* * * * * Leonora had watched Twemlow's demeanour from the moment when she met him in her husband's office. She had guessed, but not certainly, that it was still inimical at least to John, and the exact words of Uncle Meshach's warning had recurred to her time after time as she met his reluctant, cautious eyes. Nevertheless, it was by the sudden uprush of an instinct, rather than by a calculated design, that she, in her home and surrounded by her daughters, began the process of enmeshing him in the web of influences which she spun ceaselessly from the bright threads of her own individuality. Her mind had food for sombre preoccupation--the lost battle with Milly during the day about Milly's comic-opera housekeeping; the tale told by John's nervous, effusive, guilty manner; and especially the episode of the letter from Dain and John's disappearance: these things were grave enough to the mother and wife. But they receded like negligible trifles into the distance as she rose so suddenly and with such a radiant impulse from the piano. In the new enterprise of consciously arousing the sympathy of a man, she had almost forgotten even the desperate motive which had decided her to undertake it should she get the chance. 'Tell me about American women,' she said. All her person was a challenge. And then: 'Would you mind shutting the door after Jack?' She followed him with her gaze as he crossed and recrossed the room. 'What about American women?' he said, dropping all his previous reserve like a garment. 'What do you want to know?' 'I've never seen one. I want to know what makes them so charming.' The fresh desirous interest in her voice flattered him, and he smiled his content. 'Oh!' he drawled, leaning back in his chair, which faced hers by the fire. 'I never noticed they were so specially charming. Some of them are pretty nice, I expect, but most of the young ones put on too much lugs, at any rate for an Englishman.' 'But they're always marrying Englishmen. So how do you explain that? I did think you'd be able to tell me about the American women.' 'Perhaps I haven't met enough of just the right sort,' he said. 'You're too critical,' she remarked, as though his case was a peculiarly interesting one and she was studying it on its merits. 'You only say that because I'm over forty and unmarried, Mrs. Stanway. I'm not at all critical.' 'Over forty!' she exclaimed, and left a pause. He nodded. 'But you are too critical,' she went on. 'It isn't that women don't interest you--they do----' 'I should think they did,' he murmured, gratified. 'But you expect too much from them.' 'Look here!' he said, 'how do you know?' She smiled with an assumption of the sadness of all knowledge; she made him feel like a boy again: 'If you didn't expect too much from them, you would have married long ago. It isn't as if you hadn't seen the world.'