dressmaker, were shabby and out of fashion, their extreme neatness in itself pathetic.  She was thin, yet not without a certain buoyant lightness of movement always at variance with her tired eyes, her ceaseless air of dejection.  And withal she was a rebel.  It was written in her attitude, it was evident in her lowering, militant expression, the smouldering fire in her eyes proclaimed it.  Her long, rather narrow face was gripped between her hands; her elbows rested upon the brick parapet.  She gazed at that world of blood-red mists, of unshapely, grotesque buildings, of strange, tawdry colors; she listened to the medley of sounds—­crude, shrill, insistent, something like the groaning of a world stripped naked—­and she had all the time the air of one who hates the thing she looks upon.

Tavernake, whose curiosity concerning his companion remained unappeased, decided that the moment for speech had arrived.  He took a step forward upon the soft, pulpy leads.  Even then he hesitated before he finally committed himself.  About his appearance little was remarkable save the general air of determination which gave character to his undistinguished features.  He was something above the medium height, broad-set, and with rather more thick black hair than he knew how to arrange advantageously.  He wore a shirt which was somewhat frayed, and an indifferent tie; his boots were heavy and clumsy; he wore also a suit of ready-made clothes with the air of one who knew that they were ready-made and was satisfied with them.  People of a nervous or sensitive disposition would, without doubt, have found him irritating but for a certain nameless gift—­an almost Napoleonic concentration upon the things of the passing moment, which was in itself impressive and which somehow disarmed criticism.

“About that bracelet!” he said at last.

She moved her head and looked at him.  A young man of less assurance would have turned and fled.  Not so Tavernake.  Once sure of his ground he was immovable.  There was murder in her eyes but he was not even disturbed.

“I saw you take it from the little table by the piano, you know,” he continued.  “It was rather a rash thing to do.  Mrs. Fitzgerald was looking for it before I reached the stairs.  I expect she has called the police in by now.”

Slowly her hand stole into the depths of her pocket and emerged.  Something flashed for a moment high over her head.  The young man caught her wrist just in time, caught it in a veritable grip of iron.  Then, indeed, the evil fires flashed from her eyes, her teeth gleamed white, her bosom rose and fell in a storm of angry, unuttered sobs.  She was dry-eyed and still speechless, but for all that she was a tigress.  A strangely-cut silhouette they formed there upon the housetops, with a background of empty sky, their feet sinking in the warm leads.

“I think I had better take it,” he said.  “Let go.”

Her fingers yielded the bracelet—­a tawdry, ill-designed affair of rubies and diamonds.  He looked at it disapprovingly.