him in the
face and still feel angry. Though now she would no longer have taken him
for Martin, the resemblance still seemed to her startling. He had the
same rich eyes--with an added trifle of impudence under the same
veiling, womanish lashes, the same black sweep of hair from a rather
low forehead, the same graceful setting of the head, though he had not
Martin's breadth of shoulder or deceiving air of strength.

Her hesitation gave him his opportunity.

"You aren't going to scold me, are you? I couldn't help it."

His unlovely, Cockney voice had in it a stroking quality. It stirred
something in the depths of Joanna's heart. Once again she tried to speak
and could not.

"It's such a lovely night--just the sort of night you feel lonely,
unless you've got someone very nice with you."

This was terribly true.

"And you did give me the glad eye, you know."

"I didn't mean to." She had found her voice at last. "I--I thought you
were someone else; at least I--"

"Are you expecting a friend?"

"Oh, no--no one. It was a mistake."

"Then mayn't I stay and talk to you--just for a bit. I'm here all alone,
you know--a fortnight's holiday. I don't know anyone."

By this time he had dragged all her features out of the darkness, and
saw that she was not quite what he had first taken her for. He had never
thought she was a girl--his taste was for maturity--but he had not
imagined her of the obviously well-to-do and respectable class to which
she evidently belonged. He saw now that her clothes were of a
fashionable cut, that she had about her a generally expensive air, and
at the same time he knew enough to tell that she was not what he called
a lady. He found her rather difficult to place. Perhaps she was a
wealthy milliner on a holiday ... but, her accent--you could lean up
against it ... well, anyhow she was a damn fine woman.

"What do you think of the band?" he asked, subtly altering the tone of
the conversation which he saw now had been pitched too low.

"I think it a proper fine band."

"So it is. They're going to play 'The Merry Widow' next--ever seen it?"

"No, never. I was never at a play but once, which they did at the
Monastery at Rye in aid of Lady Buller's Fund when we was fighting the
Boers. 'Our Flat' it was called, and all done by respectable people--not
an actor or an actress among 'em."

What on earth had he picked up?

"Do you live at Rye?"

"I live two mile out of it--Ansdore's the name of m