He mounted four flights of a staircase, the carpet
and polished brass stair-rods of which filled him with surprise
and admiration.

On reaching the landing, he could hear the tinkling of a piano.
He rang the bell, blushed hotly and was sorry he had rung. He
would have given worlds to run away. A maid-servant opened the
door, and behind her stood Edgar Ewans, wearing a brown holland
suit, in which he looked entirely at his ease.

"Come along," he cried, and dragged him into a drawing-room, into
which the half-drawn curtains admitted shafts of sunlight that
were flashed back in countless broken reflections from mirrors
and gilt cornices. A sweet, stimulating perfume hung about the
room, which was crowded with a superabundance of padded chairs
and couches and piles of cushions.

In the half-light jean beheld a lady so different from all he had
ever set eyes on till that moment that he could form no notion of
what she was, no idea of her beauty or her age. Never had he seen
eyes that flashed so vividly in a face of such pale fairness, or
lips so red, smiling with such an unvarying almost tired-looking
smile. She was sitting at a piano, idly strumming on the keys
without playing any definite tune. What drew Jean's eyes above
all was her hair, arranged in some fashion that struck him with
a sense of mystery and beauty.

She looked round, and smoothing the lace of her _peignoir_ with
one hand:

"You are Edgar's friend?" she asked, in a cordial tone, though
her voice struck Jean as harsh in this beautiful room that was
perfumed like a church.

"Yes, Madame."

"You like being at school?"

"Yes, madame."

"The masters are not too strict?"

"No, Madame."

"You have no mother?"

As she put the question Madame Evans' voice softened.

"No, Madame."

"What is your father?"

"A bookbinder, Madame"--and the bookbinder's son blushed as he
gave the answer. At that moment he would gladly have consented
never to see his father more, his father whom he loved, if by
the sacrifice he could have passed for the son of a Captain in
the Navy or a Secretary of Embassy. He suddenly remembered that
one of his fellow-pupils was the son of a celebrated physician
whose portrait was displayed in the stationers' windows.

If only he had had a father like that to tell Madame Ewans of!
But that was out of the question--and how cruelly unjust it was!
He felt ashamed of himself, as if he had said something shocking.

But his friend