one-half since their rise to power, and our Stettin
ambassador was priming me regarding a demand for further reductions,
prior to actual disarmament, to provide funds for the fixing of a
minimum day's pay and a maximum day's work.

The gentleman from Stettin was to provide us with material for a special
article and a leading article. His proposals were to be made a
"feature." However, I thought I had gone far enough with him at this
time; and so, looking from his pendulous jowl to the card in my hand, I
told Rivers to ask the lady to wait for two minutes, and to say that I
would see her then. I remember Herr Mitmann found the occasion
opportune for the airing of what I suppose he would have called his
sense of humour. His English and his front teeth were equally badly
broken, and his taste in jokes was almost as swinishly gross as his
appearance. But I was able to be quit of him at length, and then Rivers
ushered in Miss Constance Grey.

As I rose to provide my visitor with a chair, I received the impression
that she was a young and quietly well-dressed woman, with a notable pair
of dark eyes. I thought of her as being no more than five-and-twenty
years of age and pleasant to look upon. But her eyes were the feature
that seized one's attention. They produced an impression of light and
brilliancy, of vigour, intelligence, and charm.

"I called to see you at the office of the _Daily Gazette_, Mr. Mordan,
and this was the only address of yours they could give me, or I should
have hesitated about intruding on you in working hours. I bring you an
introduction from John Crondall."

And with that she handed me a letter in Crondall's writing, and nodded
in a friendly way when I asked permission to read it at once.

"Please do," she said.

She had no particular accent, but yet her speech differed slightly from
that of the conventional Englishwoman of her class--the refined and
well-educated Englishwoman, that is. I suppose the difference was rather
one of expression, tone, and choice of phrase than a matter of accent. I
doubt if one could easily find an example of it nowadays, increased
communication having so much broadened our own colloquial diction that
many of its conventional peculiarities have disappeared. But it existed
then, and after a time I learned to place it as characteristic of the
speech of Greater Britain, as distinguished from the English of those of
us who lived always in this capital centre of the Empir