l, to find her in a very bad way,
exhausted by the closeness of the evening: it was possible that he might
have to remain all night. He found her in bed, a lace cap on her head, a
crimson dressing-gown about her shoulders, and all her rings glittering
upon her fingers. An old-fashioned massive silver candlestick with six
branches illuminated the lacquer bed, the black Indian chairs, the
fantastic wall-paper. The windows were closed and the dry heat of the
room was appalling.

She was in her mildest, most amiable mood, had enjoyed an excellent
dinner, laughed her cracked, discordant laugh, was delighted to see him.

"Sit down, there, close to me. Have some coffee."

"No, thank you."

"Dorchester can bring it in a minute."

"No, really, thank you."

"Who sent for you?"

"Lord John."

"Yes, I thought so. Pretty state of things with them all hanging round
like this waiting for me to die--never felt better in my life."

"So I see--delighted. I'll go."

"Not a bit of it. Stay and talk. I feel like telling someone what I
think of things, although you've heard it all often enough before. But
the truth is, Christopher, I _did_ have a nasty dream--a very nasty
dream--and the nastiest part of it was that I couldn't remember it when
I woke up.

"But it's the weather--I was frightened for a minute although I wouldn't
have anyone else know."

"But you had a good dinner."

"Splendid dinner, thank you."

She lay back in bed and looked at him; delightful to think that she
would play a little game with him to-morrow; he would in all probability
be angry when he knew--that would be very amusing; delightful, too, to
think that, just when she was afraid that she had seriously alienated
Roddy away from her, he should write and say that he needed her. She
would go to-morrow and would be exceedingly pleasant to him and would
reassure him about Rachel....

Yes, she had seldom felt so genial. She told Christopher stories of men
and women whom she had known, wicked stories, gay stories, cruel
stories, and her eyes twinkled and her fingers sparkled and her old
withered face poked out above the dressing-gown, with the white hair,
fine and proud beneath the lace cap.

Once she said to him: "You think all this queer, don't you?" waving her
hand at the bed, the chairs, the paper. "This colour and the odds and
ends and the rest."

"It's part of you," he said; "I shouldn't know you without them."

"I love them," she breathed. "I