Being seldom used in the morning, these rooms leading the one from the other into a hall beyond, and so to the grand portico, were dim and silent, the jalousies closed, the great _jardinières_, full of flowers, mysteriously sweet in the shadowy corners. And Grace herself, ready for church save for the bunch of flowers and lace that go to make up the headgear of a _grande toilette_, looked mysteriously sweet also in the curves of a cushioned chair. She suited the vista of rooms, so empty of trivial nicknacks, so restful in its perfect blending of comfort and beauty. Comfort, not luxury; beauty, not decoration. Cold in its marble floors, warm in its oriental embroideries, and, above all things, charming in both its scented chilliness and scented warmth. Perhaps she knew that she suited it, and that it suited her, since the hope of this decides the disposition of furniture in most drawing-rooms. Perhaps, in a way, she calculated on this, also on the effect of memory, in reducing Jack Raymond to obedience, since it was in these very rooms, scarcely different even in detail, that the most part of those two happy years had been spent. Such unconscious calculations are quite inevitable when women hold, as they are taught to hold as sacred, the dogma that true womanhood should never permit manhood to forget that it is woman. She certainly succeeded in this instance, and her words--'Oh! Mr. Raymond, I am so glad. I want to speak to you so much'--brought the latter back into the past with a vengeance, as, inwardly cursing himself for having taken the trouble to come and warn Sir George of something he thought serious, he mechanically followed the orderly's lead. She scarcely looked a day older; she certainly was more beautiful. And surely, the last time he had seen her in those rooms alone, there had been just such a scarlet hand of poinsettia against the cold marble above her head. 'You have been seeing my husband,' she began quite unconsciously, and he broke in on the remark with a curious little laugh. 'I have, Lady Arbuthnot; and I fear I have wasted my time; and his. The former is of little consequence, but the latter I regret.' As she so often did, out of a blessed unconsciousness that her mental position towards him was quite untenable, she appealed at once to that past confidence. 'Don't be angry, please! I was afraid there might be--difficulties. Sir George,' she smiled frankly, 'was in a very bad temper. I had just'--she broke off, realising that absolute confidence was impossible, then went on--'but you must not let that interfere with--with what you think advisable. And you do think with me, don't you? that it would be advisable to inquire whether--whether that unfortunate letter of mine----' Jack Raymond, who had remained standing in impatient hesitation between his politeness and his desire to escape as soon as possible, stared at her. 'What letter?' he asked.