--statuary, carpets, armor, carved seats of stone and wood,
marble staircase rising majestically, tapestries, pictures,
drawing-room furniture. The hall was vast, but the drawing-room was
vaster. Empty, one would have said that it could not possibly be
furnished. Yet it was not only full, but crowded-chairs and sofas,
hassocks and tete-a-tetes, cabinets, tables, pictures, statues, busts,
palms, flowers, a mighty fireplace in which, behind enormous and costly
andirons, crackled enormous and costly logs. There was danger in
moving about; one could not be sure of not upsetting something, and one
felt that the least damage that could be done there would be an
appallingly expensive matter.

Before that cavernous fireplace posed General Siddall. He was a tiny
mite of a man with a thin wiry body supporting the head of a
professional barber. His black hair was glossy and most romantically
arranged. His black mustache and imperial were waxed and
brilliantined. There was no mistaking the liberal use of dye, also.
From the rather thin, very sharp face looked a pair of small, muddy,
brown-green eyes--dull, crafty, cold, cruel. But the little man was so
insignificant and so bebarbered and betailored that one could not take
him seriously. Never had there been so new, so carefully pressed, so
perfectly fitting evening clothes; never a shirt so expensively got
together, or jeweled studs, waistcoat buttons and links so high priced.
From every part of the room, from every part of the little man's
perfumed and groomed person, every individual article seemed to be
shrieking, "The best is not too good for Bill Siddall!"

Mildred was agreeably surprised--she was looking with fierce
determination for agreeable surprises--when the costly little man
spoke, in a quiet, pleasant voice with an elusive, attractive foreign
accent.

"My, but this is grand--grand, General Siddall!" said Presbury in the
voice of the noisy flatterer. "Princely! Royal!"

Mildred glanced nervously at Siddall. She feared that Presbury had
taken the wrong tone. She saw in the unpleasant eyes a glance of
gratified vanity. Said he:

"Not so bad, not so bad. I saw the house in Paris, when I was taking a
walk one day. I went to the American ambassador and asked for the best
architect in Paris. I went to him, told him about the house--and here
it is."

"Decorations, furniture, and all!" exclaimed Presbury.

"No, just the house. I picked up the interiors