126 ANGEL PAVEMENT

away. "Where I live seems to be full of Jews and music-
hall'turns, Old music-hall turns, not the good-lookin1
young 'uns."

"Tee-tee-tee," Mr. Pearson put in, rather doubtfully,
"Oh, you men!" cried Mrs. Pearson, who had not
lived at Singapore for nothing: she knew her cues.
'Tee-tee." Triumphant this time.
Miss Verever was announced,, and very resentfully,, for
already Agnes had had enough of the evening- and she
had not liked the way this particular guest had walked
in and looked at her.

There is something to be said for Agnes. Miss Ver-
ever was one of those people who, at a first meeting,
demand to be disliked. She was Mrs. Dersingham's
mother's cousin, a tall, cadaverous virgin of forty-five
or so, who displayed, especially in evening clothes, an
uncomfortable amount of sharp gleaming' bone, just as
if the upper part of her was a relief map done in ivory.
In order that she might not be overlooked in company
and also to protect herself, she had developed and
brought very near to perfection a curiously disturbing
manner, xvhich conveyed a boundless suggestion of the
malicious, the mocking, the sarcastic, the sardonic, the
ironical. What she actually said was harmless enough,
but her tone of voice, her expression, her smile, her
glance, all these suggested that her words had some
devilish inner meaning. In scores of small hotels and
pensions overlooking the Mediterranean, merely by
asking what time the post went or inquiring if it had f
rained during the night, she had made men wonder if
they had not shaved properly and women ask them-
selves if something had gone wrong with their com-
plexions, and compelled members of both sexes to con-