There was not a false note to disturb his beauty-loving sense. He stood waiting, on one side a long window giving on a rose garden, as he afterward discovered, on the other a group in marble by Cedersholm. He was studying this with interest when he heard Mrs. Faversham enter the room. She had foreseen that he would not be likely to wear an evening dress and she herself had put on the simplest of her frocks. But he thought her quite dazzling, and the grace of her hands, and her welcome as she greeted him, were divine to the young man. "I'm so glad to see you, Mr. Rainsford." Instantly he bent and kissed her hand. She saw him flush to his fair hair. He felt a gratitude to her, a thankfulness, which awakened in him immediately the strongest of emotions. She seemed to consider him a distinguished guest. She told him that she was going to Rome when Mr. Cedersholm came over--there would be a little party going down to Italy. Fairfax's eyes kindled, and in the few moments he stood with her there, in her fragrant drawing-room, where the fire in the logs sang and whispered and the lamp-light threw its long, fair shadows on the crimson floors and melted in the crimson hangings, he felt that he stood with an old friend, with some one he had known his life long and known well, even before he had known--and there was a poignancy in his treason--even before he had known his mother. When the doors were thrown open and another visitor was announced, he was jealous and regretful and glanced at Mrs. Faversham as though he thought she had done him a wrong. "My vife, oui," said the gentleman who came in and who was of a nationality whose type was not yet familiar to Fairfax. "My wife is horsed to-night, chere Madame; she cannot come to the dinner--a thousand pardons." "I am sorry the Countess is ill." Potowski, who had been told by his hostess not to dress, had made up for the sacrifice as brilliantly as he could. His waistcoat was of embroidered satin, his cravat a flaming scarlet, and in his button-hole an exotic flower which went well with his dark, exotic face. He was a little ridiculous: short and fat, with a fashion of gesticulating with his hands as though he were swimming into society, but his expression was agreeable and candid. His near-sighted eyes were naive, his voice sweet and caressing. Rainsford saw that his hostess liked Potowski. She was too sweet a lady to be annoyed by peculiarities. In a few moments, the lame sculptor on one side and the flashy Slav on the other, she led them to the little dining-room, to an exquisite table, served by two men in livery. There was an intimacy in the apartment shut in by the panelling from floor to ceiling of the walls. The windows were covered with yellow damask curtains and the footfalls made no sound on the thick carpet. "Mr. Rainsford is a sculptor," his hostess told Potowski. "He has studied with Cedersholm, but we shall soon forget whose pupil he is when he is a master himself."