“Sure. On the door-step. That’s where we once were told to sit--authors, players, painters--the whole job-lot of us. Now we prefer it, although since your youth society welcomes anybody that can amuse it. We go in, now and then. But it’s better fun outside. So I’m going to sit there and tell my stories to the hoi-polloi as they pass along. If what you consider society wishes to listen it can stick its head out of the window.” “It is amazing to me,” she said, staring at him out of watery eyes, “how utterly common my brother’s son can be. I can _not_ understand it, Barry. And you are not alone in this demoralization. Young people everywhere are infected. Only a week or two ago I met Elizabeth Blythe in California. She was painted a perfectly ghastly colour in broad daylight. Elizabeth Blythe--the daughter of Courtlandt Blythe, a painted, motion-picture _actress_!” It was impossible for him to control his laughter. “She told me that you snubbed her,” he said. “But you don’t seem to be consistent, Aunt Cornelia. I hear that you’ve been civil and kind to another actress. I mean Eris Odell.” “Do _you_ know her?” inquired his aunt calmly. “I’ve met her.” Mrs. Grandcourt remained silent for a while, her pale eyes fixed on her nephew. “That girl’s grandmother was my beloved comrade in boarding school,” she said slowly. “We shared the same room. Her name was Jeanne d’Espremont. Her grandmother was that celebrated Countess of the time of Louis XV.... They were Louisiana Creoles. Her blood was as good as any in France. Probably that means nothing to a modern young man.... It meant something to me.... I shouldn’t have wished to love a nobody as I loved Jeanne d’Espremont.” Mrs. Grandcourt bent her head and looked down at her celebrated Victorian hands. Pearls bulged on the tiny, fat fingers. “Jeanne ran away,” she said. “She married the son of a planter. His family was unimpeachable, but he looked like a fox. When he drank himself to death she went on the stage. “She had a baby. I saw it. It looked like a female fox. Jeanne died when the girl was sixteen.... I’d have taken her,----” Presently Annan asked why she hadn’t done so. “Because,” said his aunt, “she married a boy who peddled vegetables the day after the funeral. His name was Odell.” “Oh! Was he the father of Eris?” “He was. And is.... What an astonishing reversion to the lovely, aristocratic type of her grandmother.... I encountered her by accident. She was with Elizabeth Blythe, but she was not painted.... I assure you, Barry, it was a severe shock to me. She is the absolute image of her grandmother.... She startled me so.... I never was emotional.... But--I could scarcely speak--scarcely find my voice--to ask her.... But I _knew_. The girl was Jeanne d’Espremont, _alive_.” After a moment: “Did you find her interesting?” he asked. “She has all the charm and intelligence of her grandmother.... And all her lovely appeal. And her fatal obstinacy.” “Obstinacy?”