So altogether the puckered frown soon left her smooth brow, and she was able to resume the knitting of a tie she was doing for her son, with a spirit more or less at rest, though she sighed now and then as she remembered Morella Winmarleigh could not be expected to wait forever—­and her cherished vision of perfectly behaved, vigorously healthy grandchildren was still a long way from being realized.  For with such a mother what perfect children they would be!  This was always her final reflection.

VII

At twelve o’clock punctually Lord Bracondale was ushered into Mrs. McBride’s sitting-room at the Ritz, the day after her dinner-party at Armenonville.  He expected she would not be ready to receive him for at least half an hour; having said twelve he might have known she meant half-past, but he was in a mood of impatience, and felt obliged to be punctual.

He was suffering more or less from a reaction.  He had begun towards morning to realize the manner in which he had spent the evening was not altogether wise.  Not that he had the least intention of not repeating his folly—­indeed, he was where he was at this hour for no other purpose than to enlist the widow’s sympathy, and her co-operation in arranging as many opportunities for similar evenings as together they could devise.

After all, she only kept him waiting twenty minutes, and he had been rather amused looking at the piles of bric-a-brac obsequious art dealers had left for this rich lady’s inspection.

A number of spurious bronzes warranted pure antique, clocks, brocades, what not, lying about on all the available space.

“And I wonder what it will look like in her marble palace halls,” he thought, as he passed from one article to another.

“I am just too sorry to keep you, mon cher Bracondale,” Mrs. McBride said, presently, suddenly opening the adjoining door a few inches, “but it is a quite exasperating hat which has delayed me.  I can’t get the thing on at the angle I want.  I—­”

“Mayn’t I come and help, dear lady?” interrupted Hector.  “I know all about the subject.  I had to buy forty-seven at Monte Carlo, and see them all tried on, too—­and only lately!  Do ask Marie to open that door a little wider; I will decide in a minute how it should be.”

“Insolent!” said the widow, who spoke French with perfect fluency and a quite marvellously pure American accent.  But she permitted the giggling and beaming Marie to open the door wide, and let Hector advance and kiss her hand.

He then took a chair by the dressing-table and inspected the situation.

Seven or eight dainty bandboxes strewed the floor, some of their contents peeping from them—­feathers, aigrettes, flowers, impossible birds—­all had their place, and on the sofa were three chef d’oeuvres ruthlessly tossed aside.  While in the widow’s fair hands was a gem of gray tulle and the most expensive feather heart of woman could desire.