The next moment, the operator’s voice came with a bit of laugh.

“Are you there, Mr. Harleston?”

“I’m here.”

“Well, your man was a woman—and she was accidentally deliberately careful that I shouldn’t see her face.”

“H-u-m!” said Harleston. “Young or old?”

“She’s got ripples enough on her gown to be sixty, and figure enough to be twenty.”

“Slender?”

“Yes; a perfect peach!”

“How’s her walk?”

“As if the ground was all hers.”