as ways quite different from
other people, surprises, delicate, delicious, and dares to defy fashion
when she chooses, though most people would consider her a scrupulous
observer. The four would not be half so effective in the large
apartment. There is a handful of fire in the low grate, and the windows
are open to temper the air through the silken curtains. Mrs. Grandon is
looking her best, a handsome, middle-aged woman. Madame Lepelletier is
in an exquisite shade of bluish velvet that brings out every line and
tint in a sumptuous manner. The square-cut corsage and elbow sleeves
are trimmed with almost priceless ivory-tinted lace; and except the
solitaire diamonds in her ears, she wears no jewels. There are two or
three yellow rose-buds low down in her shining black hair, and two half
hidden in the lace on her bosom. The skirt of her dress is long and
plain, and makes crested billows about her as she sits there.

The dinner is over, and it was perfect; the dessert has been taken out,
the wine, fruit, and nuts remain; the waiter is dismissed, the chairs
are pushed back just to a degree of informality and comfort, and they
have reached that crowning delight, an after-dinner chat.

Madame has been posting herself on antiquities and discoveries. There
seems nothing particularly new about her knowledge; she is at home in
it, and in no haste to air it; she keeps pace with them in a leisurely
way, as if not straying out of her usual course. Floyd Grandon feels
conscience-smitten that he once believed her wholly immersed in
wedding-clothes and fashions. What a remarkable, many-sided woman she
is! a perfect queen of _all_ society, and an admirable one at that.
Everything she says is fresh and crisp, and her little jest well told
and well chosen. The professor beams and smiles, though he is no great
lady's man. She might be a _bon camarade_, so free is she from the airy
little nothings of society that puzzle scholarly men. There is
something charming, too, in the way Mrs. Grandon is made one of the
circle,--a part of them, not merely an outside propriety. Every moment
she grudges that fascinating woman for her son; she is almost jealous
when the professor listens with such rapt deference and admiration.
That Floyd's own unwisdom should have placed the bar between himself
and this magnificent woman is almost more than she can endure.

He has dropped in one morning and accompanied them to a _matinee_. A
foreign friend has sent m