thing to lie
down on her sofa and rest, at least while she cogitated. But Anne
refused with resolution.

"No," she said. "No; thank you so much, Mrs. Chesney. Just let me sit
here in this armchair. I can think better sitting."

She sat for a minute or two, frowning down at the carpet; then suddenly
she turned to Sophy, with the oddest little guilty smile, half
embarrassed, half determined.

"I'll tell you what you can do for me, Mrs. Chesney," she said. "I've
got a little vice of my own, though I make it a rule never to indulge it
when I'm on a case. But now--I do so need to think hard--it's so
important for my patient that I should. Could you, would you be so kind
as to give me a cigarette and let me smoke it here? You see, I haven't
any with me--and I daren't smoke in my room, for fear of the housemaids.
Do you think me _very_ impertinent and cheeky for asking you this
favour, Mrs. Chesney?"

"Oh, my dear girl!" cried Sophy. "Of course you shall have a cigarette.
I have some very nice ones of my own...." She turned to get them; then
remembered.

"What a pity!" she said. "Mine are all out. They gave out some days ago,
and I forgot to order more."

Then she brightened.

"But I remember, now-- I have some of my husband's here. They are very
good, only rather too large, I think. But I have cigarette-papers. You
can pull one to pieces, and roll it smaller--as he does, you know."

Anne laughed when Sophy opened the table drawer and handed her one of
the huge cigarettes.

"It _is_ a corker, isn't it?" she said, but her black eyes gleamed. She
added whimsically: "I don't think I'll thin it down, though. Since I'm
to have a smoke (and it's awfully unprofessional of me to do it while
I'm on a case) I might as well have a good one while I'm about it."

She put the big white roll of thin paper and gold-hued tobacco between
her lips, and held a match to it, drawing her thin cheeks in with
luxurious anticipation of the first whiff. But the cigarette drew badly;
wouldn't draw at all, in fact. She took it from her mouth, looking at it
disappointedly.

"Here--take another," urged Sophy, holding it to her. "That must have
got damp in some way. Try this one."

But the second cigarette refused to draw also. Sophy forced a third on
her. That, too, was a failure.

"I see now why he's taken to rolling them over," said Anne: "This lot
must be badly rolled. It's a pity to have wasted so many; but if I may
have a cigarette-p