rmed by a particularly trim
and discreet maid that her mistress received no one save by appointment.
Therefore, bowing to the inevitable with what philosophy he could summon,
he went home and wrote a note to the seeress, requesting an early
interview and signing an assumed name. He was gratified to receive an
answer, dictated, the next morning in which Mademoiselle Mariposa stated
that she would be pleased to receive him at three o'clock in the
afternoon, on the following Thursday. Thursday, and this was Tuesday. Two
days farther away than he desired, but there was nothing to do but curb
his impatience, and he set about occupying his mind and incidentally his
time until Thursday.

Fortunately, he discovered in glancing over his list of engagements that
a number of events dovetailed admirably, thus filling up the hours, and
among them was Edith Symmes' luncheon on Wednesday. He heaved a sigh of
relief that there were enough things on hand to give time wings, even if
artificial ones, when it seemed bent on perversely dragging leaden feet
along the ground. In consequence he betook himself to Mrs. Symmes' house
on Wednesday with more eagerness than he would otherwise have shown had
he not regarded her luncheon as a time-chaser.

Mrs. Symmes had been early widowed. Her experience of married life
included a bare two years, her husband living a twelve-month longer than
the friends of both had predicted. He was, so it was rumored, a charming
fellow of rare artistic taste and discrimination, a dilettante, and a
connoisseur of all things beautiful. So sensitively was he organized that
inharmonies or discords of color, or any lack of artistic perception
affected him acutely, often to the verge of illness, and always
irritation. Although he permitted his wife no voice in the decoration and
furnishing of either town or country house, almost desperately withheld
it from her in fact, he could not control or even influence her taste in
dress, and there were those who did not hesitate to whisper that Edith's
costumes alone were quite sufficient to have caused his death.

After that event, Mrs. Symmes endured the low-toned harmonies of her
husband's faultless taste for six months, and then declaring her
environment depressing to her spirits, she refurnished the house from
garret to cellar, perpetrating crimes in decoration which made the
horrors of her toilets seem mere peccadillos.

Hayden was soon to realize this, for on arriving at