He asked himself questions to which he could find no answer. These friends that had dropped in on Miss Iris Vance were an ill-assorted group, but they seemed to know one another well and to have an understanding. What were two toughs like Mrs. Spiker and Mr. Bowles doing in a circle that included Miss Higgs and Mr. Simpson? Miss Vance might have acquaintances in two worlds, but how had she managed to bring them together in amity? Miss Higgs and Mr. Simpson were not toughs in the same sense that Mr. Bowles and Mrs. Spiker were toughs, but in their own way they were cool propositions; knew their way about, young as they were. Nothing soft or meek about Miss Higgs and Mr. Simpson, and Miss Higgs really seemed to think that Iris Vance had stolen the Audley portrait. Yet how meek, comparatively speaking, they had all been—even Mrs. Spiker. They had repressed themselves. Simpson was in love with Miss Vance, so far as Gamadge could tell, but his interference had been almost perfunctory, and the tough Bowles had quelled it.
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