ere Miss Meta Mostyn
Ford and Lady Arabel Higgins. Miss Ford was a good woman, as well as a
lady. Her hands were beautiful because they paid a manicurist to keep
them so, but she was too righteous to powder her nose. She was the sort
of person a man would like his best friend to marry. Lady Arabel was
older: she was virtuous to the same extent as Achilles was invulnerable.
In the beginning, when her soul was being soaked in virtue, the heel of
it was fortunately left dry. She had a husband, but no apparent tragedy
in her life. These two women were obviously not native to their
surroundings. Their eyelashes brought Bond Street--or at least
Kensington--to mind; their shoes were mudless; their gloves had not been
bought in the sales. Of the sixth woman the less said the better.

All six women were there because their country was at war, and because
they felt it to be their duty to assist it to remain at war for the
present. They were the nucleus of a committee on War Savings, and they
were waiting for their Chairman, who was the Mayor of the borough. He
was also a grocer.

Five of the members were discussing methods of persuading poor people to
save money. The sixth was making spots on the table with a pen.

They were interrupted, not by the expected Mayor, but by a young woman,
who came violently in by the street door, rushed into the middle of the
room, and got under the table. The members, in surprise, pushed back
their chairs and made ladylike noises of protest and inquiry.

"They're after me," panted the person under the table.

All seven listened to thumping silence for several seconds, and then, as
no pursuing outcry declared itself, the Stranger arose, without grace,
from her hiding-place.

To anybody except a member of a committee it would have been obvious
that the Stranger was of the Cinderella type, and bound to turn out a
heroine sooner or later. But perception goes out of committees. The more
committees you belong to, the less of ordinary life you will understand.
When your daily round becomes nothing more than a daily round of
committees you might as well be dead.

The Stranger was not pretty; she had a broad, curious face. Her clothes
were much too good to throw away. You would have enjoyed giving them to
a decayed gentlewoman.

"I stole this bun," she explained frankly. "There is an uninterned
German baker after me."

"And why did you steal it?" asked Miss Ford, pronouncing the H in "why"
with a