f the crowd had carried
her to the act of uncharacteristic daring. He watched her now, finding
her piteous and absurd.

But someone beside himself was aware of Mrs. Harding. Miss Woodruff
approached her, smiling impersonally, with rather the air of a kindly
verger at a church. Yes, she seemed to say, she could find a seat for
her. She pointed to the one she had risen from. Mrs. Harding, almost
tearful in her gratitude, slid into it with the precaution of the
reverent sight-seer who fears to disturb a congregation at prayer, and
Miss Woodruff, moving away, went to a table and began to turn over the
illustrated papers that lay upon it. Her manner, retired and cheerful,
had no humility, none of the poor dependent's unobtrusiveness; rather,
Gregory felt, it showed a happy pride, as if, a fortunate priestess in
the temple, she had opportunities and felicities denied to mere
worshippers. She was interested in her papers. She examined the pictures
with something of a child's attentive pleasure.

Gregory came up to her and raising her eyes she smiled at him as though,
on the basis of last night's encounter, she took him for granted as
potentially a friend.

"What are you looking at?" he asked her, as he might have asked a
friendly child.

She turned the paper to him. "The Great Wall of China. They are
wonderful pictures."

Gregory stood beside her and looked. The photographs were indeed
impressive. The sombre landscape, the pallid sky, and, winding as if for
ever over hill and valley, the astonishing structure, like an infinite
lonely consciousness. "I should like to see that," said Miss Woodruff.

"Well, you travel a great deal, don't you?" said Gregory. "No doubt
Madame Okraska will go to China some day."

Miss Woodruff contemplated the desolate wall. "But this is thousands and
thousands of miles from the places where concerts could be given; and I
do not know that my guardian has ever thought of China; no, it is not
probable that she will ever go there. And then, unfortunately, I do not
always go with her. I travel a great deal; but I stop at home a great
deal, too. My guardian likes best to be called von Marwitz in private
life, by those who know her personally," Miss Woodruff added, smiling
again as she presented him with the authorized liturgy.

Gregory was slightly taken aback. He couldn't have defined Miss
Woodruff's manner as assured, yet it was singularly competent; and no
one could have been in less need of