They had been four days in Paris when Claudia, returning one afternoon from a parenthetical excursion to the Rue de la Paix, was confronted on her threshold by the reproachful figure of their benefactress. It was not to her, however, that Mrs. Davant’s reproaches were addressed. Keniston, it appeared, had borne the brunt of them; for he stood leaning against the mantelpiece of their modest salon in that attitude of convicted negligence when, if ever, a man is glad to take refuge behind his wife.
Claudia had however no immediate intention of affording him such shelter. She wanted to observe and wait.
“He’s too impossible!” cried Mrs. Davant, sweeping her at once into the central current of her grievance.
Claudia looked from one to the other.
“For not going to see you?”
“For not going to see his pictures!” cried the other nobly.
Claudia colored and Keniston shifted his position uneasily.
“I can’t make her understand,” he said, turning to his wife.
“I don’t care about myself!” Mrs. Davant interjected.
“I do, then; it’s the only thing I do care about,” he hurriedly protested. “I meant to go at once—to write—Claudia wanted to go, but I wouldn’t let her.” He looked helplessly about the pleasant red-curtained room, which was rapidly burning itself into Claudia’s consciousness as a visible extension of Mrs. Davant’s claims.