upon a massive silver salver.
Behind him was Aline. "You are doubtless fatigued by your journey,
madam," Stephen concluded.

Louise made a little grimace, but she rose at once to her feet. She
understood quite well that she was being sent to bed, and she shivered a
little when she looked at the hour--barely ten o'clock. Yet it was all
in keeping. From the doorway she looked back into the room, in which
nothing seemed to have been touched for centuries. She stood upon the
threshold to bid her final good-night, fully conscious of the complete
anachronism of her presence there.

Her smile for Stephen was respectful and full of dignity. As she glanced
toward John, however, something flashed in her eyes and quivered at the
corners of her lips, something which escaped her control, something
which made him grip for a moment the back of the chair against which he
stood. Then, between the old man servant, who insisted upon carrying her
candle to her room, and her maid, who walked behind, she crossed the
white stone hall and stepped slowly up the broad flight of stairs.

III

Louise awoke the next morning filled with a curious sense of buoyant
expectancy. The sunshine was pouring into the room, brightening up its
most somber corners. It lay across the quilt of her bed, and seemed to
bring out the perfume of lavender from the pillow on which her head
reposed.

Aline, hearing her mistress stir, hastened at once to the bedside.

"Good morning, _madame_!"

Louise sat up and looked around her, with her hands clasped about her
knees.

"Tell me everything, Aline," she said. "Have you my breakfast there? And
what time is it?"

"It is half-past nine, _madame_," Aline replied, "and your breakfast is
here. The old imbecile from the kitchen has just brought it up."

Louise looked approvingly at the breakfast tray, with the home-made
bread and deep-yellow butter, the brown eggs and clear honey. The smell
of the coffee was aromatic. She breathed a little sigh of content.

"How delicious everything looks!" she exclaimed.

"The home-made things are well enough in their way, _madame_," Aline
agreed, "but I have never known a household so strange and disagreeable.
That M. Jennings, who calls himself the butler--he is a person
unspeakable, a savage!"

Louise's eyes twinkled.

"I don't think they are fond of women in this household, Aline," she
remarked. "Tell me, have you seen Charles?"