“After the wedding, after Jamaica,” said Morrison.  “We’re to come back to New York and for a few months impose on the good nature of Molly’s grandfather’s household, while we struggle with workmen et al.  The Montgomery house on Fifth Avenue, that’s shut up for so many years,—­ever since the death of Molly’s parents,—­is the one we’ve settled on.  It’s very large, you know.  It has possibilities.  I have a plan for remodeling it and enlarging it with a large inner court, glass-roofed—­something slightly Saracenic about the arches—­and what is now a suite of old-fashioned parlors on the north side is to be made into a long gallery.  There’ll be an excellent light for paintings.  I’ve secured from Duveen a promise for some tapestries I’ve admired for a long time—­Beauvais, not very old, Louis XVII—­but excellent in color.  Those for the staircase ...”

He spoke with no more animation than was his custom, with no more relish than was seemly; his carefully chosen words succeeded each other in their usual exquisite precision, no complacency showed above the surface; his attitude was, as always, composed of precisely the right proportion of dignity and ease; but as he talked, some untarnished instinct in Sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, the first she had ever felt for him.

Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling.  “Oh, what a house that will be!” she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. “You! with a free hand!  A second house of Jacques Coeur!” Sylvia stood up, rather abruptly.  “I think I’ll go for a walk beside the river,” she said, reaching for her parasol.

“May I tag along?” said Page, strolling off beside her with the ease of familiarity.

Sylvia turned to wave a careless farewell to the two thus left somewhat unceremoniously in the pergola.  She was in brown corduroy with suede leather sailor collar and broad belt, a costume which brought out vividly the pure, clear coloring of her face.  “Good-bye,” she called to them with a pointedly casual accent, nodding her gleaming head.

“She’s a very pretty girl, isn’t she?” commented Mrs. Marshall-Smith.  Morrison, looking after the retreating figures, agreed with her briefly.  “Yes, very.  Extraordinarily perfect specimen of her type.”  His tone was dry.

Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with annoyance across the stretch of lawn to the house.  “I think I would better go to see where Arnold is,” she said.  Her tone seemed to signify more to the man than her colorless words.  He frowned and said, “Oh, is Arnold ...?”

She gave a fatigued gesture.  “No—­not yet—­but for the last two or three days ...”

He began impatiently, “Why can’t you get him off this time before he....”

“An excellent idea,” she broke in, with some impatience of her own.  “But slightly difficult of execution.”

CHAPTER XXXI