Archie waited for what further he might have to say about the lady. The Governor had grown suddenly grave. He crossed the room, stared at the floor for a moment, and then said from the door:
"The lady, my dear boy, is my sister."
II
The Governor maintained so evenly his mood of irresponsible insouciance that the soberness with which he announced that it was his sister who was to join them at dinner sent Archie's thoughts darting away at a new tangent of speculation. He had so accommodated himself to the idea that the Governor was a man without ties, or with all his ties broken, that this intimation that he had a sister who was still on friendly enough terms with him to visit his house—an establishment which with all its conventionalities of comfort and luxury was dominated by a note of mystery—left Archie floundering. As the man himself had said, it would not be so difficult a matter to penetrate the secret of his identity. Archie knew several men in town who were veritable encyclopedias of the scandal of three generations, and if the scion of some old New York house had gone astray these gentlemen could furnish all the essential data. But he had given his word and he had no intention of prying into his friend's affairs. However, the sister might let fall some clue, and as he dressed he tried to imagine just what sort of woman the Governor's sister would prove to be.
"Julia is usually very prompt but she is motoring from Southampton and we must allow her the usual margin," the Governor remarked when they met in the drawing-room. Traces of the same nervousness he had manifested in announcing that it was his sister who was coming to dine with them were still visible.
The clock had struck the three-quarters when they heard the annunciator tinkle followed by the opening of the front door. The Governor left the room with a bound and Archie heard distinctly his hearty greetings and a woman's subdued replies.
"I'm sorry to be late, but we had to change a tire. No, I'll leave my wraps here."
"Won't you be more comfortable without your hat?"
"No, I'll keep it; thanks!"
The door framed for a moment a young woman who in her instant's pause on the threshold seemed like a portrait figure suddenly come to life. She was taller than the Governor and carried herself with a suggestion of his authoritative bearing. Her face was a feminized version of the Governor's, exquisitely modeled and illuminated by dark eyes that swept Archie with a hasty inquiry from under the brim of a black picture hat. She might have been younger or older than the Governor, but her maturity was not an affair of years. She was a person of distinction, a woman to challenge attention in any company. Archie was not sure whether she had been warned of a stranger's presence in the house, but if she was surprised to find him there she made no sign.