ch other's backs?"

"She'd want more than a stitch," Mrs. Durlacher replied, "if she's
not going to put on more clothes than that."

Traill shrugged his shoulders, half conscious of a comparison
between his sister and the quiet reserve of this girl beside him.
He had thought her pretty, seeing her at a distance on the night when
he had dined with Dolly. Meeting her the day before, in the dim light
of the drawing-room at Sloane Street, he had found her still more
attractive; but on this evening, in the glamour of bright
lights--young, fresh, charming as she seemed to him--his senses were
swept by her fascination.

At all times a beautiful woman is wonderful--the thing of beauty and
the joy for ever; the phrase that comes naturally to the mind. But
when, conscious of her own attractions, she lends that beauty to the
expression of pleasure which she finds in the company of the man
beside her, then, to possibly that man alone, but certainly to him,
she is doubly beautiful. Nature indeed had been generous with Coralie
Standish-Roe. Nature has her moods and her devilish humours. She was
more than amiable when she bestowed her gifts upon Coralie. You may
talk about the value of a noble heart beating in an empty corset,
shining out of pinched and tired eyes; but it is a value, unmarketable,
where the good things in a woman's life are given in exchange. Janet
Hallard and her like have learnt the realization of that. And of the
qualities of noble-heartedness, Coralie possessed but very few. Her
disposition was intensely selfish. She took all the admiration that
she could get--and it was infinitely more than some women dream
of--with a grace of gratitude whose parallel may be found in the
schoolboy galloping through one helping of food that he may begin
another. Her hunger for it was insatiable, but she was too young as
yet for any such reputation to have fastened itself upon her; too
young for the manner which becomes the natural expression of women
of this type to have blotted out her undeniable charm of youth. Youth
saved her from Traill's critical appreciation of women. Two years
later he would have passed her with a momentary lifting of interest
which she herself would unconsciously have dispelled at the first
touch of acquaintance. Now, he was not only thrilled, he was
interested. She was a child. He found her so--as much a child as Sally
had been. Add her beauty to that--a beauty unquestionably greater
than the simple c