She came into the room with a complete absence of ceremony, as if she was perfectly at home. "Well, uncle, so you're back again." Mr. Holman looked her up and down without saying a word. Planting herself right in front of him she clasped her hands behind her back--impudently demure. "You can look at me." "So you have dyed your hair." "I have." "And cut it off." "And cut it off." "And fluffed it?" "Fluffed it? Crimped it, I suppose you mean. My dear uncle, if anybody offered to double your salary on condition that you dyed your hair, you'd dye it all the colours of the rainbow." Mr. Holman turned away. "Aren't you going to kiss me? You'd not only dye, you'd give your hair to kiss me if you weren't my uncle. How nice it is to have relations!" Mrs. Holman appeared at the door. "Never mind him, Hetty. He's come back in a bad temper." "Of course he's come back in a bad temper. Did you ever know him when he hadn't come back in a bad temper? He's the worst-tempered man I ever knew, and that's saying something." Mr. Holman seated himself in an arm-chair by the fire. The young lady sat on one of the arms. She smoothed her uncle's hair. "Dear uncle, how well you're looking." Mr. Holman shook his head, as if to remove it from the reach of her embrace. "Don't touch me." "And what a nice, kind look you've got in your eyes." "Hetty, I'm ashamed of you." "Oh, no, you're not. You're not half such a goose as you pretend to be." "I tell you that I am." "You're what? A goose. Dear uncle, I would never let any one call you a goose except yourself. Won't you kiss me?" The fair young face stooped down. The man's weather-beaten face looked up. The lips met. The kiss was interrupted by a series of exclamations which came from the back of the room. So unexpected and so startling a series of exclamations that Mr. Holman rose from his chair with such suddenness as almost to overturn his niece. "What's up now?" he asked. A good deal seemed to be up, at any rate with Mr. Haines. That gentleman was standing on the other side of the table staring at something which he was holding in his hand, giving vent to a variety of observations which were scarcely parliamentary. "It's Loo! Blamed if it ain't! It's my girl! It's Loo!" Throwing down what he was holding, he rushed at the detective like some wild animal. "Damn you!" he yelled. "It's Loo!" CHAPTER XXXV. THE WOMAN OF THE PORTRAIT. The detective easily avoided the man's blind rush, the result of which was that Mr. Haines all but cannoned into Mr. Holman's niece. Miss Hetty Johnson, however--the young lady's name was Johnson--seemed in no way disconcerted. "That's right. Knock me down and trample on me. I don't mind. I've done nothing to nobody. But it's all the same as if I had." Brought back by the young lady's words to a sense of reality, Mr. Haines spluttered out an apology.