epared the state rooms for your ladyship, pending your
ladyship's choice of your own," Mrs. Anglin said. "Here is the boudoir,
the bedroom, the bathroom, and his lordship's dressing-room--all en
suite--and I hope your ladyship will find them as handsome, as we old
servants of the family think they are!"

And Zara came up to the scratch and made a charming little speech.

When they got to the enormous bedroom, with its windows looking out on
the French garden and park, all in exquisite taste, furnished and
decorated by the Adams themselves, Tristram gallantly bent and kissed
her hand, as he said:

"I will wait for you in the boudoir, while you take off your coat. Mrs.
Anglin will show you the toilet-service of gold, which was given by
Louis XIV to a French grandmother and which the Ladies Tancred always
use, when they are at Wrayth. I hope you won't find the brushes too
hard," and he laughed and went out.

And Zara, overcome with the state and beauty and tradition of it all,
sat down upon the sofa for a moment to try to control her pain. She was
throbbing with rage and contempt at herself, at the remembrance that
she, in her ignorance, her ridiculous ignorance, had insulted this
man--this noble gentleman, who owned all these things--and had taunted
him with taking her for her uncle's wealth.

How he must have loved her in the beginning to have been willing to give
her all this, after seeing her for only one night. She writhed with
anguish. There is no bitterness as great as the bitterness of loss
caused by oneself.

Tristram was standing by the window of the delicious boudoir when she
went in. Zara, who as yet knew very little of English things, admired
the Adam style; and when Mrs. Anglin left them discreetly for a moment,
she told him so, timidly, for something to say.

"Yes, it is rather nice," he said stiffly, and then went on: "We shall
have to go down now to this fearful lunch, but you had better take your
sable boa with you. The great hall is so enormous and all of stone, it
may be cold. I will get it for you," and he went back and found it lying
by her coat on the chair, and brought it, and wrapped it round her
casually, as if she had been a stone, and then held the door for her to
go out. And Zara's pride was stung, even though she knew he was doing
exactly as she herself would have done, so that instead of the meek
attitude she had unconsciously assumed, for a moment now she walked
beside him with her o