dress the effect of it out of sight. She took her neck in both hands, as
it were, and put it more on show, so that you had really to like it. Now
it lifted her face, though she was not a tall person, well towards the
level of his; to be sure, he was himself only of the middle height of
men, though an aquiline profile helped him up.

He stirred the tea which he had ceased to drink, and said, "I wasn't
'laughing so about,' Mrs. Westangle. It was Miss Macroyd."

"And I was laughing so about a mysterious stranger that came up on the
train with us and got out at your station."

"And I was trying to make out what was so funny in a mysterious stranger,
or even in her getting out at your station."

Mrs. Westangle was not interested in the case, or else she failed to
seize the joke. At any rate, she turned from them without further
question and went away to another part of the room, where she
semi-attached herself in like manner to another couple, and again left it
for still another. This was possibly her idea of looking after her
guests; but when she had looked after them a little longer in that way
she left the room and let them look after themselves till dinner.

"Come, Mr. Verrian," Miss Macroyd resumed, "what is the secret? I'll
never tell if you tell me."

"You won't if I don't."

"Now you are becoming merely trivial. You are ceasing even to be
provoking." Miss Macroyd, in token of her displeasure, laughed no