She was a tall woman, and thin, her hair was white, but her light blue eyes were undimmed; her nose was long and decidedly arched; her lips were settled into something that looked like a mocking smile. She looked uncompromising, but not so much so as she was; she looked intelligent and clever, but not as clever as she was. She sat in a straight chair, a dignified old model, with her feet resting on a small stool. At her side stood the table that held her reading lamp; it was laden with books in French and English. Many of them lay open, face down, for Miss Carrington kept her books to serve her, and did not weigh their welfare against her convenience. Her nephew, Christopher, was not only her nearest of kin, but her only kin near enough to consider as such. He was so dear to her, and in him her ambition had so concentrated, that existence under her domain had not been easy to him since he had passed the years when she could gratify all his desires by buying him the best sport trappings, outfits, horses, and boats that a spoiled lad could own. This Miss Carrington had done, and yet Kit was so little spoiled by these luxuries that his will was in danger of running counter to his aunt’s ambition for him. At last Miss Carrington laid her book across her knee and watched Kit’s movements, frankly inviting confidence. Becoming conscious of this, he brought himself up with his elbow on the mantel and, turning toward her, said in that big, cheery voice of his that the old lady never could hear without thrilling to it: “I beg your pardon, Aunt Anne! Do I give you the willies doing the zoo-tiger act like this?” “I don’t know their Christian name--though why jungle ways should have a Christian name I don’t see--but if irritated nerves are willies, then, yes, you give them to me,” said his aunt. She spoke in a light, slightly acrid voice, her syllables articulated like Italian. Kit laughed. “Nice Aunt Anne!” he approved her, impersonally. “You always sit on a chap in a delightful way. I’ll be seated, thanks.” He dropped into the deep chair on the right of the fireplace, stretching out to his great length. But Miss Carrington saw that he at once possessed himself of the tongs and began to open and shut them in a way as tiresome as his roaming had been. Kit nervous? This hearty, athletic lad fidgeting? Miss Carrington wondered what was on his mind. Being clever she set out to discover indirectly. She had heard a suggestion that she loathed; it had come from Minerva, her maid, and Minerva, true to her name, was, as a rule, right. Miss Carrington closed her book, first noting the page number, for she scorned bookmarks, laid it on the table, and picked up the latest number of a newspaper supplement devoted to book news.