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"Always tell the truth, and people will never believe you."

"Why shouldn't she believe me?"

"No reason in the world; only as a matter of fact she won't. It's rather a satire on humanity, but I've always found that the safest way to conceal a fact is to state it quite baldly. Then people always think you're pulling their legs, or being sarcastic, and the secret is preserved."

"You're a sceptical old Sadducee. I don't believe a woman like this would have such a low view of humanity."

"Like what?"

"Like the portrait."

"Are you falling in love with her already? Marryatt, it seems to me, between funerals and marriages, you're going to be a busy man."

"Don't be a fool," said Reeves. "I don't know anything about women, except that some of them are so ugly I recognize them when I meet them in the street. This clearly isn't one of them. But I have trained myself to judge faces a bit, and this looks to me like the face of a woman who's straight herself and expects others to be straight with her."

"Let's have another look," urged Gordon. Marryatt produced the photograph, and it was passed round once more. "I dare say you're right," admitted Gordon. "The curious thing to me is that a good-looking woman like that who's not actually

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