“Yes,” Margaret admitted, “there does not seem to be anything that is not necessary.”

“Not a thing.  When you think of it, two people require as much space as a dozen; when you go beyond one room, you must go on.  Of course you couldn’t get on without a reception-room, drawing-rooms, a conservatory, a music-room, a library, a morning-room, a breakfast-room, a small dining-room and a state dining-room, Mr. Henderson’s snuggery, with his own library, a billiard-room, a picture-gallery—­it is full already; you’ll have to extend it or sell some pictures—­your own suite and Mr. Henderson’s suite, and the guest-rooms, and I forgot the theatre in the attic.  I don’t see but you have scrimped to the last degree.”

“And yet there is room to move about,” Margaret acknowledged, with a gratified smile, as they wandered around.  “Dear me, I used to think the Stotts’ house was a palace.”

It was the height of the season before Lent.  There had been one delay and another, but at last all the workmen had been expelled, and Margaret was mistress of her house.  Cards for the house-warming had been out for two weeks, and the event was near.  She was in her own apartments this pale, wintry afternoon, putting the finishing touches to her toilet.  Nothing seemed to suit.  The maid found her in a very bad humor.  “Remember,” she had said to her husband, when he ordered his brougham after breakfast, “sharp seven, we are to dine alone the first time.”  It lacked two hours yet of dinner-time, but she was dressing for want of other occupation.

Was this then the summit of her ambition?  She had indeed looked forward to some such moment as this as one of exultation in the satisfaction of all her wishes.  She took up a book of apothegms that lay on the table, and opened by chance to this, “Unhappy are they whose desires are all ratified.”  It was like a sting.  Why should she think at this moment of her girlhood; of the ideals indulged in during that quiet time; of her aunt’s cheerful, tender, lonely life; of her rejection of Mr. Lyon?  She did not love Mr. Lyon; she was not satisfied then.  How narrow that little life in Brandon had been!  She threw the book from her.  She hated all that restraint and censoriousness.  If her aunt could see her in all this splendor, she would probably be sadder than ever.  What right had she to sit there and mourn—­as she knew her aunt did—­and sigh over her career?  What right had they to sit in judgment on her?

She went out from her room, down the great stairway, into the spacious house, pausing in the great hall to see opening vista after vista in the magnificent apartments.  It was the first time that she had alone really taken the full meaning of it—­had possessed it with the eye.  It was hers.  Wherever she went, all hers.  No, she had desires yet.  It should be filled with life—­it should be the most brilliant house in the world.  Society should see, should acknowledge the leadership.