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 for Mira—Mrs. Leroux—is always talking about you, and about the glorious times you have together! I have sometimes longed to join you in beautiful Paris. How good of you to come back with her!”

Miss Ryland unrolled the Scotch muffler from her throat, swinging her head from side to side in a sort of spuriously truculent manner, quite peculiarly her own. Her keen hazel eyes were fixed upon the face of the girl before her. Instinctively and immediately she liked Helen Cumberly; and Helen felt that this strong-looking, vaguely masculine woman, was an old, intimate friend, although she had never before set eyes upon her.

“H’m!” said Miss Ryland. “I have come from Paris”—she punctuated many of her sentences with wags of the head as if carefully weighing her words—“especially” (pause) “to see you” (pause and wag of head) “I am glad…to find that…you are the thoroughly sensible…kind of girl that I…had imagined, from the accounts which…I have had of you.”…

She seated herself in an armchair.

“Had of me from Mira?” asked Helen.

“Yes…from Mrs. Leroux.”

“How delightful it must be for you to have her with you so often! Marriage, as a rule, puts an end to that particular sort of good-time, doesn’t it?”

“It does…very properly…too. No man…no man in his…right senses…