With a beating heart he rung the bell of a respectable-looking house, and was ushered into a private drawing-room.

Instinctively he felt that the room was only temporarily inhabited; an air peculiar to the best lodgings, and when the door opened upon a tall lady in deep mourning, he was still more convinced of an incongruity between the occupant and her surroundings.

With a smile that vacillated between a habit of familiarity and ease, and a recent restraint, she motioned him to a chair.
"Miss Mortimer" was still young, still handsome, still fashionably dressed, and still attractive.

From her first greeting to the end of the interview Cass felt that she knew all about him.

This relieved him from the onus of proving his identity, but seemed to put him vaguely at a disadvantage.