e to Storm,
aside from his English-cut clothes and a certain ease and finish which
they lacked. It was an effect of keenness, of aliveness to the zest of
the passing moment. He spoke of himself sometimes as a collector of
impressions; and it was a true characterization. His slight, casual
glance invariably took in more than the stare of other people; his
nostrils quivered constantly, like those of a hound, as if they, too,
were busy gathering impressions. It was a rather interesting face; a
little vague in drawing about the chin and lips, but mobile, sensitive,
vivid; distinctly the face of an artist.

He gazed at Kate Kildare approaching down the long stairway with the
appreciation of a connoisseur. Beside her moved a slender sprite of a
girl, whose hair gleamed like spun gold above a dress of apple-green.
But his glance for her was merely cursory, and returned at once to the
older woman. Of this Jemima was quite aware. It had happened to her
before. Her lips straightened, where another girl's would have drooped,
but the sensation was the same. Jemima, not for the first time, was a
little jealous of her mother.

Kate greeted her guests with a gracious courtesy that was almost regal
in its simplicity. Channing in particular she welcomed warmly.

"What, Jim's nephew! And you have been with him for some time? Then why
has he never brought you to us before?"

"Just what I have been asking him," murmured Channing, bending over her
hand. His manner reminded her sharply of Jacques Benoix.

She asked, on an unconsidered impulse, "You have lived in France?"

"For many years. Have you?"

The group around them was silent, listening. Kate went rather pale. "No.
But my greatest friend happens to be a Frenchman, a Creole," she said,
steadily, and turned to the others.

Channing, who knew her story, guessed at once the identity of that
"greatest friend." He gazed after her in renewed admiration. It was not
often in his native land that he had come across a perfect type of the
_grande amoureuse_.

He contrasted her with the setting in which he found her--a distinctly
masculine setting. The hall was enormous, rough and simple; skins on the
floor, rather wooden portraits of dead Kildares on the wall, together
with antlers and fox-brushes, and the stuffed head of the horse running
his race with Death. The huge fireplace of field-boulders might have
roasted oxen in its time. There were some modern comforts; a piano, many
books,