She had come to blackmail him.
"What sort of an understanding ?" he asked experimentally.
She bent forward, thrusting her head directly underneath the overhanging lamp, revealing a face not untouched by care and suffering.

He guessed her age at twenty-four, but the set earnestness of her expression made her seem close to thirty.

She still possessed a certain girlishness, but it was marked and marred by an unpleasant maturity, as if she had arrived too young at a woman's understanding of the world.

With physical beauty she was amply endowed; nor had it been hardened and coarsened beyond power to allure.

There was no visible imperfection to detract from its charm; but, gazing on her, Whitmore felt something lacking, something spiritual, imponderable, yet immediately detected and missed.
And this impression was heightened when she spoke.
"You are interested in George Collins and so am I," she said, and paused.
"And you've come to plead for him ?" His manner signified that her errand was useless.
"Plead for him!" she echoed, a faint smile hovering about her lips.