reached their climax in her dismissal. Her parting look, falling
from Corliss's face to the waste-basket at his feet, just touched
the rose in his hand as she passed through the door.



CHAPTER TWO

Cora paused in the hall at a point about twenty feet from the
door, a girlish stratagem frequently of surprising advantage to
the practitioner; but the two men had begun to speak of the
weather. Suffering a momentary disappointment, she went on,
stepping silently, and passed through a door at the end of the
hall into a large and barren looking dining-room, stiffly and
skimpily furnished, but well-lighted, owing to the fact that one
end of it had been transformed into a narrow "conservatory," a
glass alcove now tenanted by two dried palms and a number of
vacant jars and earthen crocks.

Here her sister sat by an open window, repairing masculine
underwear; and a handsome, shabby, dirty boy of about thirteen
sprawled on the floor of the "conservatory" unloosing upon its
innocent, cracked, old black and white tiles a ghastly family of
snakes, owls, and visaged crescent moons, in orange, green, and
other loathsome chalks. As Cora entered from the hall, a woman of
fifty came in at a door opposite, and, a dust-cloth retained under
her left arm, an unsheathed weapon ready for emergency, leaned
sociably against the door-casing and continued to polish a
tablespoon with a bit of powdered chamois-skin. She was tall and
slightly bent; and, like the flat, old, silver spoon in her hand,