Mr. Wemyss led the way to his rooms and Flossie looked about her curiously. The apartment was full of old china, books, and rare bronzes that showed its owner’s cultivated tastes; a sort of studio led off from the dining-room, and in it were many samples of Mr. Wemyss’s art; most prominent among them a large portrait of Flossie Gower herself, painted from memory, and not over good as a likeness. Flossie remarked upon it; and Mr. Wemyss made some speech about not needing the shrine now that the divinity was there. And as he said it, Justine not having gone into the studio with them, he made bold to clasp her in his arms. Flossie repelled him; and with some muttered words about getting a cup of coffee for her, he left the room; not quite so gracefully as usual. Flossie walked to the window and looked out. The room was very high; and the whole cityful of brick roofs and spires and factory chimneys lay brooding in their own foul breath of smoke. Flossie had a momentary feeling that the climax of her life had fallen beneath her expectation, like the rest.--Far off, on either side, a clearer stratum of air marked the course of the two rivers; and to the eastward were some saffron streaks of winter morning. These faded to the left, in an ominous brown cloud of smoke, beneath which still, in the distance, licked some silent tongues of fire. “It must have been a terrible fire,” said Wemyss’s voice behind her carelessly. “But the breakfast is ready, such as it is; will you not come, dearest?” Flossie went back with him, and found a table spread with coffee, cold partridges, and grapes. Justine remained there, for propriety’s sake. In a few minutes they were ready; and going down, she found another carriage waiting. Wemyss gave his orders, and they drove to the railroad station. It looked curiously commonplace and familiar; it might have been the most respectable of quiet journeys! Flossie abhorred respectability. Mr. Wemyss had a compartment ready in the car, with all imaginable ordinary luxuries of travel; he even got a bundle of the morning papers, which Flossie did not read. She was tired of the sight of an American newspaper, and never wished to look at one again. Wemyss looked a little furtively about the platforms and then walked through the train; and came back and told her there was no one that they knew on board. Flossie would not have cared much if there had been. A boy came through, crying the last new novels. Flossie shook her head. What were such insipid stories to the drama of her life? Mr. Wemyss carefully closed the door, and began to make himself agreeable, much as he might have done at a party, except that he talked more tenderly. Would the train never start? She yawned a little. For a moment, she half wished it had been Kill Van Kull. At last a bell sounded, and the train rumbled slowly out of the station. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE NIGHT AT THE WORKS.