rough the room she left it and climbed the
great stone staircase.

III

Outside her grandmother's door she paused; so she had always paused, and
now, as she waited there, all the procession of other days when she had
stood there came before her. Conditions might be changed, but her
agitation was the same. Never until she died would she open that door
without wondering, in spite of common sense, whether she might not be
caught by some disaster before she closed it again.

She went in and found her grandmother sitting back in her stiff chair
and looking at some patterns of bright silks that lay on a little table
beside her.

A great fire was burning and the room seemed to Rachel intolerably hot;
she noticed at once that what Uncle John had said was true. Before she
had heard Rachel's entrance the Duchess looked an old, tired woman. Her
head was drooping a little over the blue and purple silks; she seemed
half asleep.

But at the sound of the door she was alert; when she saw that it was her
granddaughter who stood there, tall and stately, her large black hat
shadowing her face, she seemed in a moment to be transformed with energy
and life--her head went up, her eyes flashed, her hands stiffened on her
lap.

"May I come in for a moment, grandmother?" Rachel said.

By the door she had wondered--how could she be afraid of this old sick
woman? Now as she crossed over to the fire her sternest self-command was
summoned to control her alarm. She was frightened by nothing but
this--here it was indeed as though there were some spell that seized
her.

"Certainly, my dear--come in." The Duchess gave a last look at the silks
and then turned to her granddaughter. "I'm afraid you'll find it very
hot--I must have a fire, you know."

She had a trick of drawing in her lower lip as she spoke, so that her
words hissed a little over her teeth. She did not do this with everybody
and Rachel believed that it was only because she had noticed that Rachel
as a little girl had been frightened of it that she did it now.

Rachel sat down opposite her and the heat of the fire and a scent of
something that had violets and mignonette in it--a scent that was always
in the room--stifled her so that her head began to swim and the rings on
the Duchess's hand to hypnotize her.

"There's a great party going on downstairs," she said.

"Yes. I know. John came up for a moment and told me about it--and how
are you?"

"Very well, thank you, gran