After the funeral, and reading of the will, the local magnates of county and church dispersed, and everyone else returned to London by the four o’clock express except Cocky and his wife. He was chilly, feverish, sleepy, and disinclined to leave the house, and she wanted to look over the collection of historial laces which had belonged to her mother-in-law, which had never seen the light for many years, Otterbourne having always jealously guarded them as the most sacred heirloom. They could not be sold now, but they might be used, in various ways; at the least they would adorn Drawing-room costumes; there was, she knew, a _manteau de cour_ which had belonged to Henriette d’Angleterre. She was very fond of lace, and she was still more fond of little _mauvais tours_; she did not forget or forgive many words and acts of the late duke; it was one of those unkind small revenges which were to her pampered taste as cayenne pepper or chutney is to a jaded palate, to unlock the dead lady’s Italian cabinets and Indian boxes and sandal-wood coffers, and to play havoc with the Spanish point, the English point, the Venetian point, the Chantilly, the Flemish, the Dutch, kerchiefs and collars and aprons and flounces and edgings, all fine and rare, many marked with the arms or badges of famous houses or royal wearers of a vanished time. The poetic interest of the collection was nothing at all to the present duchess; what mattered to her was the value of it in money, though she could not sell it, and the effect it would have if she wore any of it. She did not herself like old lace, it always looked yellow and dingy; but other people did and envied it, and it would all look very nice at some Loan Collection, and make her friends most agreeably jealous. She passed the afternoon hours over it, and in ransacking all the little drawers and boxes in the various cabinets of what had been the favorite sitting-room of the late duchess. Otterbourne, though he had often given his wife cause for jealousy, had been profoundly attached to her and had kept this room untouched, even unentered, except to be swept, dusted, and aired. Mouse knew this well enough--she had often been irritated at this room being locked against her; but her knowledge did not prevent her pillaging it any more than the sanctity of a church or a mosque to its pious devotees prevents soldiers from sacking and firing it. She had nothing to do, this rainy, chilly, dull day, and the examination of her mother-in-law’s relics and treasures served to pass the time; her second maid aided her, a sagacious and discreet young woman, who knew when to use her eyes and when to close them.