James’s Street. Sophia arrived in the middle of the morning, alone and on foot. Those facts did not endear her either to the servant who answered her knock or to the woman who came out of a downstairs room to examine her appearance—presumably the landlady. But Sophia had dressed with care and wore the voluminous cloak she had always worn in the Peninsula—it had a somewhat military look, she thought. And she introduced herself with cool confidence as Mrs. Sophia Armitage, wife of Major Walter Armitage, come to call upon Lieutenant Boris Pinter. Somehow, Sophia thought with what might have been amusement under other circumstances, she awed both of them into submission. The landlady even preceded her up the two flights of stairs to the second floor, just as if she were a servant herself. She knocked on the door that presumably opened into Mr. Pinter’s rooms and waited until his man answered her knock. Mrs. Armitage, the valet informed the landlady, was expected. He opened the door wider, and Sophia stepped inside.
