"'But perhaps you would prefer me to be haughty,' she said suddenly, 'or how do you say it—county? It would perhaps be more becoming in a woman who does not yet know the name of her guest?'
"'You drive me into a fatuous corner,' I said. 'For what on earth can I answer but that you can well afford not to be county or any stuff of that kind?'
"She turned her eyes quickly on mine; suddenly, she was very serious. She brooded on me for a swift, palpable second.
"'You really, really mean that you do not think me—ah, it is very delicate!—well, you don't think me "cheap" for letting this happen, like this? But,' she laughed as suddenly, 'but forgive me,' she said. 'I was not trusting my own judgment.... And besides you have just said that your father is a Bishop!'
"It was as she was about to step out of the brougham that she said: 'It has a charm, our adventure. You are so delightful a partner, you "play up." It is most unusual in men.... And perhaps, too, you are good at forgetting?'
"'Am I being threatened?' I had to ask.
"'But no, you are being trusted!' she said, very gently....
"I followed her into the house a little shamefacedly; taken, as it were, out of my stride. There seemed, don't you see, to be no tattered edges about this woman, there was a finesse about her every emotion and movement, it was as though every mood and motive had been polished to perfection before it became articulate in word or gesture. She was deplorably civilized.
"The house was of the sort that one would have expected of her, though I can't specify what that was; and exactly where it was, as I've said, I didn't realize, though it couldn't have been a hundred miles away from Hyde Park Corner.
"I am not much of a hand at describing rooms, so I can't tell you much more of the room into which I followed her than that it was large and seemed just right. What I mean is that I wasn't taking much interest in antique furniture at that moment, but if anything had been wrong or jarring in the room I would have been on it at once,—so it must have been a perfect room. Simplicity stunt on Howard de Walden lines, you know, with Whistler and Meryon etchings scattered here and there about the pale walls, and a certain suggestion of black and gold lacquer somewhere, which I can't now exactly place, unless it was a tall boy or something of the kind.