On the day succeeding that oh which he had arrived, Horace made his appearance at his brother's house. Clement had not heard of his return, and received him with a cordiality strikingly at variance with his usual manner.
"Come into the library," he said, after the first greetings had been exchanged. "I have some fine cigars for you to try, and you can tell me something about your travels."
"Thank you, Clement: I believe I must decline your offer. I have a message for your wife: can I see her?"
A cloud swept over the brow of the elder brother.
"I suppose you can," he said, coldly, looking at his watch as he spoke. "Two o'clock. She took breakfast about half an hour ago, so she is probably at home. You had better go up stairs to her boudoir, as she calls it, and Christine, her maid, will tell her that you wish to see her."
He turned away, and was about to leave the room when Horace caught his hand.
"Clement! brother! Answer me one question: Are you happy in your married life?"
"Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York," was the bitter reply: "they are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss."
"If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy," muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, "my task would have been a harder one. Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight before, me."
The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance. It was very small, and on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of taste and expenditure could achieve. The walls had been painted in fresco by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a delicate green tint. The same tints and design were repeated in the Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the tiny apartment. Étagères of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian glass, Dresden and Sèvres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and Parian ware. An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited for the proper display of pictures. This one picture had evidently been selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring and riante style of the decorations. It was a superb marine view by Hamilton--a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a barren and precipitous shore.