The furniture of these rooms was like so many verses of a poem. Every chair and table had been designed by Mrs. Rayne, and then realized in black wood by the patient hands of natives.
Another side opened by three glass doors on a verandah, and only a few rods below the house the sea dashed against a beach.
After dinner I sat on the verandah drinking coffee and the sea-breeze by turns. The gentlemen walked up and down smoking the pipe of peace, while Mrs. Rayne sat within, talking with Rhoda in the candlelight. Opposite me, as I looked in at the open door, hung two Madonnas, the Sistine and the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. In front of each stood a tall flower-stand carved to imitate the leaves and blossoms of the calla lily. These black flowers held great bunches of the Annunciation lily, sacred to the Virgin through all the ages. Mrs. Rayne had taken off the close-buttoned jacket, and her dress was now open at the throat, with some rich old lace clinging about it and fastened with a pearl daisy.
"Have you forgiven me the minute's deception I put upon you?" said Mr. Rayne, pausing beside me. "If I had not read admiration in your face, I would have told you the truth at once."
"How could one help admiring her?"
"I don't know, I'm sure: I never could."
"She has the serenest face, like still, shaded water. I wonder how she would look in trouble?"
"It is not becoming to her."
"Are you sure?"
"Quite."