Only at this ultimate moment did Christabel's courage begin to falter. She felt as if she were perhaps entering a den of vice. Innocent, guileless as she was, she had her own vague ideas about vice—exaggerated as all ignorant ideas are apt to be. She began to shiver as she walked over the dark subdued velvet pile of that shadowy corridor. If she had found Miss Mayne engaged in giving a masked ball—or last night's supper party only just finishing—or a party of young men playing blind hookey, she would hardly have been surprised—not that she knew anything about masked balls—or late suppers—or gambling—but that all these would have come within her vague notions of an evil life.
"He loved her," she said to herself, arguing against this new terror, "and he could not love a thoroughly wicked woman."
No, the Gretchen idea—purity fallen, simplicity led astray—was more natural—but one could hardly imagine Gretchen in a house of this kind—this subdued splendour—this all-pervading air of wealth and luxury.
Miss Courtenay was shown into a small morning-room—a room which on one side was all window—opening on to a garden, where some fine old trees gave an idea of space—and where the foreground showed a mass of flowers—roses—roses—roses everywhere—trailing over arches—clustering round tall iron rods—bush roses—standard roses—dwarf roses—all shining in the golden light of a westering sun.
The room was elegantly simple—an escritoire in the Sherraton style—two or three book-tables crowded with small volumes in exquisite binding, vellum, creamy calf, brown Russia, red edges, gold edges, painted edges, all the prettinesses of bookbinding—half a dozen low chairs—downy nests covered with soft tawny Indian silk, with here and there a brighter patch of colour in the shape of a plush pillow or an old brocade anti-macassar—voluminous curtains of the same soft tawny silk, embroidered with poppies and corn-flowers—a few choice flowers in old Venetian vases—a large peacock-feather fan thrown beside an open book, upon a low pillow-shaped ottoman.
Christabel gazed round the room in blank surprise—nothing gaudy—nothing vulgar—nothing that indicated sudden promotion from the garret to the drawing-room—an air of elegant luxury, of supreme fashion in all things—but no glare of gilding, no discords in form or colour.
"Your name, if you please, madam?" said the servant, a model of decorum in well-brushed black.
"Perhaps, you had better take my card. I am not personally known to Miss Mayne," answered Christabel, opening her card-case. "Oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, as with a cry of pain.
"I beg your pardon," said the servant, alarmed.
"It's nothing. A picture startled me—that was all. Be good enough to tell Miss Mayne that I shall be very much obliged to her if she will see me."