ith her. (For, of course, he
would come to live in Berkeley Square, would leave the set of rooms he
occupied now in St. James's Palace.) She had often longed to have a male
companion living with her in that house, to smell cigar smoke, to hear
a male voice, a strong footstep in the hall and on the stairs, to see
things that implied a man's presence lying about, caps, pipes, walking
sticks, golf clubs, riding crops. The whole atmosphere of the house
would be changed if a man came to live with her there, if Seymour came.

But--her liberty?

She had gained the last stair and was on the great landing before the
drawing-room door. Down below she heard a faint and discreet murmur of
voices from Murgatroyd and the footman in the hall. And as she paused
for a moment she wondered how much those two men knew of her and of her
real character, whether they had any definite knowledge of her humanity,
whether they had perhaps realized in their way what sort of woman she
was, sometimes stripped away the _Grande Dame_, the mistress, and looked
with appraising eyes at the stark woman.

She would never know.

She opened the door and instantly assumed her usual carelessly friendly
look.

Sir Seymour had left the fire, and was sitting in an armchair with a
book in his hand reading when she came in; and as she had opened the
door softly, and as it was a long way from the fireplace he did not hear
her or instantly realize that she was there. She had an instant in which
to contemplate him as he sat there, like a man quietly at home. Only
one lamp was lit. It stood on a table behind him and threw light on his
rather big head thickly covered with curly and snow-white hair, the hair
which he sometimes smilingly called his "cauliflower." The light fell,
too, aslant on his strong-featured manly face, the slightly hooked nose,
large-lipped, firm mouth, shaded by a moustache in which some dark
hairs were mingled with the white ones, and chin with a deep dent in the
middle of it. His complexion was of that weather-beaten red hue which is
often seen in oldish men who have been much out in all weathers. There
were many deep lines in the face, two specially deep ones slanting
downwards from the nose on either side of the mouth. Above the nose
there was a sort of bump, from which the low forehead slightly retreated
to the curves of strong white hair. The ears were large but well shaped.
In order to read he had put on pince-nez with tortoise-shell ri