Miss Wabash sat down at the piano and sang "Oh, Promise Me," and one or two other gems from DeKoven's latest opera, and then the ladies adjourned once more to the library.
The Grahams' library was a large square room, diversified by two shallow bay-windows such as only a corner house permits. It was ceiled and finished in heavy Flemish oak, and the walls above the low bookcases were hung with tapestry. Easy-chairs and softly upholstered divans filled every nook and corner. It was really, Winifred decided, an ideal library,—or would have been if there had been any books behind the silk curtains hung over the shelves.
As they entered the room Miss Wabash drew Winifred to a seat near herself on the sofa.
"Green mint or Chartreuse?" the hostess asked, as the little ice-filled glasses were set on the low table by her side.
Winifred declined the cordials, but sat sipping the coffee out of the tiny Dresden cup, while she listened to the wearisome platitudes of Mrs. Graham and her guests. From time to time her eye was caught by the flashing of the jewelled pendulum of the clock on the mantel, in the drawing-room across the hall, and her mind [Pg 286] dwelt ironically on some lines she had read somewhere:—
"Ah! who with clear account remarks
The ebbing of Time's glass,
When all his sands are diamond sparks
That dazzle as they pass!"
She smiled a derisive little smile, all to herself, as she thought how small a power lay in jewelled pendulums to make a brilliant evening, and she felt a certain thrill of pride at the thought that her associations lay in a world removed from all this smothering materialism. The lavish sumptuousness which till now had appealed to her rather strongly, seemed suddenly tainted with vulgarity, and her thoughts wandered half unconsciously to the bare little room where she had gone to see Nora Costello. The name brought a slight quickening of her pulses, and she wanted time to think over things alone.