She smiled now, and produced the illusion, not merely in Hilda but in herself also, that her pleasure in this very astonishing encounter was quite peculiarly poignant.
They shook hands, as women of the world.
"Did you know I was here ?" Hilda questioned, characteristically on her guard, with a nervous girlish movement of the leg that perhaps sinned against the code of authentic worldliness.
"No indeed!" exclaimed Janet.
"Well, I am! I'm engaged here." "How splendid of you!" said Janet enthusiastically, with no suggestion whatever in her tone that Hilda's situation was odd, or of dubious propriety, or aught but enviable.
But Hilda surveyed her with secret envy, transient yet real.

In the half-dozen years that had passed since the days of the dancing-class, Janet had matured.

She was now the finished product.

She had the charm of her sex, and she depended on it.

She had grace and an overflowing goodness.