She started nervously, none the less, when her telephone bell broke the silence, an hour later, for that shrill of sound suddenly translated itself into something as ominous as the starting-gong of undefined combat. She even hesitated, for a moment, as to whether or not she would answer that call. But besides being tired of silence and indecision she was a person of habitual promptitude in movement. So temperament in the end asserted itself. With a deep breath, she took the receiver from its hook and answered the call. “This is William Shotwell, the senior member of the firm of Shotwell, Attridge and Bannister, speaking,” a suave and dignified voice announced over the wire, once she had acknowledged her identity. “And I’ve been wondering, Miss Hayden, if it would be convenient for you to drop down to my office some time this afternoon for a short conference?” “And what would the nature and object of that conference be?” inquired Teddie, as coolly as she was able. “That, I’m afraid, is a matter it would be inexpedient to discuss over the telephone,” was the none too tranquillizing response. “But I might mention that the client whose interests I am compelled to look after in this case is Mr. Raoul Uhlan, the well-known portrait-painter.” A cold chill crept slowly up through Teddie’s body. “I really don’t think it would be possible for me to come down to your office,” she said in an exceptionally controlled voice. She was going to add “Either this afternoon or any other afternoon,” but instinct told her to suppress the impulse. “In that case,” continued the persistently suave voice, “perhaps it would be advisable for me to run up to see you, so that there may be no undue loss of time.” Teddie wavered, for all too recent events had been combining to test the metal of her emancipation. Yet disturbed as she may have been, she was not without still undrained reservoirs of courage. “Yes, that might be better,” she finally admitted. “I shall be up within an hour,” was the crisp ultimatum with which the brief colloquy was concluded. And Teddie, reverting to her pretense of working, felt more than ever alone in the world. Life seemed emptier than on the day she had learned her curate had married the Chautauqua singer, emptier even than that black day when the butler, acting under orders from above-stairs, had drowned her mongrel pup for merely eating the tapestry off a library Chesterfield. And her new environment, as she stared about the high-ceilinged studio, seemed to stand as bald as that denuded Chesterfield had stood, as destitute of padded graces and relieving softnesses, an empty and ugly skeleton, a thing of obtruding bones quite barren of comfort.