rapidly reasserting control of his faculties. And with this shade of
emotion came complete reassurance.

His name had been uttered in no stern or menacing tone; rather its
syllables had been pitched in a low and guarded key, with an undernote of
raillery and cordiality. In brief, the moment that he recognized the voice
as a woman's, he was again master of himself, and, aware that the result of
his instinctive impulse to rise and defend himself, which had brought him
to a standing position, would be interpreted as only the natural action of
a gentleman addressed by a feminine acquaintance, he was confident that he
had not betrayed his primal consternation. He bowed, smiled, and with eyes
in which astonishment swiftly gave place to gratification and complete
comprehension, appraised her who had addressed him.

She seemed to have fluttered to the table, beside which she now stood,
slightly swaying, her walking costume of grey shot silk falling about her
in soft, tremulous petals. Dainty, chic, well-poised, serene, flawlessly
pretty in her miniature fashion: Anisty recognized her in a twinkling.
His perceptions, trained to observations as instantaneous as those of
a snap-shot camera, and well-nigh as accurate, had photographed her
individuality indelibly upon the film of his memory, even in the
abbreviated encounter of the previous night.

By a similar play of educated reasoning faculties keyed to the highest
pitch of immediate action, he had difficulty as scant in accounting for her
presence there. What he did not quite comprehend was why Maitland had
used her so kindly; for it had been plain enough that that gentleman had
surprised her in the act of safe-breaking before conniving at her escape.
But, allowing that Maitland's actions had been based upon motives vague to
the burglar's understanding, it was quite in the scheme of possibilities