ought-metal arabesques of the splendidly sweeping
balustrades. When, on the ringing of the bell, the door opened and she
went down, she had the strange sensation of entering on a new era in her
life.

Though she recalled that impression in after years, for the moment she
saw nothing but Diane, all in vivid red, in the act of letting the
voluminous black cloak fall from her shoulders into the sleepy footman's
hands.

"Bonjour, petite mere!" Diane called, with a nervous laugh, as Mrs.
Eveleth paused on the lower steps of the stairs.

"Where is George?"

She could not keep the tone of anxiety out of her voice, but Diane
answered, with ready briskness:

"George? I don't know. Hasn't he come home?"

"You must know he hasn't come home. Weren't you together?"

"We were together till--let me see!--whose house was it?--till after the
cotillon at Madame de Vaudreuil's. He left me there and went to the
Jockey Club with Monsieur de Melcourt, while I drove on to the
Rochefoucaulds'."

She turned away toward the dining-room, but it was impossible not to
catch the tremor in her voice over the last words. In her ready English
there was a slight foreign intonation, as well as that trace of an Irish
accent which quickly yields to emotion. Standing at the table in the
dining-room where refreshments had been laid, she poured out a glass of
wine, and Mrs. Eveleth could see from the threshold that she drank it
thirstily, as one who before everything else needs a stimulant to keep
her up. At the entrance of her mother-in-law she was on her guard again,
and sank languidly into the nearest chair. "Oh, I'm so hungry!" she
yawned, pulling off her gloves, and pretending to nibble at a sandwich.
"Do sit down," she went on, as Mrs. Eveleth remained standing. "I should
think you'd be hungry, too."

"Aren't you surprised to see me sitting up, Diane?"

"I wasn't, but I can be, if that's my cue," Diane laughed.

At the nonchalance of the reply Mrs. Eveleth was, for a second, half
deceived. Was it possible that she had only conjured up a waking
nightmare, and that there was nothing to be afraid of, after all?
Possessing the French quality of frankness to an unusual degree, it was
difficult for Diane to act a part at any time. With all her Parisian
finesse her nature was as direct as lightning, while her glance had that
fulness of candor which can never be assumed. Looking at her now, with
her elbows on the table, and the sandwich daintily