They were almost strangers, except for the occasional word or two of greeting which the etiquette of the establishment demanded.

Yet she had accepted his espionage without any protest of word or look.

He had followed her with a very definite object.

Had she surmised it, he wondered?
She had not turned her head or vouchsafed even a single question or remark to him since he had pushed his way through the trap-door almost at her heels and stepped out on to the leads.

Yet it seemed to him that she must guess.
Below them, what seemed to be the phantasm of a painted city, a wilderness of housetops, of smoke-wreathed spires and chimneys, stretched away to a murky, blood-red horizon.