e bit of underground world," he
said, "I shall think that you are even a more wonderful person--"

He dropped his voice and leaned toward her, but Jeanne laughed in his
face and interrupted him.

"People who own things," she remarked, "never look upon them with
proper reverence. Don't you see that my mother is dying for some
bridge?"

CHAPTER V

The Princess was only obeying a faint sign from Forrest. She leaned
forward and addressed her host.

"It isn't a bad idea," she declared. "Where are we going to play
bridge, Cecil? In some smaller room, I hope. This one is really
beginning to get on my nerves a little. There is an ancestor exactly
opposite who has fixed me with a luminous and a disapproving eye. And
the blank spaces on the wall! Ugh! I feel like a Goth. We are too
modern for this place, Cecil."

Their host laughed as he rose and turned towards Jeanne.

"Your mother," he said, "is beginning to be conscious of her
environment. I know exactly how she is feeling, for I myself am a
constant sufferer. Are you, too, sighing for the gilded salons of
civilization?"

"Not in the least," Jeanne answered frankly. "I am tired of mirrors and
electric lights and babble. I prefer our present surroundings, and I
should not mind at all if some of those disapproving ancestors of yours
stepped out of their frames and took their places with us here."

Cecil laughed.

"If they have been listening to our conversation," he said, "I think
that they will stay where they are. Like royalty," he continued, "we
can boast an octagonal chamber. I fear that its glories are of the
past, but it is at least small, and the wallpaper is modern. I have
ordered coffee and the card-tables there. Shall we go?"

He led the way out of the gloomy room, chilly and bare, yet in a way
magnificent still with its reminiscences of past splendour, across the
hall, modernized with rugs and recent furnishing, into a smaller
apartment, where cheerfulness reigned. A wood fire burnt in an open
grate. Lamps and a fine candelabrum gave a sufficiency of light. The
furniture, though old, was graceful, and of French design. It had been
the sitting chamber of the ladies of the De la Borne family for
generations, and it bore traces of its gentler occupation. One thing
alone remained of primevalism to remind them of their closer contact
with the great forces of nature. The chamber was built in the tower,
which stood exposed to the sea, and the roar of t