"This is really jolly, Gretchen. Hello! Cort, Berkely—Mrs. Wray, I've been pining to see your hair against my old tapestry. Oh! shades of Titian! Can I ever dare?"
Camilla colored softly, aware of Mrs. Cheyne's sleepy eyes in the shadow below the skylight. She nodded in their general direction and then took Mrs. Rumsen's proffered hand—and the seat beside her.
"I was so sorry to have missed you this morning," she said. "I'm always out, it seems, when the people I want to see come in."
"I should have 'phoned," said the lady. "I had something particular to speak to you about. Is your husband coming here?"
"I—I really don't know," Camilla stammered. "He has been away and very busy."
"He'll be back for my dance, won't he?"
"I think so—but he's never certain. He's going West very soon."
"He was telling me something about his early life. You ought to be very proud of him."
"I can't tell just what it is, but to me your husband seems like an echo of something, an incarnation of some memory of my youth—perhaps only a long-forgotten dream. But it persists—it persists. I can't seem to lose it."
"How very curious."