Lilas flung her hat carelessly into a chair, lit a cigarette from a Tiffany humidor, then turned with the spaniel in her arms and, beholding her guest with rapt, upturned face, remarked, with a laugh: 

“Looks the real thing, doesn’t it?”

“Oh—­it’s wonderful—­so clean and cool and quiet!  I’ve seen cattle in Vale that looked just like those, when I went barefoot in the grass.”

“Some Dutchman painted it—­his name’s in the corner.  He’s dead now, I believe.  It used to hang in some museum—­I forget where.  I like pictures of women best, but—­” She shrugged and left her sentence unfinished.  “There’s a dandy in my bedroom, although it didn’t cost half as much as that barn-yard thing.  The frame’s a foot wide and covered with solid gold.”

“I had no idea you lived like this.”  Lorelei peered through a pair of French doors and into a perfectly appointed library, with a massive mahogany table, deep lounging-chairs, a writing-desk, and a dome-crowned reading-lamp.

“My study,” Lilas laughed, shortly.  “That’s where I improve my mind—­not.  The books are deadly.  Now come; Hitchy Koo must have dinner ready.  His name isn’t Hitchy Koo, but it sounds like it, and he’s ‘the cutest little thing; got the cutest little swing.’” She moved down the hall humming the chorus of the senseless popular song from which she had quoted.

Everywhere was the same evidence of good taste in decoration and luxury of equipment, but a suspicion had entered Lorelei’s mind, and she avoided comment.  Hitchy Koo was cook, butler, and house-boy, and in view of Miss Lynn’s disorderly habits it was evident that he had all he could do to keep the place presentable.  His mistress possessed that faculty of disarrangement so common in stage-women; wherever she went she left confusion behind; she was careless to the point of destruction, and charred marks upon the handsome sideboard and table showed where glowing cigarette stumps had suffered a negligent demise.  The spaniel was allowed to worry bits of food that left marks on the rug; his owner ate without appetite and in a hypercritical mood that took no account of the wasteful attempts to please her.  Quite regardless of the patient little Jap, she alternately found fault with him and discussed with her guest matters of so frank a nature that Lorelei was often painfully embarrassed.

“So, you like my home, do you?” she queried, after a time.

“I’ve never seen one so beautiful.”

Lilas nodded.  “Hitchy sleeps out, and that leaves me the whole place.  Jarvis furnished it, even to the books, and I’m studying to be a lady.”  Again she laughed mockingly.  “I make a bluff at reading, but so long as I talk about Napoleon he never thinks to question me.  I know that French gink backward.”

“I wish I had a hobby—­something to interest me, something to live for,” said Lorelei, lamely.

“Yes.  It gives you something to think about when you’re alone.  It helps you to—­stand things.”  For the first time Lilas showed a trace of feeling in her voice; she dropped her chin into her palm and, leaning upon the table, stared as if at a vision.  Her dark eyes were somber, her brows were lowered and drawn together.