“There is Mrs. Gurrage’s boudoir, that has straight-up, padded chairs and crimson satin, and there is my own, that is mustard yellow.  Which could you bear best before dinner?” I said, laughing.

“Oh! the yellow—­mustard is stimulating and will give me an appetite.”

So we walked up the stairs again together and he followed me down the thickly carpeted passage to my highly gilded shrine.

For the first time since I have owned it, I felt sorry I had been too numb to make it nice.  The house-maids arrange it in the morning, and there it stays, a monument of the English upholsterer’s idea of a Louis XV. boudoir.

As I told Hephzibah, the little copy of La Rochefoucauld and the miniature of Ambrosine Eustasie are the only things of mine—­my own—­that are here, besides all my new books, of course.

I sat down in the straight-backed sofa.  It has terra-cotta and buff tulips running over the mustard brocade.  The gilt part runs into your back.

Antony sat at the other end.

A very fat, rich cushion of “school of art” embroidery, with frills, fell between us.  We looked up at the same moment and our eyes met, and we both laughed.

“You remind me of a picture I bought last year,” Antony said.  “It was a little pastel by La Tour, and the last owner had framed it in a brand-new, brilliant gilt Florentine frame.”

Suddenly, as he spoke, a sense of shame came over me.  I felt how wrong I had been to laugh with him about this—­my home.  It is because, after all these months, I cannot realize that Ledstone is my home that I have been capable of committing this bad taste.

I felt my cheeks getting red and I looked down.

“I—­I like bright colors,” I said, defiantly.  “They are cheerful and—­and—­”

“Sweet Comtesse!” interrupted Antony, in his mocking tone, which does not anger me.  “Tell me about your books.”

He got up lazily, and began reading the titles of a heap on the table beyond.

“What strange books for a little girl!  Who on earth recommended you these?”

“No one.  I knew nothing at all about modern books, so I just sent for all and any I saw in the advertisements in the papers.  Most of them are great rubbish, it seems to me, but there are one or two I like.”

He did not speak for a few moments.

“All on philosophy!  You ought to read novels at your age.”

“I did get some in the beginning, but they seemed all untrue and mawkish, or sad and dramatic, and the heroines did such silly things, and the men were mostly brutes, so I have given them up.  Unless I see the advertisement of a thrilling burglary or mystery story, I read those.  They are not true, either, and one knows it, but they make one forget when it rains.”

“All women profess to have a little taste for philosophy and beautifully bound Marcus Aureliuses, and Maximes, and love poems—­clever little scraps covered in exquisite bindings.  And one out of a thousand understands what the letter-press is about.  I am weary of seeing the same on every boudoir-table, and yet some of them are delightful books in themselves.  You have none of these, I see.”