This was what lay behind the shrinking of her soul as she watched her mother dress for the visit to Mrs. Wayne.  For the first time in her life Mathilde wished that her mother was not so elaborate.  Hitherto she had always gloried in Adelaide’s elegance as a part of her beauty; but now, as she watched the ritual of ribbons and laces and perfumes and jewels, she felt vaguely that there was in it all a covert insult to Pete’s mother, who, she knew, would not be a bit like that.

“How young you are, Mama!” she exclaimed as, the whole long process complete, Adelaide stood holding out her hand for her gloves, like a little girl ready for a party.

Her mother smiled.

“It’s well I am,” she said, “if you go on trying to get yourself involved with young men who live up four flights of stairs.  I have always avoided even dressmakers who lived above the second story,” she added wistfully.

The wistful tone was repeated when her car stopped at the Wayne door and she stepped out.

“Are you sure this is the number, Andrews?” she asked.  She and the chauffeur looked slowly up at the house and up and down the street.  They were at one in their feeling about it.  Then Adelaide gave a very gentle little sigh and started the ascent.

The flat did not look as well by day.  Though the eastern sun poured in cheerfully, it revealed worn places on the backs of the arm-chairs and one fearful calamity with an ink-bottle that Pete had once had on the rug.  Even Mrs. Wayne, who sprang up from behind her writing-table, had not the saint-like mystery that her blue draperies had given her the evening before.

Though slim, and in excellent condition for thirty-nine, Adelaide could not conceal that four flights were an exertion.  Her fine nostrils were dilated and her breath not perfectly under control as she said: 

“How delightful this is!” a statement that was no more untrue than to say good-morning on a rainy day.

Most women in Mrs. Wayne’s situation would at the moment have been acutely aware of the ink-spot.  That was one of Adelaide’s assets, on which she perhaps unconsciously counted, that her mere appearance made nine people out of ten aware of their own physical imperfections.  But Mrs. Wayne was aware of nothing but Adelaide’s great beauty as she sank into one of the armchairs with hardly a hint of exhaustion.

“Your son is a very charming person, Mrs. Wayne,” she said.

Mrs. Wayne was standing by the mantelpiece, looking boyish and friendly; but now she suddenly grew grave, as if something serious had been said.

“Pete has something more unusual than charm,” she said.

“But what could be more unusual?” cried Adelaide, who wanted to add, “The only question is, does your wretched son possess it?” But she didn’t; she asked instead, with a tone of disarming sweetness, “Shall we be perfectly candid with each other?”

A quick gleam came into Mrs. Wayne’s eyes.  “Not much,” she seemed to say.  She had learned to distrust nothing so much as her own candor, and her interview with Mr. Lanley had put her specially on her guard.