"Oh, your mother!" exclaimed the girl, contritely. "I was so absorbed in the Masquer that I forgot to ask after her. How is she?"
"Quite as usual, thank you. I presume that you'll attend Comus with the Maillards?"
"Yes. I'll come to-morrow night gladly, Uncle Jachin."
"And we'll take a look at the Proteus ball afterward, if you like. I'll send Ben Chacherre for you with the car, if you're not afraid of him."
Lucie looked gravely into the smiling eyes of Fell.
"I'm not exactly afraid of him," she responded, soberly, "but there is something about him that I can't like. I'm sorry that you're trying to regenerate him, in a way."
Fell shrugged lightly. "All life is an effort, little one! Well, good-bye."
Jachin Fell left the house at three-forty. Twenty minutes later the bell rang again. Lucie sent one of the servants to admit Henry Gramont; she kept him waiting a full fifteen minutes before she appeared, and then she made no apologies whatever for the delay.
Not that Gramont minded waiting; he deemed it a privilege to linger in this house! He loved to study the place, so reflective of its owner. He loved the white Colonial mantel that surrounded the fireplace, perpetually alight, with its gleaming sheen of old brasses, and the glittering fire-set to one side. The very air of the place, the atmosphere that it breathed, was sweet to him.
The Napoleon bed that filled the bow window, with its pillows and soft coverings; the inlaid walnut cabinet made by Sheraton, with its quaintly curved glasses that reflected the old-time curios within; the tilt tables, the rosewood chairs, the rugs, bought before the oriental rug market was flooded with machine-made Senna knots—about everything here had an air of comfort, of long use, of restfulness. It was not the sort of place built up, raw item by raw item, by the colour-frenzied hands of decorators. It was the sort of place that decorators strive desperately to imitate, and cannot.