on him with eyes of unresentful
patience.

He limped in and Gwendolen met him in the hall.

"My dear, dear Owen, how are you? Yes, I had your wire this morning.
Good; I see that the journey has done you no harm. But you are tired,
aren't you? Will you go to your own room or have tea with me at once?
It's just been brought in."

He said that he would have tea with her. She did not actually help him
up the stairs, but as, with skill impaired, he swung himself from step
to step, the touch of her tactful and ready hand was upon his arm, a
caress rather than a sustainment. Passing the hand through his arm, she
led him into the drawing-room.

Owen looked about him. He stood for a long moment in the door and
looked. He then allowed himself a cautious, side-long glance at
Gwendolen. Her eyes, unaware in their bland complacency, had followed
his and rested upon her room.

"Oh, yes, I'd forgotten that you hadn't seen my new drawing-room," she
said. "We've had great changes."

Even in his horror, for it was hardly less, he was touched to realize
that Gwendolen was thinking far less of her drawing-room than of him.
She might have forgotten that it had changed, had he not so helplessly
displayed his amazement.

"Yes, indeed," he said. He limped to the fire and sank heavily into the
deep, black satin easy-chair drawn before it. He leaned his elbow on his
knee and rested his head on his hand, and as he did so he observed that
before the fire stood a mahogany footstool with a bead-worked top.

"You are tired, dear Owen. Do you feel ill?" Gwendolen hovered above his
chair.

"I do feel a little giddy," he confessed. "I'm not all right yet, I
see."

He raised his head. It was to face the mantelpiece, with its oval, gilt
mirror and crystal lustres and gilt-and-marble clock. No, there were not
doves and a nest upon it. This was a finer clock than the one with the
doves, and the lustres were larger, and the flowers that stood between
were mauve orchids. Gwendolen always went astray over her flowers.

"Here is tea," she said, seating herself at a little mahogany table with
bowed and decorated legs. "Of course you're bound to feel tired, dear
Owen, after your journey. Tea will be the very thing for you."

He turned now a furtive eye along the wall. Flower-pieces, dim, flat,
old flower-pieces and arid steel-engravings and tall pieces of mahogany
furniture with marble vases upon them--no mistakes had been made here,
for if the va