dy, a bit
ungainly in carriage, Mr. Trego had a square-jawed face with
heavy-lidded, tranquil eyes. When circumstances demanded, he seemed
capable of expressing himself simply and to the point, with a
sure-footed if crushing wit. In white flannels his broad-shouldered
bulk dwarfed the other men to insignificance.

Mr. Lyttleton--assigned to entertain his hostess, and (or Mrs. Gosnold
flattered him) scoring heavily in that office--was as slenderly
elegant and extreme a gallant as one may hope to encounter between
magazine covers. He had an indisputable air, a way with him, the eye
of a killer; if he perhaps fancied himself a trace too
fervently, something subtle in his bearing toward Mrs. Standish
fostered the suspicion that he was almost fearfully sensible of the
charms of that lady.

Miss Pride, on Mrs. Gosnold's other hand, was a wiry roan virgin who
talked too much but seldom stupidly, exhibited a powerful virtuosity
in strange gestures, and pointedly designated herself as a "spin"
(diminutive for spinster) apparently deriving from this conceit an
amusement esoteric to her audience. Similarly, she indulged a
mettlesome fancy for referring to her hostess as "dear Abigail." Her
own maiden name was eventually disclosed as Mercedes--pronounced, by
request, Mar-say-daze.

From her alone Sally was conscious at the very outset of their
acquaintance of a certain frigidity--as one may who approaches an
open window in the winter unawares. And it was some time before she
discovered that Miss Pride accounted her a rival, thanks to a
cherished delusion, wholly of independent inspiration, that dear
Abigail was a forlorn widow-woman in sore want of some thoroughly
unselfish friend--somebody whose devotion could not possibly be
thought mercenary--somebody very much like Mercedes Pride, Spin.

The table talk was so much concerned with the sensation of the hour,
the burglary, that Sally grew quickly indifferent to the topic, and
thus was able to appreciate Savage's mental dexterity in
discussing it with apparent candour, but without once verging upon any
statement or admission that might count against the interests of his
sister. He seemed wholly unconstrained, but the truth was not in him.
Or, if it were, it was in on a life sentence.

The consensus pronounced Mrs. Standish a very fortunate woman to be so
thoroughly protected by insurance, and this the lucky victim indorsed
with outspoken complacence, even to the extent of a s