A stout, old-fashioned woman opened the door. She had a big white apron over a dark print dress, and she looked like the comfortable sort of cook whom you do not expect to see in a London flat. She smiled pleasantly and said,

“Come right in out of the cold. Terrible draughty, all these stone passages, and the street door standing open. Miss Treherne? Oh yes, Miss Silver will see you at once ma’am.”

She opened the second door, and Rachel Treherne came into a room which was much less like an office than a Victorian parlor. There was a brightly flowered Brussels carpet, and plush curtains in a cheerful shade of peacock-blue. There was a black woolly hearthrug in front of an open coal fire. There were odd little Victorian chairs with bow legs, upholstered laps, and curving waists. There was a row of photographs in silver frames upon the mantelpiece, and over it a steel engraving of Millais’ Black Brunswicker. On the opposite wall The Soul’s Awakening and Bubbles. The wallpaper, covered with bunches of violets, put the clock back forty years.

In the middle of the Brussels carpet stood a writing-table of carved yellow walnut, and at this table sat a little woman in a snuff-colored dress. She had what appeared to be a great deal of mousy gray hair done up in a tight bun at the back and arranged in front in one of those expensive curled fringes associated with the late Queen Alexandra, the whole severely controlled by a net. Beneath the fringe were a set of neat, indeterminate features and a pair of grayish eyes. In complexion Miss Silver inclined to being sallow, but her skin was smooth and unlined. At the moment of Miss Treherne’s entrance she was engaged in addressing an envelope. She completed the address, blotted it, and setting the letter upon one side, looked up with an air of grave attention and slightly inclined her head.