y
wouldn't let me use it."

Owen had risen to face his ordeal. Mrs. Waterlow, he had seen it in the
first astonished glance, had, like everybody else in Chislebridge, been
imitating Gwendolen, and his whole conception of her was undergoing a
reconstruction. He followed her to the table on which the white pagoda
stood, glancing about him and taking in deep drafts of disillusion. Red
lacquer and Japanese prints, white porcelain and dimly shining jars of
old Venetian glass--it was a replica, even to its white walls, of
Gwendolen's drawing-room, but hushed and saddened, as it were, humbly
smiling, with folded hands and no attempt at emulation. And in the
midst, beautifully in place on its little black lacquer table, was the
pagoda, offering him not a hint of help, but seeming rather, to smile at
him with a fantastic and malicious mirth. He was aware, as from the
pagoda he brought his eyes back to young Mrs. Waterlow, that he was
dreadfully sorry. In another woman he would not have given the naive
derivativeness a thought; but in her, whom he had felt so full of savour
and independence? One thing only helped him, beside the effortless
atmosphere of the room, and that was the fact--he clung to it--that the
glasses set everywhere among the red and black and white were filled
not, thank goodness! with pink roses, but with poppy anemones, white and
purple and rose. And the first thing he found to say of the pagoda to
Mrs. Waterlow was, "It looks lovely in here," and then, turning to the
nearest bowl of delicate colour, he added, "and how beautifully these
flowers go with your room!"

He wondered, as their eyes met over the anemones, whether Mrs. Waterlow
guessed his discomfiture.

When he saw Gwendolen that evening she asked him at once whether he
liked old Mrs. Waterlow. She did not ask him how he liked young Mrs.
Waterlow's drawing-room, and he reflected that this was really very
magnanimous of her.

"She seems a witty old lady," he said. "Her daughter-in-law can't be
dull with her."

"She's witty, but I always feel her a little spiteful, too," said
Gwendolen. "We never get on, she and I. I hate hearing my neighbours
scored off, and she has such an eye for people's foibles. I don't think
that Cicely always quite likes it, either; but they are devoted to each
other. If it weren't for old Mrs. Waterlow, I'd try to see a great deal
more of Cicely; I'm really fond of her."

* * * * *

He di