t her poor little
face could never rival the inimitable reserves, the secure
distinction of Miss Nethersole's. There was nothing, so to speak, to
take hold of in Julia's dark, attenuated elegance; nothing that
betrayed itself anywhere, from the slender brilliance of her
deep-lidded, silent eyes, to her small flat chin, falling sheer from
the immobile lower lip. Miss Nethersole's features and her figure
were worn away to the last expression of a purely social intention.
Quite useless to look for any signs of Wilton Caldecott's
occupation. Freda was convinced that, if the lady possessed any
knowledge of him, she would keep it concealed about her to the end
of time. She was aware of Miss Nethersole's significance as a woman
of the larger world. It was wonderful to think that she held the
clue to the social labyrinth, in which, to Freda's vision, their
friend's life was lost. She knew what ways he went. She could follow
all his turnings and windings there; perhaps she could track him to
the heart of the maze; perhaps she herself was the heart of it, the
very secret heart. She sat alone for him there, in the dear silent
place where all the paths led. The very thickness and elaboration of
the maze would make their peace. Freda's heart failed her before the
intricacy of Miss Nethersole's knowledge of him, the security of her
possession. Miss Nethersole was valuable to him for her own sake, it
being evident that she had no "gift."

It was her personal sufficiency, unsustained as she was by anything
irrelevant, that made Julia so formidable.

She had never seemed more so to Freda than on this afternoon when
they sat together among the adornments of her perfect drawing-room.
Everything about Miss Nethersole was as delicate and finished as her
own perfection. She was finely unconscious of all that Freda
recognized in her. It seemed as if what she chiefly recognized in
Freda was her gift. She had been superbly impersonal in her praise
of it. It was the divine thing given to Freda, hers and yet not
hers, so wonderful, compared with the small pale creature who
manipulated it, that it could be discussed with perfect propriety
apart from her.

And to-day Wilton Caldecott's name had risen again in the
discussion, when Julia had the air of insisting more than ever on
the gift. It was almost as if she narrowed Freda down to that,
suggesting that it was the only thing that counted in her intimacy
with their friend.

"Yes," said Fred