fter a languid survey, "So, this is where
the king lounged"--then waited to be led on.

Mrs. Bannister was expecting us. She spoke as though in having tea
waiting she had acted in the forlorn hope that some time we might
return, and as though for hours she had been a prey to the gravest
apprehensions, for Penelope's safety. In bringing Penelope back at all
I had in some degree allayed the hostility with which she at first
regarded me, but though she was now outwardly quite cordial, I was
conscious that over the top of her cup she was studying me closely as I
sat on the divan stirring my tea and striving to be thoroughly at home.
Her subtle scrutiny made me very uncomfortable. She asked me questions
with an obvious purpose of putting me at my ease, and I answered in
embarrassed monosyllables. Whether I would or no, I seemed constantly
to slide to the perilous edge of my seat, and no matter what care I
used, I strewed crumbs over the rug until it seemed to me that my bit
of cake had a demoniacal power of multiplying itself.

I was angry--this hour, this formal passage of inane conversation, was
so different from what I had pictured my first meeting with Penelope to
be. I was angry at my weakness in letting this perfect room overpower
me, and this woman of the world, with no other weapon than the
knowledge of the people one should know, transfix me, silence me,
transform me into a dull, bucolic boor. Penelope was annoyed. I knew
that she was chagrined at my lack of _savoir faire_, for in one of the
long pauses following an abrupt response of mine I caught a glance of
mute despair. She seemed to accuse me of falling short of her
expectations by my lamentable lack of the social graces.

I was for flight then. I rose to go. I paused to dispute in my mind
whether I must say farewell first to the older or the younger woman,
and from the hopelessness of ever solving the question I might have
stood there for an hour pulling at my hands had not the portieres
opened and Rufus Blight come in.

I should not have known him as Rufus Blight but for Penelope's joyous
hail. I had expected to see him as I saw him that day when he came to
the farm to take Penelope away--a short, fat, pompous man with a
bristling red mustache and a hand that moved interminably; a sleek man
in spotless, creaseless clothes who might have stood in his own
show-window to inspire his fellows to sartorial perfection. I saw,
instead, a small man, ra