night."

She went on and she spoke without heat.

"I see her sweeping my floors and eating the bread I throw to her."

Israel Kensky had heard all this before, and did not even smile.

"You are an evil woman, Sophia," he said. "God knows how such a one
could be a daughter of mine. What has the Grand Duchess done to you that
you should harbour such venom?"

"I hate her because she is," said the woman evenly. "I hate her not for
the harm she has done me, but for the proud smile she gives to her
slaves. I hate her because she is high and I am low, and because all the
time she is marking the difference between us."

"You are a fool," said Israel Kensky as he left the room.

"Perhaps I am," said the woman, his daughter. "Are you going to bed
now?"

He turned in the doorway.

"I am going to my room. I shall not come down again," he said.

"Then I will sleep," she yawned prodigiously. "I hate this town."

"Why did you come?" he asked. "I did not want you."

"I came because you did not want me," said Sophia Kensky.

Israel went to his room, closed the door and locked it. He listened and
presently he heard the sound of his daughter's door close also and heard
the snap of the key as it turned. But it was a double snap, and he knew
that the sound was intended for him and that the second click was the
unlocking of the door. She had locked and unlocked it in one motion. He
waited, sitting in an arm-chair before a small fire, for ten minutes,
and then, rising, crossed the room softly and switched out the light.
There was a transom above the door, so that anybody in the passage
outside could tell whether his light was on or off. Then he resumed his
seat, spreading his veined hands to the fire, and listened.

He waited another quarter of an hour before he heard a soft creak and
the sound of breathing outside the door. Somebody was standing there
listening. The old man kept his eyes fixed on the fire, but his senses
were alive to every sound. Again he heard the creaking, this time
louder. A jerry-built house in Maida Vale does not offer the best
assistance to the furtive business in which Sophia Kensky was engaged.
Another creak, this time farther away and repeated at intervals, told
him that she was going down the stairs. He walked to the window and
gently pulled up the blind, taking his station so that he could command
a view of the narrow strip of garden. Presently his vigil was rewarded.
He saw her dark figure walk