', moaned Astrid, beating with her fists upon his broad back the while that he reached the first landing, with Marie following. He then bore her towards a bedroom.

Meanwhile Lady Tingle languidly lit a Turkish cigarette and took from a small chest of drawers a letter which bore a Swiss stamp and which she had already perused several tunes. Astrid's cries reached her but faintly as she unfolded the delicately scented pages and regained her seat to engage herself anew in the message.

'My dearest Julia', she read, 'I write to you with a purpose that you have for several years wished and which we have not infrequently discussed. My sojourn here will be considerably extended, for the air and all about suits me as well as does that engaging rascal, Rudolph, for whose sake I have put England behind me.