e most insignificant details were arranged so as
to lead up to and set off her good things, which were few and far
between. There was no rest in it for the eye that was perpetually
seized and riveted on some bit of old silver, or Oriental drapery,
some Chippendale cabinet or chair. Such things were the commonplaces
of Coton Manor, and there they fell unobtrusively into their place.
Here they were touched up and handled, posed out of all simplicity;
they bore themselves accordingly with a shining consciousness of
their own rarity; they made an unblushing bid for praise. In Mrs.
Fazakerly's drawing-room the note of taste was forced.

The invitation had come as a sort of farewell attention to Durant.
Its valedictory character was further emphasized by Mrs. Fazakerly's
proposing to walk home with them, and finally falling into the rear
with Durant.

As a turn in the drive brought them within sight of Coton Manor,
Mrs. Fazakerly balanced her _pince-nez_ on the bridge of her nose.
It remained there, and he judged that Mrs. Fazakerly was in no mood
for mirth.

"That house," said Mrs. Fazakerly, "annoys me."

"Why?"

"Because it hasn't had justice done to it."

"I should have thought that was a ground for pity rather than
resentment."

Mrs. Fazakerly shrugged her shoulders ever so little. "That
drawing-room--did you ever see anything like it? And such
possibilities in it, too. I can't bear to think of all those
beautiful things wasted, just for want of a little taste, a little
arrangement--the right touch."

The widow's white fingers twitched. It was not vulgar cupidity; it
was the passion of the born genius, of the lover of art for art's
sake, who sees his opportunity given into the hands of an inferior.
If only she had the ordering, the decoration of Coton Manor! Durant
thought of the cottage at the gates, her cramped and humble sphere;
it was not her fault so much as the defect of her instrument, that
forcing of the note of taste; no wonder that she longed for the rich
harmonies of Coton Manor under "the right touch," the touch of the
master.

She continued, "But poor dear Miss Tancred, you know, she will have
it left just as it was in Mrs. Tancred's time; she won't change a
picture or a chair in it. That's Frida all over. She's made that
house a monument to her mother's memory. And think what she might
have made it."

"I'm thinking what she might have made of her life. She seems to be
making that a monument