won't wait for ever! Got that note, dear?"

Maggie was defiant. She would just show the creature that she wasn't
afraid of her. She'd give her the note and she might imagine what she
pleased.

She got a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote hurriedly.

The week is up on Friday. Will you meet me that evening at a quarter
past six under the Marble Arch? MAGGIE.

The boldness, the excitement of this inflamed her. It was so like her
to challenge any action once she was in it by taking it to its furthest
limit. She put it in an envelope and wrote Martin's name with a
flourish.

"There!" she said, giving it to Caroline.

"Thank you," said Caroline, and with a number of rather wet and
elaborate kisses (Maggie hated kissing) departed.

But her afternoon was not yet over; hardly had Caroline left when the
door was opened and Miss Avies was shown in. Maggie started up with
dismay and began to stammer excuses. Miss Avies brushed them aside.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "You'll do as well--even, it may be,
better."

A strange woman Miss Avies! Maggie had, of course, seen her at Chapel,
but this was the first time that they had been alone together. Miss
Avies was like a thin rod of black metal, erect and quivering and
waiting to strike. Her long sallow face was stiff, not with outraged
virtue, or elaborate pride, or burning scorn, but simply with the
accumulated concentration of fiery determination. She was the very
symbol of self-centred energy, inhuman, cold, relentless. Her hair was
jet black and gleamed like steel, and she had thick black eyebrows like
ink-marks against her forehead of parchment. Her eyes were dead, like
glass eyes, and she had some false teeth that sometimes clicked in her
mouth. She wore a black dress with no ornament and thin black gloves.

She did not seem, however, to Maggie unkindly, as she stood there,
looking about the room rather short-sightedly. (She would not wear
glasses. Could it have been vanity?) She was not hostile, nor scornful,
nor even patronising ... but had Maggie been struck there, dead at her
feet she would not have moved a step to help her. Her voice was ugly,
with a crack in it, as though it needed oil. Maggie, as she looked at
her, did not need to be told that she did not believe in Mr. Warlock's
mysticism. She came across and shook Maggie's hand. Her touch was cold
and stiff and a little damp like that of a wet stone.

"Sorry your Aunt's out," she said, "but I can talk