"My uncle, I should imagine." McTaggart was bending down to examine the picture more closely when a door on his right was opened by a smiling maid.
"Par ici, Monsieur." She stood aside for him to pass and a musical voice from the room beyond welcomed him.
"Entrez donc!—Bonjour, mon neveu..."
He stood on the threshold, tall and eager, his blue eyes opening wide, as he looked into a dainty bedroom, dim and warm and heavily scented.
Before him was a high bed, draped in black, and against the pillows, vivid, alive, in the sable setting, a young and very lovely woman.
Her hair, of a glossy raven hue, was piled loosely on her head under a boudoir cap of lace and she wore a filmy negligee, from which her arms, white and rounded, escaped beneath knots of ribbon and lay on the black satin bedspread with the effect of chiselled marble.
Her face, oval and ivory-white, was faintly amused. Her great brown eyes, languorous and insolent, swept McTaggart from head to foot.
But what absorbed his attention most was her mouth, like a curved scarlet flower blown on to her still face by a breath of Spring ... He gazed at her.
Then his wits returned to him.
He walked forward and took the hand lazily extended, stooped, and, with a happy inspiration, raised it gravely to his lips.