With somewhat of an effort, he rose a little from his seat to say,
“Will you sit down, and tell me how I can be of assistance?”
He thought even as he did so, that he was making a mistake. He would doubtless be regaled with a hard luck story, and it would have been far easier to have given her money, and told her to go away.
Then as she seated herself he saw that her features were perfect, and her small straight nose could not have belonged to anybody who was not of gentle birth.
Her hands too, while they were ungloved, which was unconventional, had long, slim, pointed fingers, and were, the Marquis noted with his critical faculty for detail, spotlessly clean.
She was not looking at him, but away from him, and he had the idea she was feeling for words, and at the same time was shy.
It
