you fly this time?'

Whether he had flown or whether he had come by train and boat, he always
looked the same, calm, unruffled, tidy, the exquisite nut.

'Pretty busy?' he would say, with his half-indulgent smile at the
round-faced, lazy, drawling child who was so self-possessed, sometimes so
impudent, often so sarcastic, always so amusingly different from her
slim, pretty and girlish elder sister.

'Pretty well,' Jane would reply. 'I don't overwork, though.'

'I don't believe you do,' Hobart said, looking down at her amusedly.

'Father does, though. That's why he's thin and I'm fat. What's the use?
It makes no difference.'

'You're getting reconciled, then,' said Hobart, 'to working for the
Pinkerton press?'

Jane secretly approved his discernment. But all she said was, with her
cool lack of stress, 'It's not so bad.'

Usually when Hobart was in Paris he would dine with them.


5

Lady Pinkerton and Clare came over for a week. They stayed in rooms, in
the Avenue de l'Opera. They visited shops, theatres, and friends, and