It was strange how the enigmatical personality of the owner of Far End kept cropping up across her path.
"And what is your own opinion, Mrs.Maynard ?" she asked.
Audrey flashed her a keen glance from her rain-clear eyes.
"I think he's a--sphinx," she said slowly.
"The Sphinx was a lady," objected Herrick pertinently.
"Mr.Trent's a masculine re-incarnation of her, then," retorted Mrs.
Maynard, undefeated.
Herrick smiled tolerantly.

He was a tall, slenderly built man, with whimsical brown eyes and the half-stern, half-sweet mouth of one who has been through the mill of physical pain.
"_Homme incompris_," he suggested lightly.

"Give the fellow his due--he at least supplies the feminine half of Monkshaven with a topic of perennial interest." Audrey took up the implied challenge with enthusiasm, and the two of them wrangled comfortably together till tea was over.

Then she demanded a cigarette--and another cushion--and finally sent Miles in search of some snapshots they had taken together and which he had developed since last they had met.

She treated him exactly as though he suffered no handicap, demanding from him all the little services she would have asked from a man who was physically perfect.
Sara herself, accustomed to anticipating every need of Patrick Lovell's, would have been inclined to feel somewhat compunctious over allowing a lame man to wait upon her, yet, as she watched the eager way in which Miles responded to the visitor's behests, she realized that in reality Audrey was behaving with supreme tact.