"What did he say to you?" Honora inquired presently.

"He was abusing me for not letting him know I was in Paris."

"Peter, you ought to have let him know!"

"I didn't come over here to see the ambassador," answered Peter, gayly.

She talked less than usual on their drive homeward, but he did not seem
to notice the fact. Dusk was already lurking in the courtyards and byways
of the quiet quarter when the porter let them in, and the stone stairway
of the old hotel was almost in darkness. The sitting-room, with its
yellow, hangings snugly drawn and its pervading but soft light, was a
grateful change. And while she was gone to--remove her veil and hat,
Peter looked around it.

It was redolent of her. A high vase of remarkable beauty, filled with
white roses, stood on the gueridon. He went forward and touched it, and
closed his eyes as though in pain. When he opened them he saw her
standing in the archway.

She had taken off her coat, and was in a simple white muslin gown, with a
black belt--a costume that had become habitual. Her age was thirty. The
tragedy and the gravity of her life during these later years had touched
her with something that before was lacking. In the street, in the
galleries, people had turned to look at her; not with impudent stares.
She caught attention, aroused imagination. Once, the year before, she had
had a strange experience with a well-known painter, who, in an impulsive
note, had admitted following her home and bribing the concierge. He