They turned in at one of the several doors, were facing a roomful of the sort of people one always finds in houses of that kind—carefully dressed, carefully[101] patterned people, leading the monotonous life fashion imposes upon the upper class throughout the world. Beatrice looked round, then looked proudly up at the huge, young man whose expression made him seem to tower and loom, even among those physically his equals. “Father isn’t here,” she explained. “He hates this sort of thing for himself, though he tolerates it for us.”

[101]

Roger found himself being welcomed by a youngish, shrewd-looking woman with a cold, discontented face. Beatrice’s mother was merely a type—one of the kind the development of great fortunes is turning out by the score in every city and large town from New York to San Francisco: an indefatigable and not unintelligent seeker after the correct aristocratic pose. She was in simple black velvet. Her graying hair made her too-sharp face softer and more youthful. Her figure was as slim and straight as her daughter’s, though not without evidences of toil and corset manipulation to give it that girlish appearance. Peter Vanderkief—Hanky—was beside her.

“So, you are really here?” she said cordially to Roger, as she gave him a warm hand clasp and the smile of an old friend. “I can hardly believe my own eyes.”

“Impossible to resist,” said Roger. “It’s indeed a pleasure to see you again. How d’ye do, Mr. Vanderkief?”

[102]Vanderkief forced a smile to his lips and extended a tardy hand. But his brow remained sullen—not the sullenness of suspicion now, but of jealousy.

[102]

“How is the picture coming on?” asked Mrs. Richmond of Roger.

“Oh, you know how those things go with me,” was Roger’s subtly noncommittal reply.

“I remember,” laughed Mrs. Richmond. “You are the true artist. You’re to take in Beatrice. She tells me you still have your old horror of strangers.”

“Not horror—shyness,” protested Roger, with no more shyness or suggestion of it than a well-brought-up child.

Then a small, slim, dark man—obviously a Continental foreigner—joined the group. In dress and bearing he was a most elegant-looking person—or, rather, personage. His fine, sensitive face was exceedingly handsome. 

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