“Perhaps, Madame,” said Trenchard with that boldness which cloaks timidity, “you would give us your assistance in the choice of suitable flowers.” “I am afraid, Monsieur,” returned the elder lady with growing coldness, “that I cannot be of service in the matter. I do not consider it good taste to wear flowers of any description while in mourning—even in half-mourning—for a near relative.” Lucienne looked down, and no one said anything. “For myself,” pursued the Marquise, evidently gratified with the effect which she was producing, “I have never worn them since the death of my husband—except at my son’s request, on the occasion of his annual banquet to his tenants. And even then,” she added with increased dignity, “the flowers were not real.” “Dear me, what were they, then?” enquired Sir William, impressed. “Immortelles, perhaps,” irreverently murmured Trenchard to himself. “Wax,” said the Marquise. And in the silence produced by this disclosure George remarked evenly: “I doubt, aunt, if Mr Trenchard’s hothouses can put any such blossoms at his disposal.” “No, egad!” ejaculated their guest, rather dismayed. “But surely, Madame——” “No!” suddenly cried Lucienne, with colour in her cheeks and sparkling eyes, “Madame is perfectly right. I ought not to have thought of wearing flowers. Perhaps indeed it would be better if I did not go at all.” Amelia, Trenchard, and Sir William cried out at this. “No, no,” said the Marquise, coldly mistress of the situation; “that, I think, is an unnecessary deprivation. Lucienne shall go by all means, but I certainly think that she would do well to postpone the receiving and wearing of flowers till a later date.” It was left to the judgment of her hearers to fix this epoch. Trenchard, mortified, bowed in silence, stealing a look at Lucienne. He had never admired her so much, for though her type, the clinging, most appealed to him, as to the majority of his sex, he liked on occasion what he considered a spice of the devil, and Mademoiselle d’Aucourt was plainly angry. But, the question of Amelia’s flowers having naturally lapsed, he shortly afterwards took his departure, invoking dubious blessings on the head of Madame de Château-Foix. That lady, left alone with Lucienne, who was possibly too proud to flee, had produced some embroidery. From time to time, as the needle passed in and out under the lamp she threw a glance at the girl sitting by the fire, in the forlorn and dreamy attitude which was becoming habitual to her. “I am sorry, my child,” she said at length, “to have been obliged to speak to you as I did about your flowers. Yet it was not the question of wearing flowers while still in half-mourning which distressed me—for, after all, there are many persons comme il faut who do so—but that you should permit yourself to receive them at all.” “Madame,” responded Lucienne in a suffocated voice, without turning her head, “you made that perfectly plain.”