A quality of Rose Darragh's came out. She observed and deduced, to the amusement of herself and of others, with the swiftness and accuracy of M. Dupin or of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. They had a small corner table commanding the long, bright room. "Twenty tables," she said. "Men and women and a fair number of children. Not proportionately so large a number as once there would have been, and that is well, the bawlers of race-suicide to the contrary!--I'm interested in the women just now. Man's had the centre of the stage for so long!--and, of course, we know that this is the Century of the Child--see cotton-mills, glass-works, and canneries. But Woman--Woman's just coming out of the wings.... There's rather an interesting collection here to-night. Do you know any of them?" "I have spoken casually to several. I have been here, you know, only the shortest time." "There's a woman over there who has a wonderful face--brooding and wise.... A teacher isn't she? I should say she was not married." "Yes; she is a teacher, and single." "There's a woman who is a nurse." "Yes. There's a sick child in that family. But she is not in uniform to-night." "I know her all the same. She's a good nurse. There are those who are and those who aren't. But she's got strength and poise and knows what she is about and is kind.--Those two women over there--" "Yes. What do you make of them?" "There's such a glitter of diamonds you can't see the women. Poor things!--to be beings of a single element--to live in a world of pure carbon--to be the hardest thing there is, and yet be so brittle too!... The woman next them is good ordinary: nothing remarkable, and yet pleasant enough. The worst that can be said of her is that she doesn't discriminate. If the broth lacks salt, she never knows it." "And the two over there with the stout man?"