the place this afternoon, Barry?
She seems sure she wants it, and George feels he must get back to the
office to see Tilden. You know he's going to sign for a whole floor of
the Pratt Building to-day. George can't keep Tilden waiting, and it
won't be a bit hard for you, Barry. George says to promise her
anything. She just wants to see about bathrooms, and so on. Will you,
Barry?"

"Sure I will," said the obliging Barry. And when Mrs. Carew asked him
if he would like to go upstairs and brush up a little, he accepted the
delicate reflection upon the state of his hair and hands, and said
"sure" again.

CHAPTER III

Mrs. Burgoyne was a sweet-faced, fresh-looking woman about thirty-two
or-three years old, with a quick smile, like a child's, and blue eyes,
set far apart, with a little lift at the corners, that, under level
heavy brows, gave a suggestion of something almost Oriental to her
face. She was dressed simply in black, and a transparent black veil,
falling from her wide hat and flung back, framed her face most
becomingly in square crisp folds.

She and Barry presently walked up River Street in the mellow afternoon
sunlight, and through the old wooden gates of the Holly grounds. On
every side were great high-flung sprays of overgrown roses, dusty and
choked with weeds, ragged pepper tassels dragged in the grass, and
where the path lay under the eucalyptus trees it was slippery with the
dry, crescent-shaped leaves. Bees hummed over rank poppies and tangled
honeysuckle; once or twice a hummingbird came through the garden on
some swift, whizzing journey, and there were other birds in the trees,
little shy brown birds, silent but busy in the late afternoon. Close to
the house an old garden faucet dripped and dripped, and a noisy,
changing group of the brown birds were bathing and flashing about it.
The old Hall stood on a rise of ground, clear of the trees, and bathed
in sunshine. It was an ugly house, following as it did the fashion of
the late seventies; but it was not undignified, with its big door
flanked by bay-windows and its narrow porch bounded by a fat wooden
balustrade and heavy columns. The porch and steps were weather-stained
and faded, and littered now with fallen leaves and twigs.

Barry opened the front door with some difficulty, and they stepped into
the musty emptiness of the big main hall. There was a stairway at the
back of the house with a colored glass window on the landing, and
through it