l of such incidents as these.

"Thinking it over means nothing," she said when Sally had
finished--"thinking it over'll only fix your mind on refusing him
all the more. His one chance was this evening. You know that
yourself--don't you? You'll never accept him now."

Sally crept wearily into the bed and pulled the clothes about her.

"Will you?" Janet repeated.

Sally muttered a smothered negative into the pillow, and stared out
before her at the discoloured wall-paper.

"Sally"--Janet shut up her book, and threw the end of her cigarette
with accurate precision into the tiny fireplace--"Sally--"

"What?"

"Is there anybody else? Some man up in Town--some man who comes into
the office--some man _in_ the office--is there?"

Sally turned her pillow over. "No," she replied. She kept her eyes
away from Janet's, but her answer was firm and decided.

For a few moments, Miss Hallard sat upright in the bed and watched
her. Her mind was keyed with intuition. She was conscious of the
presence of some influence in Sally's mind--probably more conscious
of it than Sally was herself. You could not have shaken her in that
belief. Even a woman cannot act to a woman, and that decided "No"
from Sally had only served the more to convince her. When one woman
deals in subtleties with another, fine hairs and the splitting of
them are merely clumsy operations to perform.

"Are you tired?" asked Janet presently--"or only pretending to be?"

"Why should I pretend? I am tired--frightfully tired."

"You want to go to sleep, then?"

"Well, I don't feel like talking to-night; do you?"

They talked every night, regularly--talked about dresses, about
religion, about other people's love affairs, and other women's
indiscretions. Sally described hats she had seen on rich women
shopping at Knightsbridge; Janet told questionable stories about the
lives of models and art students, Sally listening with wondering eyes,
needing sometimes to have them explained to her more graphically in
order really to understand. So they would continue, in the dark, till
one or the other asked a question and, receiving no answer, would
turn over on her side, and the next moment be oblivious of everything.

"What's particularly the matter to-night?" persisted Janet. "Sorry
you told Mr. Arthur you didn't love him?"

"I don't know."

"I believe you are."

There was no such belief in her mind. She knew it would draw the truth.
She used it.

"No, I'm not,"