he won't bore you."

"Oh, she won't bore me."

"You're not afraid of that monotony?"

She turned and looked long at him. "You are very like your sister," she
said.

"Am I? How? In what way?"

"In the way we've been talking about. I suppose you know how remarkable
you are?"

"No; I really don't think I do."

"Then," said Mrs. Tailleur, "you are all the more remarkable."

"Don't you think," she added, "we had better go back?"

They went back. As they mounted the steps to the garden door they saw
Miss Keating approaching it from the inside. She moved along the low
wall that overlooked the path by which they had just come. There was no
crunching of pebbles under her feet. She trod, inaudibly, the soft edge
of the lawn.

Lucy held the door open for Miss Keating when Mrs. Tailleur had passed
through; but Miss Keating had turned suddenly. She made the pebbles on
the walk scream with the vehemence of her retreat.

"Dear me," said Lucy, "it must be rather painful to be as shy as that."

"Mustn't it?" said Mrs. Tailleur.

CHAPTER VI

The next day it rained, fitfully at first, at the will of a cold wind
that dragged clouds out of heaven. A gleam of sunshine in the afternoon,
then wild rain driven slantwise by the gusts; and now, at five o'clock,
no wind at all, but a straight, soaking downpour.

The guests at the Cliff Hotel were all indoors. Colonel Hankin and his
wife were reading in a corner of the lounge. Mr. Soutar, the clergyman,
was dozing over a newspaper by an imaginary fire. The other men drifted
continually from the bar to the billiard-room and back again.

Mrs. Tailleur and Lucy were sitting in the veranda, with rugs round
them, watching the rain, and watched by Colonel and Mrs. Hankin.

Jane had gone into the drawing-room to write letters. There was nobody
there but the old lady who sat in the bay of the window, everlastingly
knitting, and Miss Keating isolated on a sofa near the door.

Everybody in the hotel was happy and occupied, except Miss Keating. Her
eyes followed the labour of Miss Lucy's pen, watching for the stroke
that should end it. She had made up her mind that she must speak to her.

Miss Keating was subject to a passion which circumstances were
perpetually frustrating. She desired to be interesting, profoundly,
personally interesting to people. She disliked publicity partly because
it reduced her to mournful insignificance and silence. The few moments
in her life which co