mmittee will feel as grateful to her as I do."

As there had been smiles at the turn of his phrase about Miss Trewas,
so now there were fervent, almost emotional, "Hear-hears."

"Mrs. Smith, will you please read the minutes of the last meeting."

Concepcion was sitting at his left hand. He kept thinking, "I'm one of
those who get things done." Two hours ago, and the idea of enlisting
her had not even occurred to him, and already he had taken her out
of her burrow, brought her to the offices, coached her in the
preliminaries of her allotted task, and introduced several important
members of the committee to her! It was an achievement.

Never had the minutes been listened to with such attention as they
obtained that day. Concepcion was apparently not in the least nervous,
and she read very well--far better than the deserter Miss Trewas, who
could not open her mouth without bridling. Concepcion held the room.
Those who had not seen before the celebrated Concepcion Iquist now saw
her and sated their eyes upon her. She had been less a woman than a
legend. The romance of South America enveloped her, and the romance of
her famous and notorious uncle, of her triumph over the West End, her
startling marriage and swift widowing, her journey to America and her
complete disappearance, her attachment to Lady Queenie, and now her
dramatic reappearance.

And the sharp condiment to all this was the general knowledge of the
bachelor G.J.'s long intimacy with her, and of their having both
been at Lechford House on the night of the raid, and both been at
the inquest on the body of Lady Queenie Paulle on that very day.
But nobody could have guessed from their placid and self-possessed
demeanour that either of them had just emerged from a series of
ordeals. They won a deep and full respect. Still, some people ventured
to have their own ideas; and an ingenuous few were surprised to find
that the legend was only a woman after all, and a rather worn
woman, not indeed very recognisable from her innumerable portraits.
Nevertheless the respect for the pair was even increased when G.J.
broached the first item on the agenda--a resolution of respectful
sympathy with the Marquis and Marchioness of Lechford in their
bereavement, of profound appreciation of the services of Lady Queenie
on the committee, and of an intention to send by the chairman to the
funeral a wreath to be subscribed for by the members. G.J. proposed
the resolution himself, and