The discouraging emptiness of life had mysteriously vanished for Rose.  Her restlessness disappeared as though by magic and her indefinite hunger had been, in some way, appeased.  She had unconsciously emerged from one state into another, as the tiny dwellers of the sea cast off their shells.  She had a sense of freedom and a large vision, as of dissonances resolved into harmony.

Clothes, also, which, as Madame had said, are “supposed to please and satisfy women,” had taken to themselves a new significance.  Rose had made herself take heed of her clothes, but she had never had much real interest.  Now she was glad of the time she had spent in planning her gowns, merely with a view to pleasing Aunt Francesca.

To-night, she wore a clinging gown of deep green velvet, with a spray of green leaves in her hair.  Her only ornament was a pin of jade, in an Oriental setting.  Allison looked at her admiringly.

“There’s something about you,” he said, “that I don’t know just how to express.  I have no words for it, but, in some way, you seem to live up to your name.”

“How so?” Rose asked, demurely.

“Well, I’ve never seen you wear anything that a rose might not wear.  I’ve seen you in red and green and yellow and pink and white, but never in blue or purple, or any of those soft-coloured things that Aunt Francesca wears.”

“That only means,” answered Rose, flushing, “that blue and grey and tan and lavender aren’t becoming to me.”

“That isn’t it,” Allison insisted, “for you’d be lovely in anything.  You’re living up to your name.”

“Go on,” Rose suggested mischievously.  “This is getting interesting.”  “You needn’t laugh.  I assure you that men know more about those things than they’re usually given credit for.  Your jewels fit in with the whole idea, too.  That jade pin, for instance, and your tourmaline necklace, and your ruby ring, and the topazes you wear with yellow, and the faint scent of roses that always hangs about you.”

“What else?” she smiled.

“Well, I had a note from you the other day.  It was fragrant with rose petals and the conventionalised rose, in gold and white, that was stamped in place of a monogram, didn’t escape me.  Besides, here’s this.”

He took from his pocket a handkerchief of sheerest linen, delicately hemstitched.  In one corner was embroidered a rose, in palest shades of pink and green.  The delicate, elusive scent filled the room as he shook it out.

“There,” he continued, with a laugh.  “I found it in my violin case the other day.  I don’t know how it came there, but it was much the same as finding a rose twined about the strings.”

Aunt Francesca was on the other side of the room, by the fire.  Her face, in the firelight, was as delicate as a bit of carved ivory.  Her thoughts were far away—­one could see that.  Isabel sat near her, apparently absorbed in a book, but, in reality, listening to every word.