Trent cast a blank stare about the tapestried walls.

“But where is it?” he demanded.

“It’s gone,” was Gerty’s brief rejoinder, and she added, after a moment devoted to her cigarette, “now that’s where it pays to have the wisdom of the serpent.  I really flatter myself,” she admitted complacently, “that I’ve a genius, I did it so beautifully.  Your young innocent would have mangled matters to the point of butchery and have gloried like a martyr in her domestic squabbles, but I’ve learned a lesson or two from misfortune, and one of them is that a man invariably prides himself upon possessing the quality he hasn’t got.  That’s a perfectly safe rule,” she annotated along the margin of her story.  “I used to compliment an artist upon his art and an Apollo upon his beauty—­but it never worked.  They always looked as if I had under-valued them, so now I industriously praise the folly of the wise and the wisdom of the fool.”

“And the decorative talent of Perry,” laughed one of the callers.

“You needn’t smile,” commented Gerty, while Trent watched the little greenish flame dance in her eyes, “it isn’t funny—­it’s philosophy.  I made it out of life.”

“But what about the terra-cotta?” enquired Susie.

“Oh, as I’ve said, I did nothing reckless,” resumed Gerty, relaxing among her cushions, “I neither slapped his face nor went into hysterics—­these tactics, I’ve found, never work unless one happens to be a prima donna—­so I complimented him upon his consideration and sat down and waited.  That night he went to a club dinner—­after the beautiful surprise he’d given me he felt that he deserved a little freedom—­and the door had no sooner closed upon him than I paid the butler to come in and smoke the walls.  He didn’t want to do it at all, so I really had to pay him very high—­I gave him a suit of Perry’s evening clothes.  It’s the ambition of his life, you know, to look like Perry.”

“How under heaven did he manage it?” persisted Susie.  “The smoke, I mean, not the resemblance.”

“There are a good many lamps about the house and we brought them all in, every one.  The butler warned me it was dangerous, but I assured him I was desperate.  That settled it—­that and the evening clothes—­and by the time Perry returned the room was like an extinct volcano.”

“And he never found out?” asked Susie, as the callers rose to go.

“Found out!  My dear, do you really give him credit for feminine penetration?  Well, if you will go—­good-bye—­and—­oh—­don’t look at my gown to-morrow night or you’ll turn blue with envy,” then, as Trent started to follow the retreating visitors, she detained him by a gesture.  “Stay awhile, unless you’re bored,” she urged, “but if you’re really bored I shan’t say a word.  I assure you I sometimes bore myself.”

As he fell back into his chair Trent was conscious of a feeling of intimacy, and strange as it was, it dispelled instantly his engrossing shyness.