As soon as Audrey came into the room she had said to herself:  “I will have a boudoir like this.”  It was an interior in which every piece of furniture was loaded with objects personal to its owner.  So many signed photographs, so much remarkable bric-a-brac, so many intimate contrivances of ornamental comfort, Audrey had never before seen within four walls.  The chandelier, comprising ten thousand crystals, sparkled down upon a complex aggregate of richness overwhelming to everybody except Madame Piriac, who subdued it, understood it, and had the key to it.  Audrey wondered how many servants took how many hours to dust the room.  She was sure, however, that whatever the number of servants required, Madame Piriac managed them all to perfection.  She longed violently to be as old as Madame Piriac, whom she assessed at twenty-nine and a half, and to be French, and to know all about everything in life as Madame Piriac did.  Yet at the same time she was extremely determined to be Audrey, and not to be intimidated by Madame Piriac or by anyone.

Just as they were beginning to suck iced lemonade up straws—­a delightful caprice of Madame Piriac’s, well suited to catch Audrey’s taste—­the door opened softly, and a tall, very dark, bearded man, appreciably older than Madame Piriac, entered with a kind of soft energy, and Mr. Gilman followed him.

“Ah!  My friend!” murmured Madame Piriac.  “You give me pleasure.  This is Madame Moncreiff, of whom I have spoken to you.  Madame—­my husband.  We have just come from the Foas.”

Monsieur Piriac bent over Audrey’s hand, and smiled with vivacity, and they talked a little of the evening, carelessly, as though time existed not.  And then Monsieur Piriac said to his wife: 

“Dear friend.  I have to work with this old Gilman.  We shall therefore ask you to excuse us.  Till to-morrow, then.  Good night.”

“Good night, my friend.  Do not do harm to yourself.  Good night, my oncle.”

Monsieur Piriac saluted with formality but with sincerity.

“Oh!” thought Audrey, as the men went away.  “I should want to marry exactly him if I did want to marry.  He doesn’t interfere; he isn’t curious; he doesn’t want to know.  He leaves her alone.  She leaves him alone.  How clever they are!”

“My husband is now chief of the Cabinet of the Foreign Minister,” said Madame Piriac with modest pride.  “They kill themselves, you know, in that office—­especially in these times.  But I watch.  And I tell Monsieur Gilman to watch....  How nice you are when you sit in a chair like that!  Only Englishwomen know how to use an easy chair....  To say nothing of the frock.”

“Madame Piriac,” Audrey brusquely demanded with an expression of ingenuous curiosity.  “Why did you bring me here?” It was the cry of an animal at once rash and rather desperate, determined to unmask all the secret dangers that might be threatening.