The rector assented, in some astonishment.

“Couldn’t do anything with her, could you?  I reckoned not.  I’ve noticed her up and down Dalton Street at night.”

Holder was no longer deceived by her matter-of-fact tone.

“I’ll tell you what, Mr. Holder,” she went on, energetically, “there’s not a particle of use running after those people, and the sooner you find it out the less worry and trouble you give yourself.”

“Mr. Holder didn’t run after her, Sally,” said Mr. Bentley, in gentle reproof.

Holder smiled.

“Well,” said Miss Grower, “I’ve had my eye on her.  She has a history —­most of ’em have.  But this one’s out of the common.  When they’re brazen like that, and have had good looks, you can nearly always tell.  You’ve. got to wait for something to happen, and trust to luck to be on the spot, or near it.  It’s a toss-up, of course.  One thing is sure, you can’t make friends with that kind if they get a notion you’re up to anything.”

“Sally, you must remember—­” Mr. Bentley began.

Her tone became modified.  Mr. Bentley was apparently the only human of whom she stood in awe.

“All I meant was,” she said, addressing the rector, “that you’ve got to run across ’em in some natural way.”

“I understood perfectly, and I agree with you,” Holder replied.  “I have come, quite recently, to the same conclusion myself.”

She gave him a penetrating glance, and he had to admit, inwardly, that a certain satisfaction followed Miss Grower’s approval.

“Mercy, I have to be going,” she exclaimed, glancing at the black marble clock on the mantel.  “We’ve got a lot of invoices to put through to-day.  See you again, Mr. Holder.”  She jerked his hand once more.  “Good morning, Mr. Bentley.”

“Good morning, Sally.”

Mr. Bentley rose, and took his hat and gold-headed stick from the rack in the hall.

“You mustn’t mind Sally,” he said, when they had reached the sidewalk.  “Sometimes her brusque manner is not understood.  But she is a very extraordinary woman.”

“I can see that,” the rector assented quickly, and with a heartiness that dispelled all doubt of his liking for Miss Grower.  Once more many questions rose to his lips, which he suppressed, since Mr. Bentley volunteered no information.  Hodder became, in fact, so lost in speculation concerning Mr. Bentley’s establishment as to forget the errand on which—­they were bound.  And Sally Grower’s words, apropos of the woman in the flat, seemed but an energetic driving home of the severe lessons of his recent experiences.  And how blind he had been, he reflected, not to have seen the thing for himself!  Not to have realized the essential artificiality of his former method of approach!  And then it struck him that Sally Grower herself must have had a history.

Mr. Bentley, too, was preoccupied.