asy-chair were covered
with obtrusively new red and white chintz; a little pile of cushions had
fallen on the indeterminate Persian pattern of the carpet. Long
coffee-coloured curtains, banded with chintz, shut out part of the high
window, through which a little of the garden and the bare branches of a
tree could be seen. Victoria took all this in for the hundredth time.
She had been sleeping for an hour; she felt smooth, stroked; she could
have hugged all these pretty things, the little brass fender, the books,
the Delft inkpot on the little bureau. Everything in the room was
already intimate. Her eyes dwelt on the clean chintzes, on the half
blinds surmounted by insertion, the brass ashtrays, the massive silver
cigarette box.

Victoria stood up, the movement changing the direction of her
contemplative mood. The Gothic rosewood clock told her it was a little
after three. She went to the cigarette box and lit a cigarette. While
slowly inhaling the smoke, she rang the bell. On her right forefinger
there was a faint yellow tinge of nicotine which had reached the nail.

'I shall have to be manicured again,' she soliloquised. 'What a
nuisance. Better have it done to-day while I get my hair done too.'

'Yes, mum.' A neat dark maid stood at the door. Victoria did not answer
for a second. The girl's black dress was perfectly brushed, her cap,
collar, cuffs, apron, immaculate white.

'I'm going out now, Mary,' said Victoria. 'You'd better get my brown
velvet out.'

'Yes, mum,' said the maid. 'Will you be back for dinner, mum?'

'No, I'm dining with the Major. Oh, don't get the velvet out. It's muddy
out, isn't it?'

'Yes, mum. It's been raining in the morning, mum.'

'Ah, well, perhaps I'd better wear the grey coat and skirt. And my furs
and toque.'

'The beaver, mum?'

'No, of course not, the white fox. And, oh, Mary, I've lost my little
bag somewhere. And tell Charlotte to send me up a cup of tea at
half-past three.'

Mary left the room silently. She seldom asked questions, and never
expressed pleasure, displeasure or surprise.

Victoria walked up to her bedroom; the staircase was papered with a
pretty blue and white pattern over a dado of white lincrusta. A few
French engravings stood out in their old gold frames. Victoria stopped
at the first landing to look at her favourite, after Lancret; it
represented lovers surprised in a barn by an irate husband.

The bedroom occupied the entire first floor. On taking