It might have seemed the oldest and the vulgarest story in the world. The weak, trusting maiden, the handsome, promissory villain, the flight, the rude awakening and Conviction of Sin, and then the piteous Return (Act III, Curtain) to Forgiveness, a black shawl, Quick Decline, and Death: these things have wrung the gallery's scalding tears from farther back than we can remember. But well Charles Garrott understood that Miss Trevenna's "case" had nothing to do with this cheap business. He thought it right enough, of course (theoretically speaking), that Mary Wing should sympathize with a sister in distress. And yet.... Well, no one, certainly, had "deceived" or "betrayed" Miss Trevenna. Quite probably she had proposed the excursion herself, like one of the glorious heroines at the moment educating British maidenhood. Miss Trevenna had gone with her lover because she had a Right to Her Happiness; she had gone to fulfil the Unwritten Law of Her Being; she had gone to Strike a Blow for Freedom. It was absurd to look for remorse in a black shawl here. And still, glancing after that oddly cloistral figure, the young man felt that the net effect was not so different from the sorry old melodrama, after all. He spoke suddenly, with a manner proving that he did not pride himself on wearing a mask for nothing:-- "Did you know that a woman's occipital condyles are less voluminous than a man's,--yes, considerably so,--while her zygomatic arches are more regular? Well, then, take my word for it, for they are." Miss Wing rewarded him by coming out of her abstraction with a laugh. She asked him in what great tome he had learned that fascinating fact. "Ah, that's my secret. By the way," said Charles, "how's that charming little cousin of yours, Miss Angela?" He spoke in his most natural voice, as if no thought of conflict had ever risen between him and the best of New Women. All the same, the cousin's name fell rather oddly on the advanced air. Mary Wing said that she hadn't seen Angela since the Redmantle Club; she said she must try to go there this afternoon. He remarked that being pulled up by the roots, and transplanted, was hard on the young, but that Miss Angela would make friends fast enough. Having a passion for biography, especially the biographies of women, he wanted particularly to learn something about this girl, who had given him, Charles Garrott, a phrase. But the talk now took another turn; it wasn't a day for discussing Home-Making clearly. Miss Hodger and Professor Clarence Pollock went walking by, across the sunny street, and Mary, having greeted them much too pleasantly to suit his taste, said:-- "Do you know this is the third time I've seen those two together lately? It begins to look like an affair." "What!" he cried, disgusted. "Why!--why, she'd bite his head off in a week!" And then, while she protested argumentatively, he was silent for a space, struck with the thought that here was an opening not unsuited to his need.