All these specious arguments she put forward in a gentle, enticing, winning way--full of simplicity--full of honesty; but the principal reason that Mrs. Crossthwaite consented to become a party to this collusion was that she did not believe a single word of it. Romance! it is a word in itself, a thing in itself--a piece of fine-worked lace that must catch the eye of every woman, and which every woman would stitch to the Garment of maternity if she could. So it was arranged. In the vestibule of the rooms where the dance was held, John was formally introduced to the chaperon before he bore her charge away. Then they stepped into a hansom. "The Opera," said John, through the trap-door, carelessly, as though he went there most evenings of his life; for when you give your bread and butter to get a box at Covent Garden, hunger makes you talk like that. This is all part of the delight which you miss in having a box all the year round. And when they had got far away into the traffic--that passing to and fro of people, which is all a thumb-nail illustration of the stream of life--and when her heart had begun to beat a little less like a lark’s wings in a six-inch cage, Jill broke the silence. "What did Mrs. Crossthwaite say to you while I went to get my cloak?" she asked. "She was good enough to hope that I would call on her." "Oh! I’m so glad she’s asked you. Did she say anything else?" "She asked me if I lived in London all the year round. I said I did--except for a month in the year, when I went to Venice. Then she asked me what part of London I lived in." "She asked you that?" "Yes." Jill was silent for a few moments. It is always an interesting moment in a woman’s life when she learns something about her sex. "And what did you say?" she asked. John laughed. He thought he had said it rather neatly. "Oh, I’ve got rooms," he had said, "just between St. Paul’s and the Strand." Which might be the Inner Temple, if you had a nice mind with which to look at it. He told Jill this answer. She smiled. "And is it between St. Paul’s and the Strand?" she asked. "Roughly speaking--yes--but very roughly speaking." Again she was silent. Could it be that he was poor--at least, not well enough off to live at a good-sounding address? Could that have been why he was praying to St. Joseph on the eighteenth of March? Yet he was a member of the Martyrs’ Club, and here he was taking her to a box at Covent Garden. She looked up quickly into his face. This was more mystery than her desire for knowledge could afford. "Do you remember what you said to me once," she began, "about the woman with the gift of understanding?" "Yes--the first day that we met in Kensington Gardens." "Well--do you think I am absolutely ungifted that way?"