A man-servant answered his ring without undue delay.
Was Miss Law at home? He would see.
This indicated that she was at home. Whitaker tendered a card with his surname pencilled after that of Mr. Hugh Morten in engraved script. He was suffered to enter and wait in the hallway.
He stared round him with pardonable wonder. If this were truly the home of Mary Ladislas Whitaker—her property—he had builded far better than he could possibly have foreseen with that investment of five hundred dollars six years since. But who, remembering the tortured, half-starved child of the Commercial House, could have prefigured the Sara Law of to-day—the woman who, before his eyes, within that hour, had burst through the counterfeit of herself of yesterday like some splendid creature emerging from its chrysalis?
Soft, shaded lights, rare furnishings, the rich yet delicate atmosphere of exquisite taste, the hush and orderly perfection of a home made and maintained with consummate art: these furnished him with dim, provoking intimations of an individuality to which he was a stranger—less than a stranger—nothing....
The man-servant brought his dignity down-stairs again.
Would Mr. Whitaker be pleased to wait in the drawing-room?
Mr. Whitaker surrendered top-coat and hat and was shown into the designated apartment. Almost immediately he became aware of feminine footsteps on the staircase—tapping heels, the faint murmuring of skirts. He faced the doorway, indefinably thrilled, the blood quickening in throat and temples.
To his intense disappointment there entered to him a woman impossible to confuse with her whom he sought: a lady well past middle-age, with the dignity and poise consistent with her years, her manifest breeding and her iron-gray hair.
"Mr. Whitaker?"