“As a target for the human eye,” said Vandervelde, fervently, “you’re more than a success:  you’re a riot!”

Anne slipped her hand into the crook of his arm.  “I’m glad you like me,” said she, frankly.  “It’s so nice when the right people like one.”

Hayden was not in town.  He didn’t, as a matter of fact, know that they had left Italy, for Anne’s last letter had said nothing of any intention to return to America shortly.  Anne felt curiously disappointed that he wasn’t at the pier with Jason to meet them.  She was surprised at her own eagerness to see him.  He pleased her more than any man she had ever met, and her impatience grew with his absence.

Marcia, a born general, was already planning with masterly attention to details the social career of Mrs. Peter Champneys.  With the forces that she could command, the immense power that Berkeley Hayden would swing in her favor, and the Champneys money, that career promised to be unusually brilliant, when one considered Anne herself.

The Champneys house was to be reopened.  In the main, as Chadwick Champneys had planned it, it pleased Marcia’s critical taste.  Anne herself appreciated as she had been unable to do when she first came to it.  She liked its fine Aubusson carpets, its lovely old rosewood and mahogany furniture, its uncluttered stateliness.  But there were certain changes and improvements she wished made, and she took a businesslike pleasure in supervising the carrying out of her orders.  The portrait of Mr. Chadwick Champneys, painted the year before his death hung over the library mantel and seemed to watch her thoughtfully, critically, with its fine brown eyes.  The girl he had snatched from obscure slavery liked to study the visage of the old monomaniac who had been the god in the machine of her existence.  Her judgment of him now was clear-eyed but cold.  He had been liberal because it fell in with his plans.  He had never been loving.

She was sitting in the library one morning, looking up at him rather somberly.  Workmen came and went, and somewhere in the back regions a hammer kept up a steady tapping.

“Mr. Hayden,” said Hoichi, as he ushered that gentleman into the room.

She turned her head and looked at him for a full moment, before rising to greet him:  one of Anne Champneys’s long, still, mysterious looks, that made his heart feel as if it were a candle, blown and shaken by the wind.  Then she smiled and held out her hand.  It was good to see him again!  She was prouder of his friendship than of anything that had yet come to her.  It gave her a sense of security, raised her in her own estimation.

She explained, eagerly, the changes and improvements she was planning, and he went over the house with her.  He liked it as Marcia liked it; once or twice he offered suggestions; the relationship of pupil and master was at once resumed,—­but this time the pupil was more advanced.

Then he took her out to lunch.  It was with difficulty that he restrained the exuberant delight he felt; just to have her with him went to his head.  “Marcia’s advice was wise, but my behavior’s going to be otherwise, if I don’t keep a tight hold upon myself,” he told himself.