Mrs. Edes had offered to take him home in her carriage, and he had declined almost brusquely.  To have exchanged that homeward walk over the glistening earth, and under the clear rose and violet lights of the winter sunset, with that sudden rapturous discovery of the slender crescent of the new moon, for a ride with Mrs. Edes in her closed carriage with her silvery voice in his ear instead of the keen silence of the winter air, would have been torture.  Von Rosen wondered at himself for disliking Mrs. Edes in particular, whereas he disliked most women in general.  There was something about her feline motions instinct with swiftness, and concealed claws, and the half keen, half sleepy glances of her green-blue eyes, which irritated him beyond measure, and he was ashamed of being irritated.  It implied a power over him, and yet it was certainly not a physical power.  It was subtle and pertained to spirit.  He realised, as did many in Fairbridge, a strange influence, defying reason and will, which this small woman with her hidden swiftness had over nearly everybody with whom she came in contact.  It had nothing whatever to do with sex.  She would have produced it in the same degree, had she not been in the least attractive.  It was compelling, and at the same time irritating.

Von Rosen in his Morris chair after the tea welcomed the intrusion of Jane Riggs, which dispelled his thought of Mrs. Wilbur Edes.  Jane stood beside the chair, a rigid straight length of woman with a white apron starched like a board, covering two thirds of her, and waited for interrogation.

“What is it, Jane?” asked Von Rosen.

Jane Riggs replied briefly.  “Outlandish young woman out in the kitchen,” she said with distinct disapproval, yet with evident helplessness before the situation.

Von Rosen started.  “Where is the dog?”

“Licking her hands.  Every time I told her to go, Jack growled.  Mebbe you had better come out yourself, Mr. Von Rosen.”

When Von Rosen entered the kitchen, he saw a little figure on the floor in a limp heap, with the dog frantically licking its hands, which were very small and brown and piteously outspread, as if in supplication.

“Mebbe you had better call up the doctor on the telephone; she seems to have swooned away,” said Jane Riggs.  At the same time she made one long stride to the kitchen sink, and water.  Von Rosen looked aghast at the stricken figure, which was wrapped in a queer medley of garments.  He also saw on the floor near by a bulging suitcase.

“She is one of them pedlars,” said Jane Riggs, dashing water upon the dumb little face.  “I rather guess you had better call up the doctor on the telephone.  She don’t seem to be coming to easy and she may have passed away.”