A blaze of light and colour, a rush of heated air.  Felicia was dazzled by the splendour of the great show within—­the tapestries, the pictures, the gleaming reflections on lacquer and intarsia, on ebony or Sevres.  But the atmosphere was stifling.  Melrose now could only live in the temperature of a hothouse.

Dixon threw open a door, and without a word beckoned to Felicia to enter.  He hesitated a moment, evidently as to whether he should announce her; and then, stepping forward, he cleared his throat.

“Muster Melrose, theer’s soom one as wants to speak to you!”

“What do you mean, you old fool!” said a deep, angry voice on the other side of a great lacquer screen; “didn’t I tell you I wasn’t to be disturbed?”

Felicia walked round the screen.  Dixon, with an excited look at her, retired through the door which he closed behind him.

“Father!” said Felicia, in a low, trembling voice.

An old man who was writing at a large inlaid table, in the midst of a confusion of objects which the girl’s eyes had no time to take in, turned sharply at the sound.

The two stared at each other.  Melrose slowly revolved on his chair, pen in hand.  Felicia stood, with eyes downcast, her cheeks burning, her hands lightly clasped.

Melrose spoke first.

“H’m—­so they’ve sent you here?”

She looked up.

“No one sent me.  I—­I wished to see you—­before we went away; because you are my father—­and I mightn’t ever see you—­if I didn’t now.  And I wanted to ask you”—­her voice quivered—­“not to be angry any more with mother and me.  We never meant to vex you—­by coming.  But we were so poor—­and mother is ill.  Yes, she is ill!—­she is—­it’s no shamming.  Won’t you forgive us?—­won’t you give mother a little more money?—­and won’t you”—­she clasped her hands entreatingly—­“won’t you give me a dot?  I may want to be married—­and you are so rich?  And I wouldn’t ever trouble you again—­I—­”

She broke off, intimidated, paralyzed by the strange fixed look of the old wizard before her—­his flowing hair, his skullcap, his white and sunken features.  And yet mysteriously she recognized herself in him.  She realized through every fibre that he was indeed her father.

“You would have done better not to trouble me again!” said Melrose, with slow emphasis.  “Your mother seems to pay no attention whatever to what I say.  We shall see.  So you want a dot?  And, pray, what do you want a dot for?  Who’s going to marry you?  Tatham?”

The tone was more mocking than fierce; but Felicia shrank under it.

“Oh, no, no!  But I might want to marry,” she added piteously.  “And in Italy—­one can’t marry—­without a dot!”

“Your mother should have thought of these things when she ran away.”

Felicia was silent a moment.  Then, without invitation, she seated herself on the edge of a chair that stood near him.