in business hours. Her
thin, rather high voice, which somehow matched her complexion and
carriage, had its customary tone of amiable insolence, and her tired,
drooping eyes their equivocal glance, as she faced the bearded and
grave middle-aged bachelor and the handsome, muscular boy; even the
boy was older than Queen, yet she seemed to condescend to them as if
she were an immortal from everlasting to everlasting and could teach
both of them all sorts of useful things about life. Nobody could have
guessed from that serene demeanour that her self-satisfaction was
marred by any untoward detail whatever. Yet it was. All her frocks
were designed to conceal a serious defect which seriously disturbed
her: she was low-breasted.

G.J. said bluntly:

"May I present Mr. Molder?--Lady Queenie Paulle."

And he said to himself, secretly annoyed:

"Dash the infernal chit. That's what she's come for. Now she's got
it."

She gave the slightest, dubious nod to Molder, who, having faced
fighting Turks with an equanimity equal to Queenie's own, was yet
considerably flurried by the presence and the gaze of this legendary
girl. Queenie, enjoying his agitation, but affecting to ignore him,
began to talk quickly in the vein of exclusive gossip; she mentioned
in a few seconds the topics of the imminent entry of Bulgaria into
the war, the maturing Salonika expedition, the confidential terrible
utterances of K. on recruiting, and, of course, the misfortune (due to
causes which Queenie had at her finger-ends) round about Loos. Then
in regard to the last she suddenly added, quite unjustifiably implying
that the two phenomena were connected: "You know, mother's hospitals
are frightfully full just now.... But, of course, you do know. That's
why I'm so specially glad to-day's such a success."

Thus in a moment, and with no more than ten phrases, she had conveyed
the suggestion that while mere soldiers, ageing men-about-town, and
the ingenuous mass of the public might and did foolishly imagine the
war to be a simple affair, she herself, by reason of her intelligence
and her private sources of knowledge, had a full, unique apprehension
of its extremely complex and various formidableness. G.J. resented the
familiar attitude, and he resented Queenie's very appearance and the
appearance of the entire opulent scene. In his head at that precise
instant were not only the statistics of mortality and major operations
at the Lechford Hospitals, but also