"Ah!" I said, ironically, "you are going to be a sister to me, as they
say." She might have come the bogy over me last night in the moonlight,
but now ... There was a spice of danger about it, too, just a touch
lurking somewhere. Besides, she was good-looking and well set up, and I
couldn't see what could touch me. Even if it did, even if I got into a
mess, I had no relatives, not even a friend, to be worried about me. I
stood quite alone, and I half relished the idea of getting into a
mess--it would be part of life, too. I was going to have a little money,
and she excited my curiosity. I was tingling to know what she was really
at.

"And one might ask," I said, "what you are doing in this--in this...." I
was at a loss for a word to describe the room--the smugness parading as
professional Bohemianism.

"Oh, I am about my own business," she said, "I told you last night--have
you forgotten?"

"Last night you were to inherit the earth," I reminded her, "and one
doesn't start in a place like this. Now I should have gone--well--I
should have gone to some politician's house--a cabinet minister's--say
to Gurnard's. He's the coming man, isn't he?"

"Why, yes," she answered, "he's the coming man."

You will remember that, in those days, Gurnard was only the dark horse
of the ministry. I knew little enough of these things, despised politics
generally; they simply didn't interest me. Gurnard I disliked
platonically; perhaps because his face was a little enigmatic--a little
repulsive. The country, then, was in the position of having no