sotto voce, certain stories that ended invariably in hysterical laughter.  Janet detested these conversations.  And the sex question, subtly suggested if not openly dealt with, to her was a mystery over which she did not dare to ponder, terrible, yet too sacred to be degraded.  Her feelings, concealed under an exterior of self-possession, deceptive to the casual observer, sometimes became molten, and she was frightened by a passion that made her tremble—­a passion by no means always consciously identified with men, embodying all the fierce unexpressed and unsatisfied desires of her life.

These emotions, often suggested by some hint of beauty, as of the sun glinting on the river on a bright blue day, had a sudden way of possessing her, and the longing they induced was pain.  Longing for what?  For some unimagined existence where beauty dwelt, and light, where the ecstasy induced by these was neither moiled nor degraded; where shame, as now, might not assail her.  Why should she feel her body hot with shame, her cheeks afire?  At such moments she would turn to the typewriter, her fingers striking the keys with amazing rapidity, with extraordinary accuracy and force,—­force vaguely disturbing to Mr. Claude Ditmar as he entered the office one morning and involuntarily paused to watch her.  She was unaware of his gaze, but her colour was like a crimson signal that flashed to him and was gone.  Why had he never noticed her before?  All these months, for more than a year, perhaps,—­she had been in his office, and he had not so much as looked at her twice.  The unguessed answer was that he had never surprised her in a vivid moment.  He had a flair for women, though he had never encountered any possessing the higher values, and it was characteristic of the plane of his mental processes that this one should remind him now of a dark, lithe panther, tensely strung, capable of fierceness.  The pain of having her scratch him would be delectable.

When he measured her it was to discover that she was not so little, and the shoulder-curve of her uplifted arms, as her fingers played over the keys, seemed to belie that apparent slimness.  And had he not been unacquainted with the subtleties of the French mind and language, he might have classed her as a fausse maigre.  Her head was small, her hair like a dark, blurred shadow clinging round it.  He wanted to examine her hair, to see whether it would not betray, at closer range, an imperceptible wave,—­but not daring to linger he went into his office, closed the door, and sat down with a sensation akin to weakness, somewhat appalled by his discovery, considerably amazed at his previous stupidity.  He had thought of Janet—­when she had entered his mind at all—­as unobtrusive, demure; now he recognized this demureness as repression.  Her qualities needed illumination, and he, Claude Ditmar, had seen them struck with fire.  He wondered whether any other man had been as fortunate.

Later in the morning, quite casually, he made inquiries of Miss Ottway, who liked Janet and was willing to do her a good turn.