So, the next day, with a view to making a suitable impression on Paul's widow, as she chose to call Mrs. Vane, she put on her most dowdy garments, and actually went in an omnibus down the King's-road. Thus far her environment suited her foregone conclusions, but, as she stood in the wide stretch down by the river, the brilliant sunshine streaming upon a very bright knocker and a very white door, a certain feeling of distrust crept over her. Nor was the darkened room into which she was ushered reassuring. The parquet floors were almost bare, the windows beneath the striped Venetian awnings were set wide open to a balcony wreathed with blossoming creepers, and hung with cages of singing birds. A scent of flowers was in the air, a coolness, an emptiness, and yet the first impression was one of ease and comfort. Not the room, this, of an old frump. And this was not an old frump rising from a cushioned lounge and coming forward like a white shadow in the half light. "How good of you to come!" Lady George, dazzled as she was by the change from the sunlight outside to the darkness within, yet saw enough to make her gasp. Lo! this little bit of a woman with syren written all over her from the tip of her dainty Parisian shoe to the crown of her fair, curly head, was Paul's widow. His mother, forsooth! A pretty mother, indeed! Having got so far as this, Blanche, being, amongst other things, somewhat of an artist, felt bound to admit that Violet Vane was very pretty indeed; so pretty that it was a pleasure to watch the piquant face, full of a quaint sort of humour and freshness, grow clear of the shadows. In this half light she looked younger, no doubt, than she really was; still, even in the garish day, Lady George felt instinctively that her charm would remain. In fact, she was not at all, no! not in the least, a suitable companion for Paul, when so much depended on his being reasonable. "I haven't seen your brother for years," came the sweet but rather thin voice. "It is so good of him to remember me. So more than good of him to ask me down to Gleneira that I mean to go, if only to ensure the kindness being credited to him. I wonder if he is much changed?" There was a certain challenge in the speech which Lady George was quick enough to recognise, and, as she recognised it, wondered if her own astonishment had been too palpable, as that in itself would be a mistake, so she replied deftly: "He is not changed in one thing--his gratitude to you. And I am grateful also, for Paul is very dear to me. The dearest fellow in the world, is he not?" It was a statement to which, in the language of poker, Mrs. Vane could hardly go one better, and therefore it left her, as it were, to an under-study of devotion.