“I don’t see,” murmured Laura anxiously for the last time, “what can be keeping them. Are you sure Page that Mrs. Cressler meant here⁠—inside?”

She was a tall young girl of about twenty-two or three, holding herself erect and with fine dignity. Even beneath the opera cloak it was easy to infer that her neck and shoulders were beautiful. Her almost extreme slenderness was, however, her characteristic; the curves of her figure, the contour of her shoulders, the swell of hip and breast were all low; from head to foot one could discover no pronounced salience. Yet there was no trace, no suggestion of angularity. She was slender as a willow shoot is slender⁠—and equally graceful, equally erect.