nticipated
refusal: "Miss Helena wished me to say, sir, that her time is your
time." I was still obstinate; I pleaded next that my day was filled up.
A third message had evidently been prepared, even for this emergency:
"Miss Helena will regret, sir, having the pleasure deferred, but she
will leave you to make your own appointment for to-morrow." Persistency
so inveterate as this led to a result which Mr. Gracedieu's cautious
daughter had not perhaps contemplated: it put me on my guard. There
seemed to be a chance, to say the least of it, that I might serve
Eunice's interests if I discovered what the enemy had to say. I locked
up my writing--declared myself incapable of putting Miss Helena to
needless inconvenience--and followed the maid to the lower floor of the
house.

The room to which I was conducted proved to be empty. I looked round me.

If I had been told that a man lived there who was absolutely indifferent
to appearances, I should have concluded that his views were faithfully
represented by his place of abode. The chairs and tables reminded me of
a railway waiting-room. The shabby little bookcase was the mute record
of a life indifferent to literature. The carpet was of that dreadful
drab color, still the cherished favorite of the average English mind, in
spite of every protest that can be entered against it, on behalf of Art.
The ceiling, recently whitewashed; made my eyes ache when they looked at
it. On either side of the window, flaccid green curtains hung helplessly
with nothing to loop them up. The writing-desk and the paper-case,
viewed as specimens of woodwork, recalled the ready-made bedrooms on
show in cheap shops. The books, mostly in slate-colored bindings, were
devoted to the literature which is called religious; I only discovered
three worldly publications among them--Domestic Cookery, Etiquette for
Ladies, and Hints on the Breeding of Poultry. An ugly little clock,
ticking noisily in a black case, and two candlesticks of base
metal placed on either side of it, completed the ornaments on the
chimney-piece. Neither pictures nor prints hid the barrenness of the
walls. I saw no needlework and no flowers. The one object in the place
which showed any pretensions to beauty was a looking-glass in an elegant
gilt frame--sacred to vanity, and worthy of the office that it filled.
Such was Helena Gracedieu's sitting-room. I really could not help
thinking: How like her!

She came in with a face perfectly ad