several
steps nearer to him. He looked weary, just as he faced me then, looked
preoccupied, and as if there were something one might do for him. I was
terribly conscious of the limits of my own ability, but I wondered what
such a service might be, feeling at bottom, however, that the only thing
I could do for him was to like him. I suppose he guessed this, and was
grateful for what was in my mind; for he went on presently, "I have n't
the advantage of being an American. But I also notice a little, and I
have an idea that--a--" here he smiled and laid his hand on my shoulder,
"that even apart from your nationality, you are not destitute of
intelligence! I have only known you half an hour, but--a--" And here he
hesitated again. "You are very young, after all."

"But you may treat me as if I could understand you!" I said; and before
he left me to dress for dinner he had virtually given me a promise that
he would.

When I went down into the drawing-room--I was very punctual--I found
that neither my hostess nor my host had appeared. A lady rose from a
sofa, however, and inclined her head as I rather surprisedly gazed at
her. "I dare say you don't know me," she said, with the modern laugh.
"I am Mark Ambient's sister." Whereupon I shook hands with her, saluting
her very low. Her laugh was modern--by which I mean that it consisted
of the vocal agitation which, between people who meet in drawing-rooms,
serves as the solvent of social mysteries, the medium of transitions;
but her appearance was--what shall I call it?--mediaeval. She was pale
and angular, with a long, thin face, inhabited by sad, dark eyes, and
black hair intertwined with golden fillets and curious chains. She wore
a faded velvet robe, which clung to her when she moved, fashioned, as
to the neck and sleeves, like the garments of old Venetians and
Florentines. She looked pictorial and melancholy, and was so perfect an
image of a type which I, in my ignorance, supposed to be extinct, that
while she rose before me I was almost as much startled as if I had seen
a ghost. I afterwards perceived that Miss Ambient was not incapable
of deriving pleasure from the effect she produced, and I think this
sentiment had something to do with her sinking again into her seat, with
her long, lean, but not ungraceful arms locked together in an archaic
manner on her knees, and her mournful eyes addressing themselves to
me with an intentness which was a menace of what they were destin