“Go ask the scandal-mongers of New York,” was the bitter reply:  “they are eloquent respecting the perfection of my connubial bliss.”

“If she had been a kind and affectionate wife, if she had made him happy,” muttered Horace as he ascended the stairs, “my task would have been a harder one.  Now my duty is clear, and my course lies smooth and straight before, me.”

The room into which he was ushered by Christine, the pretty French maid, was a perfect marvel of elegance and extravagance.  It was very small, and on every part of it had been lavished all that the combined efforts of taste and expenditure could achieve.  The walls had been painted in fresco by an eminent Italian artist, and bevies of rosy Cupids, trailing after them garlands of many-hued flowers, disported on a background of a delicate green tint.  The same tints and design were repeated in the Aubusson carpet, and on the fine Gobelin tapestry which covered the few chairs and the one luxurious couch that formed the useful furniture of the tiny apartment.  Etageres of carved and gilded wood occupied each corner, and, together with the low mantelshelf (which was upheld by two dancing nymphs in Carrara marble), were crowded with costly trifles in Bohemian glass, Dresden and Sevres porcelain, gilded bronze, carved ivory and Parian ware.  An easel, drawn toward the centre of the room, supported the one painting that it contained, the designs on the walls being unsuited for the proper display of pictures.  This one picture had evidently been selected on account of the contrast which it afforded to the gay coloring and riante style of the decorations.  It was a superb marine view by Hamilton—­a cloudy sunset above a stormy sea, the lurid sinking sun flinging streaks of blood-red light upon the leaden waters that, in the foreground, foamed and dashed themselves wildly against the rocks of a barren and precipitous shore.

Horace stood lost in contemplation before the easel, when the door opened and his sister-in-law entered.  He turned to greet her, and her beauty, enhanced as it was by the elegance of her attire, drew from him an involuntary glance of admiration.  Her dress was an exemplification of how much splendor may be lavished on a morning-costume without rendering it absolutely and ridiculously inappropriate.  She wore a robe of turquoise-blue Indian cashmere, edged around the long train and flowing sleeves with a broad border of that marvelous gold embroidery which only Eastern fingers can execute or Eastern imaginations devise.  A band of the same embroidery confined the robe around her slender, supple waist, and showed to advantage the perfection of her figure.  A brooch and long ear-pendants of lustreless yellow gold, and a fan of azure silk with gilded sticks, were the adjuncts to this costume, whose rich hues and gorgeous effects would have crushed a less brilliant and stylish-looking woman, but which were wonderfully becoming to its graceful wearer.