cquer and to put up white paper. Her very grouping has been copied,
the smallest points of adjustment. It's not," Mrs. Waterlow pursued,
"that I mind people imitating, if they do it frankly and own themselves
plagiarists. We must all see the things we like for the first time. But
it's not because they like the things that they have them; they have
them because some one else likes them. They dress themselves in other
people's tastes and make a fine figure as originators." The vexation of
years was crystallized in the lightness and crispness of her voice.

Poor, stupid Gwendolen! After all, one must not be too hard on her. He
felt Mrs. Waterlow to be so hard that he reacted to something
approaching pitying tolerance, Gwendolen could be stupid in such good
faith. There was nothing, when he came to think of it, surprising in
this revelation of her stupidity, nothing painful, as there had been in
suspecting Cicely Waterlow of stupidity. Gwendolen was so sincerely
unaware of having no ideas of her own. He wondered, as he said good-bye
to old Mrs. Waterlow and told her that he felt convinced that she had at
last reached a haven, whether she guessed that she had made him happy
rather than unhappy.

She had made him so happy, with his recovered ideal, that as he drove
away it was with a definite thrust of fear that he suddenly remembered
Gwendolen's kindly criticism of old Mrs. Waterlow. Was it not possible,
after all, that she had been indulging in sheer malice at Gwendolen's
expense? Wasn't it possible that Gwendolen and Cicely Waterlow had had
the same inspirations independently? But no two people could stumble at
once on such a drawing-room as that he had just left. Horrid
thought--what if Gwendolen's drawing-room at this moment showed just
such a singular reversion to ugliness? After his delicious relief, he
could not bear the doubt.

He drove to Gwendolen's. Yes, the old housekeeper, who knew him, said he
could of course go up and look at the red lacquer. The red lacquer! He
could almost have embraced her for the joy her words gave him. Gwendolen
would not have retained red lacquer with a black satin suite. And on the
threshold of Gwendolen's drawing-room he received full reassurance. The
lovely room was intact. The blacks and whites and reds and golds were
all there, unchanged, not a breath of the ambiguous discipline upon
them. And in the midst of them all it was not Gwendolen, but Cicely
Waterlow, whom he seemed to se