Trotter cleared his throat. "Oh, you wouldn't know, of course," she observed. "Go on, Trotter. You were telling me about your family in--was it Chester? Your dear old mother and the little sisters. I am very much interested." Trotter looked around cautiously, and again cleared his throat. "It is awfully good of you to be interested in my people," he said, an uneasy note in his voice. For his life, he could not remember just what he had been telling her in response to her inquiries. The whole thing had been knocked out of his head by the sudden appearance of one who knew that he had no dear old mother in Chester, nor little sisters anywhere who depended largely on him for support! "Chester," he said, rather vaguely. "Yes, to be sure,--Chester. Not far from Liverpool, you know,--it's where the cathedral is." "Tell me all about them," she persisted, leaning a little closer to the window, an encouraging smile on her carmine lips. In due time the impassive Mr. Moody issued forth from his private office and bore down upon the two matrons, who, having no especial love for each other, were striving their utmost to be cordial without compromising themselves by being agreeable. Mrs. Millidew the elder, arrayed in many colours, was telling Mrs. Smith-Parvis about a new masseuse she had discovered, and Mrs. Smith-Parvis was talking freely at the same time about a person named Juneo. Miss Emsdale had drifted over toward the broad show window looking out upon the cross-town street, where Thomas Trotter was visible,--out of the corner of her eye. Also the younger Mrs. Millidew. Stuyvesant, sullenly smoking a cigarette, lolled against a show-case across the room, dropping ashes every minute or two into the mouth of a fragile and, for the time being, priceless vase that happened to be conveniently located near his elbow. Mr. Moody adjusted his monocle and eyed his matronly visitors in a most unfeeling way. "Ah,--good awfternoon, Mrs. Millidew. Good awfternoon, Mrs. Smith-Parvis," he said, and then catching sight of an apparently neglected customer in the offing, beckoned to a smart looking salesman, and said, quite loudly: "See what that young man wants, Proctor." The young man, who happened to be young Mr. Smith-Parvis, started violently,--and glared. "Stupid blight-ah!" he said, also quite loudly, and disgustedly chucked his cigarette into the vase, whereupon the salesman, in some horror, grabbed it up and dumped the contents upon the floor. "You shouldn't do that, you know," he said, in a moment of righteous forgetfulness. "That's a peach-blow--" "Oh, is it?" snapped Stuyvesant, and walked away. "That is my son, Mr. Moody," explained Mrs. Smith-Parvis quickly. "Poor dear, he hates so to shop with me."