ssage from the hall to the floor above
she communicated many things. Her name was Liza; she had heard him
preach; he had made her cry; "Miss Gloria" had known her former mistress,
and Mr. Drake had got her the present place.

There was a sound of laughter from the drawing-room. It was Glory's
voice. When the door opened she was standing in the middle of the floor
in a black dress and with a pale face, but her eyes were bright and she
was laughing merrily. She stopped when John Storm entered and looked
confused and ashamed. Drake, who was lounging on the couch, rose and
bowed to him, and Miss Macquarrie, who was correcting long slips of
printer's proofs at a desk by the window, came forward and welcomed him.
Glory held his hand with her long hand-clasp and looked steadfastly into
his eyes. His face twitched and her own blushed deeply, and then she
talked in a nervous and jerky way, reproaching him for his neglect of
her.

"I have been busy," he began, and then stopped with a sense of hypocrisy.
"I mean worried and tormented," and then stopped again, for Drake had
dropped his head.

She laughed, though there was nothing to laugh at, and proposed tea,
rattling along in broken sentences that were spoken with a tremulous
trill, which had a suggestion of tears behind it. "Shall I ring for tea,
Rosa? Oh, you _have_ rung for tea! Ah, here it comes!--Thank you, Liza.
Set it here," seating herself. "Now who says the 'girl'? Remember?" and
then more laughter.

At that moment there was another arrival. It was Lord Robert Ure. He
kissed Rosa's hand, smiled on Glory, saluted Drake familiarly, and then
settled himself on a low stool by the tea-table, pulled up the knees of
his trousers, relaxed the congested muscles of one half of his face, and
let fall his eyeglass.

Drake was handing out the cups as Glory filled them. He was looking at
her attentively, vexed at the change in her manner since John Storm
entered. When he returned to his seat on the sofa he began to twitch the
ear of her pug, which lay coiled up asleep beside him, calling it an ugly
little pestilence, and wondering why she carried it about with her. Glory
protested that it was an angel of a dog, whereupon he supposed it was now
dreaming of paradise--listen!--and then there were audible snores in the
silence, and everybody laughed, and Glory screamed.

"I declare, on my honour, my dear," said Drake with a mischievous look at
John, "the creature is uglier than the