Then there was the absolute carelessness of her manner, the quiet assumption that she was outside the usual conventionalities of life.  It is a manner only to be met in English life, among some of the highest of the high world, and some of the highest of the half world.  It was new to Maude, and it made her uncomfortable, while mingled with it there was something else which made her feel for the first time in her life that she had incurred the hostility of a fellow-mortal.  It chilled her, and made her unhappy.

The visitor made no effort to sustain the conversation, but leaned back in her chair and stared at her hostess with a very critical and searching glance.  Those two questioning dark eyes played eagerly over her from her brown curls down to the little shining shoe-tips which peeped from under the grey skirt.  Especially they dwelt upon her face, reading it and rereading it.  Never had Maude been so inspected, and her instinct told her that the inspection was not altogether a friendly one.

Violet Wright having examined her rival, proceeded now with the same cool attention to take in her surroundings.  She looked round deliberately at the furniture of the room, and reconstructed in her own mind the life of the people who owned it.  Maude ventured upon one or two conventional remarks, but her visitor was not to be diverted to the weather or to the slowness of the South-Western train service.  She continued her quiet and silent inspection.  Suddenly she rose and swept across to the side-table.  A photograph of Frank in his volunteer uniform stood upon it.

‘This is your husband, Mr. Frank Crosse?’

‘Yes, do you know him?’

‘Slightly.  We have mutual friends.’  An ambiguous smile played across her face as she spoke.  ’This must have been taken after I saw him.’

‘It was taken just after our marriage.’

’Quite so.  He looks like a good little married man.  The photograph is flattering.’

‘Oh, you think so!’ said Maude coldly.  ’My own impression is that it fails to do him justice.’

Her visitor laughed.  ‘Of course that would be your impression,’ said she.

Maude’s gentle soul began to rise in anger.

‘It is the truth,’ she cried.

‘It is right that you should think so,’ the other answered, with the same irritating laugh.

’You must have known him very slightly if you can’t see that it is the truth.’

‘Then I must have known him very slightly.’

Maude was very angry indeed.  She began to find sides to her own nature the very existence of which she had never suspected.  She tapped her little shoe upon the ground, and she sat with a pale face, and compressed lips, and bright eyes, quite prepared to be very rude indeed to this eccentric woman who ventured to criticise her Frank in so free and easy a style.  Her visitor watched her, and a change had come over her expression.  Maude’s evident anger seemed to amuse and interest her.  Her eyes lost their critical coldness, and softened into approval.  She suddenly put her hand upon the other’s shoulder with so natural and yet masterful a gesture, that Maude found it impossible to resent it.