she had found in the closet fitted her a bit loosely. With the candle held far out from her in one hand and the other lifting her dress from the floor, she rustled along the hall to the study, pausing there to speak his name.

20

“All ready?” he shouted.

He strode from a door to the left, but stopped in the middle of the room to study her as she stood framed in the doorway––a picture for Whistler. With pretty art and a woman’s instinctive desire to please, she had placed the candle on a chair and assumed something of a pose. The mellow candle-light deepened the raven black of her hair, softened the tint of her gown until it appeared of almost transparent fineness. It melted the folds of the heavy crimson draperies by her side into one with the dark behind her. She had shyly dropped her eyes, but in the excitement of the moment she quickly raised them again. They sparkled with merriment at sight of his lean frame draped in a lounging robe of Oriental ornateness. It was of silk and embellished with gold-spun figures.

“It was either this,” he apologized, “or a dress suit. If I had seen you first, I should have chosen the latter. I ought to dress for dinner, I suppose, even if there isn’t any.”

“You look as though you ought to make a dinner come out of those sleeves, just as the magicians make rabbits and gold-fish.”

“And you,” he returned, “look as though you ought 21 to be able to get a dinner by merely summoning the butler.”

21

He offered her his arm with exaggerated gallantry and escorted her to a chair by the fire. She seated herself and, thrusting out her toes towards the flames, gave herself up for a moment to the drowsy warmth. He shoved a large leather chair into place to the left and, facing her, enjoyed to himself the sensation of playing host to her hostess in this beautiful house. She looked up at him.

“I suppose you wonder what brought me out there?”

“In a general way––yes,” he answered frankly. “But I don’t wish you to feel under any obligation to tell me. I see you as you sit there,––that is enough.”

“There is so little else,” she replied. She hesitated, then added, “That is, that anyone seems to understand.”

“You really had no place to which you could go for the 

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