“She will go alone,” Adela put in anxiously.

“I shall be back for dinner,” said Lois, and to the stupefaction of George she moved towards the door.

But just as she opened the door she turned her head and, looking at George with a frown, murmured: 

“You can come with me if you like.”

Adela burst out: 

“He hasn’t had any tea!”

“I’m not urging him to come, my dear.  Good-bye.”

Adela and George exchanged a glance, each signalling to the other that perhaps this sick, strange girl ought to be humoured.  He abandoned the tea....  He was in the street with Lois.  He was in the train with her.  Her ticket was in his pocket.  He had explained to her why he was late, and she had smiled, amiably but enigmatically.  He thought:  “She’s no right to go on like this.  But what does it matter?” She said nothing about the competition—­not a word of congratulation.  Indeed she hardly spoke beyond telling him that she had to choose some object at the flat.  He was aware of the principal terms of Irene’s will, which indeed had caused the last flutter of excitement before oblivion so quickly descended upon the notoriety of the social star.  Irene’s renown had survived her complexion by only a few short weeks.  The will was of a rather romantic nature.  Nobody familiar with the intimate circumstances would have been surprised if Irene had divided her fortune between Lois and Laurencine.  The bulk of it, however, went back to Indianapolis.  The gross total fell far short of popular estimates.  Lois and Laurencine received five thousand pounds apiece, and in addition they were requested to select each an object from Irene’s belongings—­Lois out of the London flat, Laurencine out of the Paris flat.  Lois had come to London to choose, and she was staying with Adela, the sole chaperon available.  Since the death of Irene, Mrs. Ingram had been excessively strict in the matter of chaperons.

They took a hansom at Victoria.  Across the great square, whose leaves were just yellowing, George saw the huge block of flats, and in one story all the blinds were down.  Lois marched first into the lift, masterfully, as though she inhabited the block.  She asked no one’s permission.  Characteristically she had an order from the solicitors, and the keys of the flat.  She opened the door without any trouble.  They were inside, within the pale-sheeted interior.  Scarcely a thing had yet been moved, for, with the formalities of the judicatures of France, England, and the State of Indiana to be complied with, events marched slowly under the sticky manipulation of three different legal firms.  Lois and George walked cautiously across the dusty, dulled parquets into the vast drawing-room.  George doffed his hat.

“I’d better draw the blinds up,” he suggested.

“No, no!” she sharply commanded.  “I can see quite well.  I don’t want any more light.”

There was the piano upon which Laurencine had played!  The embrasure of the window!  The corner in which Irene had sat spellbound by Jules Defourcambault!  The portraits of Irene, at least one of which would perpetuate her name!  The glazed cases full of her collections!...  The chief pieces of furniture and all the chairs were draped in the pale, ghostly sheeting.