nd futuristic of colour,
too, that gave her waist an unbelievably slender look, were all in the
dainty and sophisticated taste of a sophisticated young lady, and under
the elaborate hat there was a sophisticated young face. It looked
smaller and more faintly pink. The small chin was more prominent. But
she still had the wide, reproachful eyes of a child. They regarded the
boy unwinkingly. One hand went behind her, found the knob of the door,
and closed it mechanically, but the eyes did not leave his face.

He stepped uncertainly forward, and stopped.

"Well, Judith," he said, in a voice that held all the authority Judge
Saxon's assistant had acquired in the long year of his service and more,
"Well?" and then, in a voice that held no authority at all, but was
suddenly husky and small: "Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Judith," Neil said.

Neil's visitor flashed a quick glance round the dim office, empty except
for the lean young figure that confronted her. It was a hunted glance,
as if she really meant to turn without speaking and pick up her
beruffled skirts, and run away down the dusty stairs, but she did not
run away. Suddenly quite herself, recovering by tapping some emergency
reserve of strength as only ladies can, but as most of them can, even
the most amateurish and beruffled of ladies, she crossed the room to
him.

She came deliberately, with an impressive flutter of hidden silk. She
was smiling a faint half-smile, sweet but indefinably teasing, and
holding out a daintily gloved hand. It touched Neil's lightly and
impersonally, not like a girl's warm hand at all, but like the hand of a
society forever beyond his reach, held out patronizingly to this boy
beyond its pale, only to emphasize the distance between them.

"How do you do?" she murmured, formally but sweetly.

"How do you do?" the boy stammered. "Judith, oh, Judith, I----"

He broke off, staring helplessly into her eyes. They were dark and
accusing and grave, and a heartache shadowed the depths of them, the
lonely and infinite heartache of youth, when you cannot measure your
pain or argue it away, but must suffer and suffer instead. But the boy
was too miserable just then to read it there.

"Judith," he began, "don't you care any more? Why wouldn't you read my
letters? Why wouldn't you let me explain? Won't you let me now? I can,
Judith."

Still smiling, not taking the trouble to interrupt him, she waited for
hi