Free The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) by Barbara Cartland

have imagined.
    The furniture was quite substantial but in poor taste. The sofas and chairs were upholstered in a vivid blue brocade and heaped with frilly pink cushions—most of them embroidered with beads or coloured silks.
    Pictures of every sort and description smothered the walls, many of them cheap oleographs of Rome and Italy.
    There were some photographs of actresses and a few actors. There were half a dozen framed posters and as they all starred a certain well-known Music-Hall personality, it was not difficult to guess the name of the flat’s previous occupant.
    “Where is the owner?” Cassandra asked the Estate Agent.
    “As a matter of fact, Madam, she is in Australia,” he replied. “She is on tour, it is her—friend—” he coughed apologetically, “who has asked me to find a tenant while she is away.”
    The bed-room was even more fantastic than the sitting-room.
    Here the curtains were of sugar-pink, and held up at the corners of the palmettes with over-gilt angels.
    The brass bed-stead was draped with material of the same colour, hanging from a half-tester decorated with artificial flowers.
    There were bows, frills, fringes and tassels everywhere one looked, and the walls were almost completely covered with mirrors.
    “The owner must be very fond of her own face,” Cassandra remarked innocently.
    She did not see the glint of amusement in the Agent’s eyes.
    “I will take the flat,” Cassandra went on and tried not to laugh at Hannah’s horrified and disgusted expression.
    She paid two months’ rent in advance as she had promised, and giving her friend’s name as “Miss Standish” she took possession of the key.
    A porter informed her that his wife would be willing to clean the flat on an hourly basis.
    “Her has to stay longer, Ma’am, if the place is in a mess,” he said frankly.
    “I understand,” Cassandra replied, “and my friend will be quite willing to pay by the hour.”
    “Will your friend, Madam, be moving in immediately?” the Agent asked.
    “She should be arriving from the North this evening,” Cassandra replied, “but if not, she will certainly be here tomorrow. I am so grateful to you for finding her somewhere to stay. She has a great dislike of Hotels.”
    “I quite understand that,” the Agent said sympathetically.
    He was delighted at having got the flat off his hands. He would never have sunk to putting anything so garish on his books, if the “friend” of the lady who had lived there had not been of social importance.
    Cassandra bade him good-bye and then drove back towards Park Lane listening to a storm of protest from Hannah’s lips.
    “Now what’s all this about, Miss Cassandra? I’ve never seen such a horrible place! It’s not fit for someone like yourself even to enter, let alone to be living in!”
    “It is for my theatrical friend “ Cassandra answered.
    “And who might she be?” Hannah asked. “You’ve never had any friends who are on the stage to my knowledge, and anyway the Master wouldn’t allow it. You know that as well as I do.”
    “Her name is Sandra Standish,” Cassandra answered.
    “Sandra?” Hannah said suspiciously. “That’s what the Master sometimes calls you.”
    “Yes, I know,” Cassandra answered, “and that is why I have used it for my second self. It is difficult to answer to a Christian name you do not remember.”
    “What are you trying to tell me?” Hannah enquired sternly.
    “That I am going to act a part,” Cassandra answered. “Do not look so shocked, Hannah, I am not going on the stage. I shall play the part of a young and talented actress.”
    “An actress!” Hannah exclaimed in tones of horror.
    “I only hope I am good enough to get away with it,” Cassandra said.
    “The only thing you’ll get yourself into is a lot of trouble,” Hannah said menacingly. “You’re not going to stay in that ghastly place?”
    “No, but I have to have an address,” Cassandra answered, “and you are going to