e air in its wings.

"Dolly--this is Miss Bishop--my sister, Mrs. Durlacher." Traill
stamped through the ceremony, like a man through a ploughed field.

In the minute fraction of time that followed--so short that no one
in reason could call it a pause--Mrs. Durlacher had moulded a swift
impression of Sally. Two facts--guide-ropes across a swinging
bridge--she held to for support in her sudden calculation. Firstly,
Sally's appearance--the quiet, inexpensive display of a gentle taste.
The blouse, showing through the little short-waisted
coat--home-made--that, seen at a glance. The hat, with its quite
artistic and unobtrusive colours--self-trimmed--the frame-work a
year behind the fashion. The gloves, no holes in them, but well-worn.
The skirt--not badly cut, but obviously a cheap material. The person,
herself--more than probably a milliner's assistant. Secondly, the
fact that she was in her brother's rooms. She knew Jack's dealings
with women--did not even close her eyes to them--admitted them to
be human and natural so long as he refrained from tying himself up
with any one of them and thereby irretrievably separating himself
from her and her set. With these two facts, then, she made her
ultimate deduction of Sally's identity--a milliner's assistant,
with a pardonable freedom of thought in the matter of propriety--and
on that deduction, she acted accordingly. Ah, but it was acting that
was finished and superb!

Her manner was gracious--she was compelled to accept her brother at
his word, that he would let no one in who could offend her sense of
propriety--yet it was graciousness which you saw through a polished
glass, but could not touch. When Sally half-ventured forward with
hand tentatively lifting, she bowed first--made it plain to Sally
that in such a manner introductions were taken--then generously
offered her hand, palpably to ease Sally's confusion.

Dressed as she was, looking as she did, in comparison with Sally,
she held all the weapons. She could play them, wield them, just as
she wished. Well-frocked, looking her best, a woman is a dangerous
animal; but throw her in contact with another of her sex who is but
poorly clad, socially beneath her, and in training her inferior, and
you may behold all the grace, all the symmetry of the cobra as it
unwinds its beautiful, sinuous body before the eyes of its
panic-stricken prey.

The fact that her brother had admitted Sally to the room, made Mrs.
Durlacher reali