ky eyebrows, its strong, yet mobile features; its lips a
little full, perhaps, but soft and sensitive; at the masses of brown
hair drawn low over her ears.

This was herself, then. Did she really justify her reputation for
beauty, or was she just a cult, the passing craze of a world a little
weary of the ordinary standards? Or, again, was it only her art that had
focused the admiration of the world upon her?

How would she seem to these two men down-stairs, she asked herself--the
dour, grim master of the house, and her more youthful rescuer, whose
coming had somehow touched her fancy? They saw so little of her sex.
They seemed, in a sense, to be in league against it. Would they find out
that they were entertaining an angel unawares?

She thought with a gratified smile of her incognito. It was a real
trial of her strength, this! When she turned away from the mirror the
smile still lingered upon her lips, a soft light of anticipation was
shining in her eyes.

John met her at the foot of the stairs. She noticed with some surprise
that he was wearing the dinner-jacket and black tie of civilization.

"Will you come this way, please?" he begged. "Supper is quite ready."

He held open the door of one of the rooms on the other side of the hall,
and she passed into a low dining room, dimly lit with shaded lamps. The
elder brother rose from his chair as they entered, although his
salutation was even grimmer than his first welcome. He was wearing a
dress-coat of old-fashioned cut, and a black stock, and he remained
standing, without any smile or word of greeting, until she had taken her
seat. Behind his chair stood a very ancient man servant in a gray
pepper-and-salt suit, with a white tie, whose expression, at the
entrance of this unexpected guest, seemed curiously to reflect the
inhospitable instincts of his master.

Although conscious of this atmosphere of antagonism, Louise looked
around her with frank admiration as she took her place in the
high-backed chair which John was holding for her. The correctness of the
setting appealed strongly to her artistic perceptions. The figures and
features of the two men--Stephen, tall, severe, stately; John, amazingly
handsome, but of the same type; the black-raftered ceiling; the Jacobean
sideboard; the huge easy chairs; the fine prints upon the walls; the
pine log which burned upon the open hearth--nowhere did there seem to be
a single alien or modern note.

The table was laid wi