"Now then! Let’s see! Which is the modern one and which is the antique? I can’t tell; can you?" Looking at me archly, she changed her tone to the chaffing one which the French describe as _blagueur_. "But of course you’ll say you can, because that’s your business. You’ve got them marked with some sort of secret sign, like a conjurer with coins, so as to tell one from the other, without my knowing it." Having said this, she began to march round the two great gold-covered oblongs with the movement of a prowling little animal. Keeping my eye on the main doorway, I pointed out that while the modern piece would please the ordinary eye only the antique would satisfy the elect. There was no question but that the Indian reproduction was good. Any one who took it would do more than get his money’s worth, since it would tone down with the years, while the hard wool of which it was woven would make it stand comparatively rough usage. But—didn’t madam see?—the antique, made on the old Chinese looms, was of the softer, richer sheen imparted by the softer, richer wool; and wasn’t the heavenly turquoise-blue of the ornaments and border of a beauty which the modern dyes had not begun to reproduce? As I explained this and some other characteristics of rugs, I was more or less talking against time. The suspicion that had seized me on entering the house began to deepen, without my knowing why. "Y-yes; y-yes," the little lady agreed; "it _is_ lovely, isn’t it? And I suppose that if you’re buying a good thing it’s better to get the—" She paused, looking out through the great doorway into the hall. I, too, looked out, to see Mrs. Averill in a tea-gown, gazing in at us distraitly. "Oh, Lulu, do come here. This man, this gentleman, has just been telling me the most interesting things—" She trailed into the music-room with the same graceful languor with which she had trailed into the drawing-room on the occasion when we had last met. The two other porters and myself being negligible figures in the room, her almond eyes rested listlessly on the rugs, which she studied without remark. "Lulu," Mrs. Mountney began again, with animation, "did you know that in Persian rugs the designs are outlined in rows of knots, and in Chinese by clipping with the scissors? _ciselé_, this ma—this gentleman calls it, and you can feel a little line! Do put your hand down." "Oh, I’m too tired," Mrs. Averill protested, in her sweet drawling voice, "and this room’s so stuffy. Mildred said she’d have it aired; but I don’t know what she’s mooning over half her time. She’s so dreamy. I often think she ought to be in a convent, or something like that." The little bit of fluff was more interested in rugs than in Mildred.