In Miss Mundella’s drawing-room everything is reposeful, chaste, and in harmony with the idea of elegance and refinement. From the soft-toned, tapestry-like wall-paper to the white marble statuette of Marguerite that stands before the Queen Anne mirror upon the mantel-piece, all is unobtrusive yet beautiful. A few first-class water-colour examples of Gulley and Atkinson, also some well-executed plaques, hang upon the walls. A graceful palm hangs its fronds over a rare Etruscan vase in one corner, and numerous little gems of Dresden china and Venetian glassware—the gifts of various admirers—assist towards forming a picture whose altogether is delightful, whose every detail is a work of art.
Miss Mundella, dressed in a directoire gown, of some soft, silken material of an amber colour, fringed with black lace, which costume admirably suits her dark complexion, is seated at a little rosewood secrétaire, and the soft, pink light from the ornamental shades of the lamps upon the centre table casts a glorifying touch of colour upon her calm and handsome features.
On the other side of the big table her uncle, Mr. Wilson Giles, is sitting awkwardly upon a low-seated chair, twirling his thumbs, and thinking regretfully of the good old days when he was allowed to enjoy an after-dinner cigar in this very room,—a ruthless edict against which proceeding has gone forth since his niece has taken the reins of power into her able fingers.
“Well, Lileth, what is it?” asks the nominal master of the house, “what is it you have got to say? Whatever it is, let’s have it over quick, so as I can have a smoke on the verandah.”
“Have your smoke first, uncle, if you like; but please change your coat before you come in here afterwards. You know I don’t object to tobacco; but you know those English girls, who are coming over from Simon’s to-morrow night, and I want to have one room in the house, at any rate, that doesn’t smell like a taproom.”
Mr. Giles is not an adept at repartee; but it occurs to him to remark, in retaliation, that, unless his niece smokes herself upon the sly, there must be several rooms in the house free from the odour of the fragrant weed. He also means to ask that lady how she knows what are the true characteristics of a taproom, but his cutting sarcasms do not arrange themselves with sufficient facility for him to give them vocal form ere Miss Mundella again speaks.
“You asked me, uncle, to consider two or three schemes you mentioned to me for getting rid of the monetary responsibility that rests upon your shoulders with regard to the P.Ns. you gave to Dyesart.”
“Well, what d’you think of ’em?”
“Well, uncle, I really don’t see why you need trouble yourself further in the matter, now that you have placed the—er—arranging of affairs with me. But I will tell you, just to show you how little you understand this kind of business, why your ideas would not work out satisfactorily; like that remarkably risky one you tried in Sydney, and of which, perhaps, you have not yet heard the end.”
Lileth adds this last sentence as a sort of cold douche, to extinguish any rising indignation her previous words might have aroused.