The little entrance was very pretty, and the drawing-room, into which Peter was immediately ushered, even prettier. Evidently the Archinards had brought their own furniture, and the Archinards had very good taste. The pale gray-greens of the room were charming. Peter noticed appreciatively the Copenhagen vases filled with white flowers; he could find time for appreciation as he passed to Mrs. Archinard's sofa, for no one else was in the room, a fact of which he was immediately and disappointedly aware. Mrs. Archinard was really improved. Her husband's monetary embarrassments had made even less impression on her than upon the surroundings, for though the little salon was very pretty, it was not the Priory drawing-room, and Mrs. Archinard was, if anything, plumper and prettier than when Peter had last seen her. "This is really quite too delightful! Quite too delightful, Mr. Odd!" Mrs. Archinard's slender hand pressed his with seemingly affectionate warmth. "Katherine told us this morning about the _rencontre_. I was expecting you, as you see. Ten years! It seems impossible, really impossible!" Still holding his hand, she scanned his face with her sad and pretty smile. "I could hardly realize it, were it not that your books lie here beside me, living symbols of the years." Peter indeed saw, on the little table by the sofa, the familiar bindings. "I asked Katherine to get them out, so that I might look over them again; strengthen my impression of your personality, join all the links before meeting you again. Dear, dear little books!" Mrs. Archinard laid her hand, with its one great emerald ring, on the "Dialogues," which was uppermost. "Sit down, Mr. Odd; no, on this chair. The light falls on your face so. Yes, your books are to me among the most exquisite art productions of our age. Pater is more _étincellant_--a style too jewelled perhaps--one wearies of the chain of rather heartless beauty; but in your books one feels the heart, the aroma of life--a chain of flowers, flowers do not weary. Your personality is to me very sympathetic, Mr. Odd, very sympathetic." Peter was conscious of being sorry for it. "I think we are both of us tired." Mrs. Archinard's smile grew even more sadly sweet; "both tired, both hopeless, both a little indifferent too. How few things one finds to care about! Things crumble so, once touched, do they not? Everything crumbles." Mrs. Archinard sighed, and, as Peter found nothing to say ("How dull a man who writes quite clever books can be!" thought Mrs. Archinard), she went on in a more commonplace tone--