urniture and the same beaded footstools, will they?"

Seeing the deep embarrassment in which his friend was plunged, Owen now
interposed.

"Don't try to defend Gwendolen on my account," he said. "She really
can't be defended. I know it, for I've seen her drawing-room."

"You have seen it? And what do you think of it?" asked old Mrs.
Waterlow.

"I thought, as I told her," said Owen, "that it lacked but one thing,
and that was the travesty of a soul. It lacked the white pagoda."

"You told her that? It was what she told me. She told me that she could
not forgive herself for having parted with the pagoda, for it was the
travesty of a soul that her room still needed. 'You mean,' I said, 'the
pagoda placed as Cicely placed it on the centre-table in her new room?'
She gazed at me and laid her hand on my arm and asked: 'But, dear Mrs.
Waterlow, how had Cicely placed the pagoda? I really don't remember. I
really don't remember at all what Cicely's new room was like, except
that it was mid-Victorian, and had old water-colours on the walls.
Surely you don't think that I've copied Cicely?'

"'My dear Mrs. Conyers,' I said to her, 'I don't think, but know, that
you've done nothing else since you came to Chislebridge. But in this
case you are farther from success than usual, for Cicely's drawing-room
is gay, and yours is _grand serieux_.'"

Mrs. Waterlow's bomb seemed to fill the air with a silvery explosion,
and, as its echoes died, in the ensuing stillness, the eyes of Cicely
and Owen met beneath the triumphant gaze of the merciless old lady. It
was from his eyes that hers caught the infection. To remain grave now
was to be _grand serieux_, and helpless gaiety was in the air. Owen
broke into peals of laughter.

"Oh--but--" Cicely Waterlow protested, laughing, too, but still flushed
and almost tearful--"it isn't fair. It's as if we had taken her in. She
doesn't know she does it, really she doesn't; she is so well-meaning--so
kind."

"She knows now," said old Mrs. Waterlow, who remained unsmiling, but
with a placidity full of satisfaction; "and she'll hardly be able to
forget."

"I'm quite sure," said Cicely, "that she really believes that she cares
for the new drawing-room. People can persuade themselves so easily of
new tastes. And why shouldn't they have them? I believe that Gwendolen
does like it."

"Yes, she does indeed," said old Mrs. Waterlow. "She says so. She says
she never cared for any room so much and that