Presently Mrs.Carter, as she was generally known in society, or Hattie Starr, as she was known to a less satisfying world, appeared.

Cowperwood realized at once that he was in the presence of a woman who, whatever her present occupation, was not without marked evidences of refinement.

She was exceedingly intelligent, if not highly intellectual, trig, vivacious, anything but commonplace.

A certain spirited undulation in her walk, a seeming gay, frank indifference to her position in life, an obvious accustomedness to polite surroundings took his fancy.

Her hair was built up in a loose Frenchy way, after the fashion of the empire, and her cheeks were slightly mottled with red veins.