l at the switchboard and the
doorman, for some reason which I could never understand, were replaced
by an old negro who served as both, and who was the most garrulous,
indiscreet individual I have ever seen.

As if to affirm these characteristics he spoke to me the moment I had
entered, in a voice which seemed to be adapted to a general address to
the three or four other bachelors who were waiting in the frescoed
vestibule for a conveyance.

"Yaas, sah, Mr. Estabrook, sah. De dohman lef' a message, sah. Der has
been a lady waitin' foh you, sah, mos' all de ahfternoon. She comin'
back, she say--dis evenin'. She sutt'nly act very queer, sah."

"All right," I snapped. "It's one of my clients."

"Um-um," he said, shaking his head. "I spec she ain't, Mr. Estabrook,
sah. She mos' likely has pussonal business, sah!"

The others--Folsom the broker, and Madison, and Ingle the architect--had
evidently dined well, preparing for a musical comedy, and they snickered
without shame.

"Let my man know when she comes," said I, and without smiling hurried
into the elevator.

I had no belief that the woman, whoever she might be, would come back
after dark to call upon me. With my conflicting thoughts about Julianna,
I forgot the incident. It was therefore with some surprise that I heard
Saito, my Jap, arouse me from my sleepy reverie, to which exhaustion had
reduced my mind, to tell me that a lady was waiting in the reception
room downstairs.

You may understand the conservative nature of my life and habits more
thoroughly when I tell you that the mere idea that a woman had dared to
ask for me at my apartment in the evening caused me the greatest
anxiety. As if to prove what dependence we can put upon our intuitions,
I felt, on my way down, most strongly, that an evil event was about to
take place.

Nothing could, I think, better illustrate the nonsense of attaching
importance to these fore-warnings than to tell you that the woman who
waited for me was Julianna herself!

My first instinct, before I had been seen by her, was to hurry her out
of the garish little reception room, where, through the door which
opened into the hallway, she might well have been seen by anybody; it
was only when she greeted me and turned her face toward the tiled floor,
and I saw that her shoulders drooped and that her hands hung down at
her side, and that she stood like a guilty, punished, and remorseful
child, that my wish to protect her was displ