She glanced at the fresh chintz curtains, at the two or three little pieces of silver, exquisitely cared for, on mantelpiece and tables; at the flowers everywhere. “She’s as dainty as ever,” was her next reflection. A photograph on the top of a writing-table caught her wandering attention. She took it up, and examined it with interest. It was that of a man of a possible five-and-thirty, clean-shaven, handsome, with something eager, enthusiastic, almost childlike about the eyes, and the mouth of a sensualist. Mrs. Summers replaced the photograph; it was of Cecily’s husband, but she was more interested in Cecily, and of her she could find no picture. She walked presently to the door which led into the garden. Looking out upon its cool greenness and beauty, her thoughts were full of its owner. A very close friendship, rather than the tie of blood, bound her to the woman for whose coming she waited. Much of her girlhood had been spent with Cecily, and up to the time of her own marriage, six years ago, she had stayed weeks at a time at the Merivales’ house in Chelsea. It had been an interesting house to visit. Cecily’s father, a widower and a well-known doctor, was the type of man who attracted the better minds, the more striking personalities, and Cecily was undoubtedly the woman to keep them. Apparently gazing into the quiet Surrey garden, in reality Mrs. Summers was looking into the drawing-room at Carmarthen Terrace, seeing it as it had appeared on many an evening in the past. The room was full of firelight and candlelight, a quiet, restful room, a little old-fashioned with its traces of mid-Victorianism, brought by Cecily’s clever touch into harmony with a more modern standard of taste. Mrs. Summers remembered the pattern of the long chintz curtains, remembered the subdued tone of the walls, the china in the big cabinet, the water-colors which were the pride of her uncle’s heart. She saw him talking earnestly at one end of the room, his fine gray head conspicuous among the group of men who surrounded him--men well known in the world of science, of letters, and of art. Even more distinctly she saw Cecily, the young hostess and mistress of the house, in the midst of the younger men and women of their circle. She heard the laughter. There was always laughter near Cecily, whose airy _insouciance_ was amusing enough successfully to disguise real ability. “I’m quite clever enough to pass for a fluffy fool--when necessary.” This, a long-ago remark of her cousin’s, suddenly recurred to Mrs. Summers, _à propos_ of nothing, and she wondered whether Cecily ever wrote anything now. Then her thoughts went back to Cecily as a hostess. She had been looked upon by some of her friends as a brilliant woman, a woman whose social gifts, whose power of pleasing--as well as leading--should carry her far in the yet wider world which would open for her when she made the excellent marriage that every one predicted.