ered them vaguely--tall, scraggy, permanently
girlish in dress and manner, and looking their true fifty only about the
neck and eyes. With their mother they lived in a pretty villa on the
Poggio Imperiale, and had called on her occasionally when she passed
through Florence. The knowledge of being indebted to them, of having
lived on their modest substance and reduced them to poverty, brought her
to the point of shame in which it would have been a comfort to have the
mountains fall on her and the rocks cover her from the gaze of men. She
upbraided herself for her blindness to the most obviously important
aspect of the situation. Now that she saw it, her zeal to "pay," by
doing penance in public, became tragic and farcical at once. The
absurdity of making satisfaction to Mrs. Rodman and Mrs. Clay, to Fanny
Burnaby and the Brown girls, by calling in the law, when less
suffering--to her father at least--would give them actual cash, was not
the least element in her humiliation.

She walked swiftly, seeing nothing of the cheerful stir around her,
lashed along by the fear that Peter Davenant might have left Tory Hill.
She was too intent on her purpose to perceive any change in her mental
attitude toward him. She was aware of saying to herself that everything
concerning him must be postponed; but beyond that she scarcely thought
of him at all. Once the interests of the poor women who had trusted to
her father had been secured, she would have time to face the claims of
this new creditor; but nothing could be attempted till the one
imperative duty was performed.

Going up the stairs toward her father's room, the sound of voices
reassured her. Davenant was there still. That was so much relief. She
was able to collect herself, to put on something like her habitual air
of quiet dignity, before she pushed open the door and entered.

Guion was lying on the couch with the rug thrown over him. Davenant
stood by the fireplace, endangering with his elbow a dainty Chelsea
shepherdess on the mantelpiece. He was smoking one of Guion's cigars,
which he threw into an ash-tray as Olivia came in.

Conversation stopped abruptly on her appearance. She herself walked
straight to the round table in the middle of the room, and for a second
or two, which seemed much longer in space of time, stood silent, the
tips of her fingers just touching a packet of papers strapped with
rubber bands, which she guessed that Davenant must have brought. Through
h