called by people in her own profession. While there
was something unmistakably professional in her frank _savoir-faire_,
"Jimmy's" was one of those faces to which the rouge never seems to
stick. Her eyes were keen and gray as a windy April sky, and so far from
having been seared by calcium lights, you might have fancied they had
never looked on anything less bucolic than growing fields and country
fairs. She wore her thick, brown hair short and parted at the side; and,
rather than hinting at freakishness, this seemed admirably in keeping
with her fresh, boyish countenance. She extended to Imogen a large,
well-shaped hand which it was a pleasure to clasp.

"Ah! You are Miss Willard, and I see I need not introduce myself. Flavia
said you were kind enough to express a wish to meet me, and I preferred
to meet you alone. Do you mind if I smoke?"

"Why, certainly not," said Imogen, somewhat disconcerted and looking
hurriedly about for matches.

"There, be calm, I'm always prepared," said Miss Broadwood, checking
Imogen's flurry with a soothing gesture, and producing an oddly
fashioned silver match-case from some mysterious recess in her dinner
gown. She sat down in a deep chair, crossed her patent-leather Oxfords,
and lit her cigarette. "This matchbox," she went on meditatively, "once
belonged to a Prussian officer. He shot himself in his bathtub, and I
bought it at the sale of his effects."

Imogen had not yet found any suitable reply to make to this rather
irrelevant confidence, when Miss Broadwood turned to her cordially: "I'm
awfully glad you've come, Miss Willard, though I've not quite decided
why you did it. I wanted very much to meet you. Flavia gave me your
thesis to read."

"Why, how funny!" ejaculated Imogen.

"On the contrary," remarked Miss Broadwood. "I thought it decidedly
lacked humor."

"I meant," stammered Imogen, beginning to feel very much like Alice
in Wonderland, "I meant that I thought it rather strange Mrs. Hamilton
should fancy you would be interested."

Miss Broadwood laughed heartily. "Now, don't let my rudeness frighten
you. Really, I found it very interesting, and no end impressive. You
see, most people in my profession are good for absolutely nothing else,
and, therefore, they have a deep and abiding conviction that in some
other line they might have shone. Strange to say, scholarship is the
object of our envious and particular admiration. Anything in type
impresses us greatly; that's wh