And then with a shock, Dr. Gerard noticed her hands. They were concealed from the group around her by the table, but he could see them clearly from where he sat. In the shelter of her lap they were picking—picking—tearing a delicate handkerchief into tiny shreds.

It gave him a horrible shock.

The aloof remote smile—the still body—and the busy destructive hands . . .

4

There was a slow asthmatic wheezing cough—then the monumental knitting woman spoke.

"Ginevra, you're tired; you'd better go to bed."

The girl started; her fingers stopped their mechanical action.

"I'm not tired. Mother."

Gerard recognized appreciatively the musical quality of her voice. It had the sweet singing quality that lends enchantment to the most commonplace utterances.

"Yes, you are. I always know. I don't think you'll be able to do any sightseeing tomorrow."

"Oh! But I shall. I'm quite all right."

In a thick hoarse voice, almost a grating voice, her mother said: "No, you're not. You're going to be ill."

"I'm not! I'm not!" The girl began trembling violently.

A soft calm voice said: "I'll come up with you. Jinny." The quiet young woman with wide, thoughtful gray eyes and neatly coiled dark hair rose to her feet.

Old Mrs. Boynton said: "No. Let her go up alone."

The girl cried: "I want Nadine to come!"

"Then of course I will." The young woman moved a step forward.

The old woman said: "The child prefers to go by herself—don't you Jinny?"

There was a pause—a pause of a moment—then Ginevra Boynton said, her voice suddenly flat and dull: "Yes—I'd rather go alone. Thank you, Nadine."

She walked away, a tall angular figure that moved with a surprising grace.

Dr. Gerard lowered his paper and took a full satisfying gaze at old Mrs. Boynton. She was looking after her daughter and her fat face was creased into a peculiar smile. It was a caricature of the lovely unearthly smile that had transformed the girl's face so short a time before. Then the old woman transferred her gaze to Nadine.

The latter had just sat down again. She raised her eyes and met her mother-in-law's glance. Her face was quite imperturbable. The old woman's glance was malicious.

Dr. Gerard thought: "What an absurdity of an old tyrant!"

And then, suddenly, the old woman's eyes were full on him, and he drew in his breath sharply. Small, black, smoldering eyes they were, but something came from them—a power, a definite force, a wave of evil malignancy. Dr. Gerard knew something about the power of personality. He realized that here was no spoilt tyrannical invalid indulging petty whims. This old woman was a definite force. In the malignancy of her glare he felt a resemblance to the effect produced by a cobra. Mrs. Boynton might be old, infirm, a prey to disease, but she was not powerless.

She was a woman who knew the meaning of power, who recognized a lifetime of power and who had never once doubted her own force. Dr. Gerard had once met a woman who performed a most dangerous and spectacular act with tigers. The great slinking brutes had crawled to their places and performed their degrading and humiliating tricks. Their eyes and subdued snarls told of hatred, bitter fanatical hatred, but they had obeyed, cringed. That had been a young woman, a woman with an arrogant dark beauty, but the look had been the same.