her rounded throat stood out, and the pure line of her lower jaw was
salient. Her eyes were half closed, while all the mass of her
honey-coloured hair was gathered low down on the nape of her neck into
a net of golden thread. A golden, netted girdle was knotted loosely
about her loins, the tasseled ends of it dragging upon the floor. She
wore no jewels, nor were they needed, for the loveliness of her person,
discovered rather than concealed by those changeful sea-blue draperies,
was already dangerously potent.

All this Katherine saw--a radiant vision of youth, an incarnation, not
of care and haunting fears, but of pleasure and haunting delights. And
she saw more than this. For in the depths of that long, low armchair
Richard sat, stiffly erect, his face dead white, thin, and
strained--Richard, as she had never beheld him before, though she knew
the face well enough. It was his father's face as she had seen it on
her marriage night, and on his death night too, when his fingers had
been clasped about her throat to the point of strangulation. Katherine
dared look no longer. Her heart stood still. Shame and anger took her,
and along with these an immense nostalgia for that which had once been
and was not. Her instinct was of flight. But Camp trotted forward,
growling, and squatted between the pedestals of the library-table, his
red eyes blinking sullenly in the square shadow. Involuntarily
Katherine followed him part way across the room.

Richard looked full at his cousin, absorbed, rigid, an amazement of
question in his eyes. Not a muscle of his face moved. But Madame de
Vallorbes' absorption was less complete. She started slightly and half
turned her head.

"Ah! there is that dog again," she said. "What has brought him back? He
hates me."

"Damn the dog!" Richard exclaimed, hoarsely under his breath. Then he
said:--"Helen, Helen, you know----"

But Madame de Vallorbes had turned her head yet further, and her arched
eyelids opened quite wide for once, while she smiled a little, her lips
parting and revealing her pretty teeth tightly set.

"Ah! the advent of the bull-dog explains itself," she exclaimed. "Here
is Aunt Katherine herself!"

Slowly, and with an inimitable grace, she rose to her feet. Her long,
winged sleeves floated back into place, covering her bare arms. Her
composure was astonishing, even to herself. Yet her breath came a
trifle quick as she contemplated Lady Calmady with the same enigmatic
smile