about things like that--it takes the bloom off. Don't you feel that way
about your privileges now and then? Don't they look rather dusty and
battered to you after a day's exposure in Bow Bazaar?"

There came a light crunch of wheels on the red kunker drive outside and
a switch past the bunch of sword ferns that grew beside the door. The
muffled crescendo of steps on the stair and the sound of an inquiry
penetrated from beyond the portière, and without further preliminary
Duff Lindsay came into the room.

"Do I interrupt a rehearsal?" he asked; but there was nothing in the way
he walked across the room to Hilda Howe to suggest that the idea abashed
him. For her part, she rose and made one short step to meet him, and
then received him, as it were, with both hands and all her heart.

"How ridiculous you are!" she cried. "Of course not. And let me tell you
it is very nice of you to come this very first day, when one was dying
to be welcomed. Miss Filbert came too, and we have been talking about
our respective walks in life. Let me introduce you. Miss
Filbert--Captain Filbert, of the Salvation Army--Mr. Duff Lindsay of
Calcutta."

She watched with interest the gravity with which they bowed, and
differentiated it; his the simple formality of his class, Laura's a
repressed hostility to such an epitome of the world as he looked,
although any Bond street tailor would have impeached his waistcoat, and
one shabby glove had manifestly never been on. Yet Miss Filbert's first
words seemed to show a slight unbending. "Won't you sit there?" she
said, indicating the sofa corner she had been occupying. "You get the
glare from the window where you are." It was virtually a command,