ssed
her taste. It contained too many ornaments, too many knickknacks, too
many mirrors, too many wardrobes, too many easy-chairs, too much
embossed silver on the dressing-table, too much old porcelain, wherever
there was a place for it. Everything was costly, from the lace coverlet
on the bed to the Persian rugs on the floor.

Olivia looked vaguely about the room, as on an apartment she had never
before seen. She found herself speculating as to the amount these
elaborate furnishings would fetch if sold. She recalled the fact,
forgotten till now, that when the Berringtons' belongings, purchased
with reckless extravagance, passed under the hammer, they had gone for a
song. She made the same forecast regarding the contents of Tory Hill.
Much money had been spent on them, but, with the exception perhaps of
some of the old portraits, there was little of real intrinsic value. She
made the reflection coldly, drearily, as bearing on things that had no
connection with herself.

Her eyes traveled back to her father. With the muscles of the face
relaxed in sleep, he looked old and jaded. The mustache, which had not
been waxed or curled that day, sagged at the corners, the mouth sagging
under it. Above the line of the beard the skin was mottled and puffy.
The lashes rested on his cheeks with the luxuriance of a girl's, and the
splendid eyebrows had all their fullness; but the lids twitched and
quivered like those of a child that has fallen asleep during a fit of
weeping.

It was this twitching that softened her, that compelled her to judge him
from the most merciful point of view. There was something piteous about
him, something that silenced reproaches, that disarmed severity. She had
come up-stairs staggered, incredulous--incredulous and yet
convinced--outraged, terrified; but now the appeal of that fagged face
and those quivering lids was too strong for her. It wrought in her not
so much sympathy as comprehension, an understanding of him such as she
had never before arrived at. In his capacity of father she had loved him
unrestrainedly, but admired him with reserves. It was impossible not to
love a parent so handsome, so genial, so kind, so generally admired; it
was equally impossible not to criticize, however gently, a man with such
a love of luxury, of unwarranted princeliness, and of florid display.
She was indulgent to his tastes in the degree to which a new and
enlightened generation can be tolerant of the errors of tha