t you right--that's all."

"No, she hasn't got me right. I know she thought I was quite a
different person to what I really am."

"But how do you know that? She didn't tell you so when I'd gone out
to get that taxi, did she? What did she say to you then?"

"Oh no, she didn't tell me what she thought. Under the circumstances,
I'm sure she really treated me very well."

"I don't know about that," said Traill. "You must admit she was a
bit icy at first. That's her social way--the way of the whole set
when they meet strangers. One ought to bring a blast furnace when
one goes calling at their houses, instead of a visiting card. My God,
I've been to them myself, and I'd sooner undertake a job as look-out
on a ship bound for the north pole. They'd freeze the very marrow
in your bones."

Sally smiled--pleased--at his violent antipathy. "Don't you think
you'll ever become one of them, then?" she asked. "I expect you will."

"No, not in fifty lifetimes. Did she say I would?"

"She said she expected it."

"Did she? Well, I wouldn't give a brass farthing for her expectations.
Just like her to say that. I wonder what her game was. I wonder did
she think you could persuade me to it."

He looked up at her; but Sally said nothing. She could have told
him--told him to the letter what he wanted to know--but she said
nothing. Then he asked her again why she had come that evening to
see him.

"Is it anything to do with that parcel?" he asked suspiciously.

Her eyes turned to the little box in its wrapping of brown paper.
She reached out her hand and took it from the table.

"Yes," she replied.

"Oh, the bracelet?"

"Yes."

Her fingers attacked the knots on the string with half-hearted
enthusiasm.

"Doesn't it fit?" he questioned.

"Oh yes; it isn't that."

"Then what is it? You don't like it. Here--" he was growing impatient
of her fingers' futile attempts; "cut the string. You'll never untie
those knots. Here's a knife." He handed her one from his pocket. "You
don't like it, eh?" he repeated.

She looked straightly at him, eyes unmoved by the steady gaze in his.

"Do you really think that?" she asked. "That I'm bringing it back
because I don't like it?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. But if not that, then why?"

There was irritation in his voice; he made little attempt to conceal
it. It was his imagination that he had come to dealings with the type
of feather-brained woman who knows least of all what she wants whe