those she considered exactly the right people.

"I don't think I have----" she commenced in her most primpsy voice,
when she was interrupted with a perfectly odious familiarity.

"Now you're not going to say that you don't remember our little
meetings in Earls Court _and_ Fleet Street and"--the man spoke with an
extreme slowness as though keeping guard over each letter of each
word--"_and_ our little correspondence, come now."

Leonie frowned and moved a step forward protectingly as her aunt caught
suddenly at the door handle, and then jerked herself forward with
outstretched hand.

"Auntie, dear----"

But her aunt was speaking in the falsetto of forced levity, and Leonie
held her peace and waited for an opportunity to slip past and into the
house.

"Why, I do believe," said Susan Hetth, suddenly metamorphosed by a
certain tone in the man's voice into the terrified woman of years ago,
"Yes! I do believe it is Mr. Walter Hickle----"

"_Sir_ Walter, _if_ you please."

"Indeed, in-deed--how _very_ delightful, and after _all_ these years!
Leonie, this is--is--er----"

"I'm one of your aunt's friends, Miss Leonie, bobbed up out of the