An hour later Susan looked at herself in the long mirrors that were all round her, and did not know herself any longer, she was so changed.
She had grown used to the deep black garments that seemed a part of her life. Far off and dimly she remembered the old family lawyer in shocked consultation with her nurses, his old-fashioned anxiety that when she was strong enough to travel she should be fittingly attired, and do honour to her sad estate....
A door opened at the other end of the room, and she saw Barnaby in the mirror, saw him standing petrified on the threshold till Mélisande's laugh called him to his senses.
"Do you like her?" said she. Susan did not hear what he said. But in the mirror he came towards her, and she turned round to meet him shyly.
"Take her away, then," said Mélisande. "Buy a shilling's-worth of violets and stick them in her coat; it's all that's lacking. I'll send down a trunk full of oddments with you to-night.—And give my compliments to Julia when you see her. 'To account rendered,' you can murmur in her ear."
Her malicious laugh pursued them a little way down the stairs. They came out into the street and walked along side by side.
"I went to see Dawson," said Barnaby suddenly. "Burst into his office, meaning to scare the old jackass out of his wits. He—he turned the tables on me. Made me feel a brute."
"How?" asked Susan.
He did not explain at once, engaged in making a way for her on the pavement. Then he answered briefly.
"He told me how he had found you."