t deal
better even now, but they felt charmingly petted and soothed. Again
the manicurist ran her eye over the other from head to heel, letting
her glance rest at last upon her face.

"A face massage, madame?" she suggested.

Marie hesitated, and the girl added, smiling: "It would be half a
crown."

"I have not time to-day, thank you," Marie said, rising. She paid for
the manicure and left the warm and scented place; she had nowhere
particular to go, no one to talk to, and yet she did not wish to go
home so early. It would have been a tame ending to her day and,
besides, she had not seen all yet. She wanted to see the lights rise
and twinkle along the streets, to watch the evening life come in like
a tide, wave upon wave breaking musically upon the city's shore; and
to feel that even then, though six o'clock had passed, and seven, and
eight, she was yet her own mistress. She was sampling sensations, not
altogether new, but at any rate long forgotten. It occurred to her, as
she turned out of the Beauty Shop, to go and call upon someone; but
upon whom? She knew, as she asked the question of herself, that, while
she had lost a score of light-hearted acquaintances upon her wedding
day, she had since been too busy to make more. There were upon her
limited horizon, in fact, only Julia and Rokeby. Julia, at this moment
still afternoon, would be involved in much business, someone else's
business which she could not put aside as if it were her own to do as
she pleased with; but Rokeby called no man master.

She hardly knew why she thought of going to tell Rokeby her news, but
there was a want in her, a want of a wise someone's comments, a kind
someone's sympathy. She boarded a City omnibus and was carried to King
William Street.

Here Desmond had his prosperous shipbroking office, and made his
enviable thousands and sharpened his innately sharp brain, so well
concealed below his lacklustre, almost naive, exterior.

A lift carried her up to the third floor, where she arrived before a
door upon the glass panels of which were blazoned his name and
profession, and pushing it open, she asked for him uncertainly. A
clerk said doubtfully: "Have you come about the typist's situation?"
and looked at her in a summary fashion which made her timid.

She hated this timidity which had grown upon her with the married
years; a timidity based upon loss of trust in her womanly powers, loss
of the natural arrogance of beauty. Holding her