essed that she
thought Eugene's wife had acted with consideration towards them, but
maintained that she did not wish to meet her, for, judging from
Caspilier's account, his wife must be a somewhat formidable and
terrifying person; still she went with him, she said, solely through
good nature, and a desire to heal family differences. Tenise would do
anything in the cause of domestic peace.

The shop assistant told the pair, when they had dismissed the cab, that
madame was waiting for them upstairs. In the drawing-room Valdoreme was
standing with her back to the window like a low-browed goddess, her
tawny hair loose over her shoulders, and the pallor of her face made
more conspicuous by her costume of unrelieved black. Caspilier, with
the grace characteristic of him, swept off his hat, and made a low,
deferential bow; but when he straightened himself up, and began to say
the complimentary things and poetical phrases he had put together for
the occasion at the cafe the night before, the lurid look of the
Russian made his tongue falter; and Tenise, who had never seen a woman
of this sort before, laughed a nervous, half-frightened little laugh,
and clung closer to her lover than before. The wife was even more
forbidding than she had imagined. Valdoreme shuddered slightly when she
saw this intimate movement on the part of her rival, and her hand
clenched and unclenched convulsively.

"Come," she said, cutting short her husband's halting harangue, and
sweeping past them, drawing her skirts aside on nearing Tenise, she led
the way up to the dining-room a floor higher.

"I'm afraid of her," whimpered Tenise, holding back. "She will poison
us."

"Nonsense," said Caspilier, in a whisper. "Come along. She is too fond
of me to attempt anything of that kind, and you are safe when I am
here."

Valdoreme sat at the head of the table, with her husband at her right
hand and Tenise on her left. The breakfast was the best either of them
had ever tasted. The hostess sat silent, but no second talker was
needed when the poet was present. Tenise laughed merrily now and then
at his bright sayings, for the excellence of the meal had banished her
fears of poison.

"What penetrating smell is this that fills the room? Better open the
window," said Caspilier.

"It is nothing," replied Valdoreme, speaking for the first time since
they had sat down. "It is only naphtha. I have had this room cleaned
with it. The window won't open, and if it w