rooms where Vance and she exhibited their mind reading tricks,
had been made much of by great ladies and, for an hour as brief
as Cinderella's, had looked upon a world of kind and well-bred
people. Since she was fourteen, for seven years, this had been
her life -- a life as open to the public as the life of an
actress, as easy of access as that of the stenographer in the
hotel lobby. As a result, the girl had encased herself in a
defensive armor of hardness and distrust, a protection which was
rendered futile by the loveliness of her face, by the softness
of her voice, by the deep, brooding eyes, and the fine forehead
on which, like a crown, rested the black waves of her hair.

In her work Vera accepted, without question, the parts to which
Vance assigned her. When in their mummeries they were
successful, she neither enjoyed the credulity of those they had
tricked nor was sobered with remorse. In the world Vance found a
certain number of people with money who demanded to be fooled.
It was his business and hers to meet that demand. If ever the
conscience of either stirred restlessly, Vance soothed it by the
easy answer that if they did not take the money some one else
would. It was all in the day's work. It was her profession.

As she entered the library of Mr. Hallowell, which, with Vance,
she already had visited several times, she looked like a child
masquerading in her mother's finery. She suggested an ingenue
who had been suddenly sent on in the role of the Russian
adventuress. Her slight girl's figure was draped in black lace.
Her face was shaded by a large picture hat, heavy with drooping
ostrich feathers; around her shoulders was a necklace of jade,
and on her wrists many bracelets of silver gilt. When she moved