oom in it. He wished to know how a scandal was
to be avoided when the place was swarming with old women. And, after
all, what had they got against Mrs. Tailleur except that she was better
looking by a long chalk, and better turned-out, than any of 'em? Of
course, he couldn't undertake to say--offhand--whether she was or wasn't
any better than she should be. But, in the absence of complaints, he
didn't consider the question a profitable one for a manager to go into
in the slack season.

All the manager's intelligence was concentrated in the small commercial
eye which winked, absurdly, in the solitude of his solemn and enormous
face. You must take people as you found them, said he, and for his part
he had always found Mrs. Tailleur----

But how the manager had found Mrs. Tailleur was never known to his wife,
for at this point she walked out of the private sitting-room and shut
herself into her bureau. Her opinion, more private even than that
sitting-room, consecrated to intimate dispute, was that where women were
concerned the manager was a perfect fool.

The window of the bureau looked out on to the vestibule and the big
staircase. And full in sight of the window Mrs. Tailleur was sitting on
a seat set under the stair. She had her hat on and carried a sunshade in
her hand, for the day was fine and warm. She was waiting for somebody.
And as she waited she amused herself by smiling at the little
four-year-old son of the management who played in the vestibule, it
being the slack season. He was running up and down the flagged floor,
dragging a little cart after him. And as he ran he never took his eyes
off the pretty lady. They said, every time, with the charming vanity of
childhood, "Look at me!" And Kitty looked at him, every time, and made,
every time, the right sort of smile that says to a little boy, "I see
you." Just then nobody was there to see Kitty but the manager's wife,
who stood at the window of the bureau and saw it all. And as the little
boy was not looking in the least where he was going, his feet were
presently snared in the rug where the pretty lady sat, and he would have
tumbled on his little nose if Kitty had not caught him.

He was going to cry, but Kitty stopped him just in time by lifting him
on to her lap and giving him her watch to look at. A marvellous watch
that was gold and blue and bordered with a ring of little sparkling
stones.

At that moment Robert Lucy came down the stairs. He came very