As soon as Evarne was quite alone she placed herself in the centre of the brilliant red room, and pivoting round slowly, surveyed every wall--every corner--anew. It was scarcely three months since she had left the austerity of "The Retreat"--three months in which she had learnt, seen, done and heard more than in all the previous years of her life. In the dazzling luxury of this room the culminating point of the extraordinary difference between the past and the present seemed to be attained. Its mad superabundance of wealth and colour, appealing so forcefully to the emotions, bewildered the child. Everything about it appeared indefinably wrong--almost unnatural--and for a moment the instinctive fear of the unknown gripped her heart. Suddenly she became apprehensive, afraid of life, of the hidden future and what it held. She felt very young, very ignorant, very helpless--a stranger not only in a far land, but in a strange world. If only Mrs. Kenyon had been here to welcome her! Apparently no one about the place could speak a word of English save Morris himself--and, of course, his valet. Even with the bright little maid who was to attend on her, she had found she could only converse by signs. She walked timidly over the thick, yielding carpet and leant against the open window, breathing deeply of the fresh, pure air. But a little while and her natural courage rallied, the shadow of depression was tossed aside; she turned back into the room, glanced round it once again with sparkling eyes lit up by admiration, and all unconsciously broke into a snatch of joyous song. CHAPTER IV THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID No trace of the uneasiness of the afternoon remained, as Evarne--clad in a Parisian triumph, a loosely-falling dinner-gown of fragile black chiffon and lace--took her seat that evening opposite Morris in the cosy little anteroom in which he had ordered meals to be served in preference to the ordinary dining-room. She was bright and smiling and appreciative, as throughout that first evening beneath his own roof he exerted himself particularly to please and entertain her. Not that this called for much additional effort. Evarne invariably found her guardian's society to be more inspiring and exhilarating than his own champagne. Even in his ordinary converse with this unusual young girl, the whole of his knowledge of men and matters, his wide experience, his original ideas, all his natural wit and brightness ever flowed forth readily and unrestricted. True, this implied not only the teachings of some doctrines more or less heretical, but a certain element of looseness of speech and the recounting of anecdotes and incidents not usually deemed appropriate to the ears of sweet seventeen. So, albeit the previous delicacy of her every thought unavoidably gave place to something less ethereal, her character developed and matured by leaps and bounds.