all that was touching, other-worldly, and obscure—­our late English form, in fact, of the great Romantic reaction—­it was amid influences of this kind that Lady Tranmore lived and fed her own imagination.  The dim, suggestive, and pathetic; twilight rather than dawn, autumn rather than spring; yearning rather than fulfilment; “the gleam” rather than noon-day:  it was in this half-lit, richly colored sphere that she and most of her friends saw the tent of Beauty pitched.

But Kitty would have none of it.  She quoted French sceptical remarks about the legs and joints of the Burne-Jones knights; she declared that so much pattern made her dizzy; and that the French were the only nation in the world who understood a salon, whether as upholstery or conversation.  Accordingly, in days when these things were rare, the girl of eighteen made her new husband provide her with white-panelled walls, lightly gilt, and with a Persian carpet of which the mass was of a plain, blackish gray, and only the border was allowed to flower.  A few Louis-Quinze girandoles on the walls, a Vernis-Martin screen, an old French clock, two or three inlaid cabinets, and a collection of lightly built chairs and settees in the French mode—­this was all she would allow; and while Lady Tranmore’s room was always crowded, Kitty’s, which was much smaller, had always an air of space.  French books were scattered here and there; and only one picture was admitted.  That was a Watteau sketch of a group from “L’Embarquement pour Cythere.”  Kitty adored it; Lady Tranmore thought it absurd and disagreeable.

As she entered the room now, on this May afternoon, she looked round it with her usual distaste.  On several of the chairs large illustrated books were lying.  They contained pictures of seventeenth and eighteenth century costume—­one of them displayed a colored engraving of a brilliant Madame de Pompadour, by Boucher.

The maid who followed her into the room began to remove the books.

“Her ladyship has been choosing her costume, my lady,” she explained, as she closed some of the volumes.

“Is it settled?” said Lady Tranmore.

The maid replied that she believed so, and, bringing a volume which had been laid aside with a mark in it, she opened on a fantastic plate of Madame de Longueville, as Diana, in a gorgeous hunting-dress.

Lady Tranmore looked at it in silence; she thought it unseemly, with its bare ankles and sandalled feet, and likely to be extremely expensive.  For this Diana of the Fronde sparkled with jewels from top to toe, and Lady Tranmore felt certain that Kitty had already made William promise her the counterpart of the magnificent diamond crescent that shone in the coiffure of the goddess.

“It really seemed to be the only one that suited her ladyship,” said the maid, in a deprecating voice.

“I dare say it will look very well,” said Lady Tranmore.  “And Fanchette is to make it?”