"Cora's a straight girl," said Miss Bonser, taking up the parable. "She's one of the plucky ones, is Cora. It's a hard world for lonely girls like her, isn't it, Gert?" "It is, dear," said Gert. "And one like Cora, whose position, as you might say, is uncertain, can't be too careful. You see, Harry, you have been coming to her flat for the best part of a year. You've been with her to the theater and the Coliseum; two Sundays ago she was seen with you on the river, and--well, she's been getting herself talked about, and that's all there is to it." "Cora's a girl in a thousand," chimed Zoe the tactful. "She worships the ground you walk on, Harry." A painfully startled look came suddenly into the eyes of the young man. Both ladies felt the look rather than saw it, and gave another sharp turn to the screw. "Of course, you haven't known it, Harry," said Miss Press. "She wouldn't let you know it. But that's Cora." "She would rather have died," said Zoe. "You will not breathe a word, of course, Harry. She would never forgive us if she knew we had let on." "That's her pride," said Miss Press. "And the way that poor thing cried her eyes out when you didn't turn up at tea time last Sunday as usual, the first time for nearly a year, well----" Language suddenly failed Miss Bonser. "A pretty job we had with her, hadn't we, Gert?" So cunningly had the screw been applied, that Mr. Harper felt dazed. Suddenly Miss Bonser raised a finger of warning. "Shush!" It was half a whisper, half a hiss. "Not a word. Here's Cora." Miss Dobbs came in so abruptly that she nearly caught the injunction. And hardly had she entered, when Miss Press and Miss Bonser rose together and declared that they must really be going. The hostess made a polite and conventional objection, but both ladies kissed her effusively and hustled her out into the passage. "Dobby," Miss Press whispered excitedly, as soon as they had reached that dark and smelly draught distributor, "we've fairly put the half Nelson on him. Now go in and fix him up." Miss Bonser and Miss Press tripped down the many unswept stone stairs of King John's Mansions, and Miss Dobbs closed the front door of No. 106. She then returned to Mr. Harper in the "boo-door." "Well, Harry," she said, "why didn't you come last Sunday?" Had the Sailor been true to his strongest instinct he would have fled. But he stayed where he was for several reasons, and of these the most cogent was quite a simple one. There was a will stronger than his own in the room just then. Miss Bonser and Miss Press, as became a long experience of the chase, had done their work with efficiency. The Sailor had not guessed that this friendly and amusing and very agreeable lady--in spite of the "Damn you"--was so very much in love with him. It was a wholly unexpected issue, for which the young man was inclined to blame himself bitterly.