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reflected that he had never seen Adele Anthony in the daytime without a veil pushed up above a flushed nose, and dangling in irregular wisps from the back of a small hard hat of which the shape never varied.

"Julia will be here in a minute. When she told me you were coming I waited."

He was glad to have a word with her before meeting Mrs. Brant, though his impulse had been almost as strong to avoid the one as the other. He dreaded belligerent bluster as much as vain whimpering, and in the depths of his soul he had to own that it would have been easier to talk to Mr. Brant than to either of the women.

"Julia is powdering her nose," Miss Anthony continued. "She has an idea that if you see she's been crying you'll be awfully angry."

Campton made an impatient gesture. "If I were—much it would matter!"

"Ah, but you might tell George; and George is not to know." She paused, and then bounced round on him abruptly. She always moved and spoke in explosions, as if the wires that agitated her got tangled, and then were too suddenly jerked loose.

"Does George know?"

"About his mother's tears?"

"About this plan you're all hatching to have him discharged?"

Campton reddened under her lashless blue gaze,