“You can’t go downstairs,” he said, “In a few moments the hall will be full of servants. A scene before them would be fatal.”

In a dull, hopless way she pulled at a tassel that hung from an arm of the chair.

“The butler,” he continued, “being English, and the best-trained specimen of his kind that has come under my observation, will be here shortly to tell me, quietly, what has happened. I’ll step out into the hall, so that you won’t have to hear any disagreeable details, if there are any.”

When he came back, she was crying softly. He pretended not to notice it.

“Before I left town this afternoon the Duveens called up. Isuppose they’d already heard of the killing I’d made on the street. (Wonderful how they keep track of things, isn’t it?) Anyhow, they wanted to tell me that the war has thrown the Thorpe Manor tapestries on the market, and there is a Reynolds they want me to see. The tapestries will go perfectly with everything in the drawing-room and we really need an English old master over the dining-room mantel. Some day next week we’ll go in to see the picture and talk over the tapestries. After that, you might as well get your clothes for the summer—carte blanche—anything and everything you want.”

The little hand, so delicate, so slender, that he held in his, while with his other he stroked her hair, still trembled. Every now and then her tears came in a flood, but he could feel that she was gradually quieting down.

“Couldn’t I—get the—clothes—sooner?”

She still spoke between sobs. But when he said, “Sure, little girl,” he felt her creeping into his arms to be petted.