Bibbs looked at it with grave sympathy, probably feeling some kinship with anything so dismantled; then he turned to a cheval-glass beside the window and paid himself the dubious tribute of a thorough inspection.  He looked the mirror up and down, slowly, repeatedly, but came in the end to a long and earnest scrutiny of the face.  Throughout this cryptic seance his manner was profoundly impersonal; he had the air of an entomologist intent upon classifying a specimen, but finally he appeared to become pessimistic.  He shook his head solemnly; then gazed again and shook his head again, and continued to shake it slowly, in complete disapproval.

“You certainly are one horrible sight!” he said, aloud.

And at that he was instantly aware of an observer.  Turning quickly, he was vouchsafed the picture of a charming lady, framed in a rustic aperture of the “summer-house” and staring full into his window—­ straight into his eyes, too, for the infinitesimal fraction of a second before the flashingly censorious withdrawal of her own.  Composedly, she pulled several dead twigs from a vine, the manner of her action conveying a message or proclamation to the effect that she was in the summer-house for the sole purpose of such-like pruning and tending, and that no gentleman could suppose her presence there to be due to any other purpose whatsoever, or that, being there on that account, she had allowed her attention to wander for one instant in the direction of things of which she was in reality unconscious.

Having pulled enough twigs to emphasize her unconsciousness—­and at the same time her disapproval—­of everything in the nature of a Sheridan or belonging to a Sheridan, she descended the knoll with maintained composure, and sauntered toward a side-door of the country mansion of the Vertreeses.  An elderly lady, bonneted and cloaked, opened the door and came to meet her.

“Are you ready, Mary?  I’ve been looking for you.  What were you doing?”

“Nothing.  Just looking into one of Sheridans’ windows,” said Mary Vertrees.  “I got caught at it.”

“Mary!” cried her mother.  “Just as we were going to call!  Good heavens!”

“We’ll go, just the same,” the daughter returned.  “I suppose those women would be glad to have us if we’d burned their house to the ground.”

“But who saw you?” insisted Mrs. Vertrees.

“One of the sons, I suppose he was.  I believe he’s insane, or something.  At least I hear they keep him in a sanitarium somewhere, and never talk about him.  He was staring at himself in a mirror and talking to himself.  Then he looked out and caught me.”

“What did he—­”

“Nothing, of course.”

“How did he look?”

“Like a ghost in a blue suit,” said Miss Vertrees, moving toward the street and waving a white-gloved hand in farewell to her father, who was observing them from the window of his library.  “Rather tragic and altogether impossible.  Do come on, mother, and let’s get it over!”