the room by his side,
showing him the pictures which hung lightly upon the high oak panels,
and the foreign bric-a-brac and Italian vases ranged along the wide
black ledge a little below. Her father had been obliged to go out and
speak to the head gamekeeper about some suspected poaching, and they
were alone.

"This is where I like to sit after dinner, when we are alone," she said;
and, lifting some heavy drooping curtains, she led him into a quaint
recess, almost as large as an ordinary room. A shaded lamp was burning
on a small Burmese table, and the faint fragrance of burning pine logs
stole up from the open hearth and floated about on the air, already
slightly perfumed with the odor of chrysanthemums clustered together in
quaint blue china bowls, little patches of gold-and-white coloring,
where everything else was somber and subdued. She sank into a low basket
chair before the fire, and, obeying her gesture, he seated himself
opposite to her.

"Now, talk to me, please," she said, half hiding her face with a feather
screen to protect it from the fire. "No commonplacisms, mind! I have
heard nothing else all my life, and I am weary of them. And, first,
please to light a cigarette. You will find some in the silver box by
your side. I like the perfume."

He did as he was bidden in silence. For a moment he watched the faint
blue smoke curl upward, stole a glance around him, and drew a long
breath as though he were drinking in to the full the artistic content of
the exquisite harmony and coloring, of his surroundings. Then he threw a
sudden, swift look upon the beautiful girl who was leaning back in her
low chair, with her fair head resting upon a cushion of deep olive
green, and her eyes fixed expectantly upon him. She was so near that, by
stretching out his hand, he could have seized her small shapely fingers;
so near, that he could even detect the delicate scent of lavender from
the lace of her black dinner gown. He took in every detail of her dainty
toilette from the single diamond which sparkled in the black velvet
around her throat, to the exquisitely slippered feet resting lightly
upon a tiny sage-green footstool, and just visible through the
gossamerlike draperies which bordered her skirts. In the world of her
sex she had become an era to him.

CHAPTER X

THE TRAGEDY OF RACHEL KYNASTON.

"I wonder whether you know that we have met before, Miss Thurwell?" he
asked her suddenly.

She moved her scree