For a minute Gabriella stood outside the door of what had once been the drawing-room of the house, while she listened attentively to the sound of animated voices within.  Then suddenly Archibald’s breezy laugh rang out into the hail, and raising her hand from the knob, she knocked softly on the white-painted panel of the door.

“Come in!” called O’Hara’s voice carelessly; and Gabriell entered and imperatively held out her hand to her son, who was standing by the window.

“Come, Archibald, I want you,” she said gravely.  “You went off without seeing your gifts.”  She had invaded the sitting-room of a strange man, but her purpose was a righteous one, and there was no embarrassment in her manner.

“Oh, mother, are they upstairs?  I’ll run up and see them!” cried, Archibald delightedly.  “I thought they were all in the trunks.”

Darting past her in a flash, he bounded up the staircase, while Gabriella stood facing O’Hara, who had risen and thrown away his cigar at her entrance.  The room was still fragrant with tobacco; there was a light cloud of smoke over the mignonette in the window box, and beyond it, she could see the dim foliage of the elm tree waving over the flagged walk to the gate.  With an eye trained to recognize the value of details, she saw that the sitting-room was furnished with the same deplorable taste which had selected the golden-oak hatrack and the assortment of ornamental walking-sticks.  The woodwork had been stained to match the oak of the barbarous writing-table, which held a distorted bronze lamp, with the base composed of a heavily draped feminine figure, a massive desk set, also of bronze, a pile of newspapers, a dictionary, and several dull-looking books with worn covers and dog’s eared pages.  She noticed that the chairs were all large and solid, with deep arms and backs upholstered in red leather, which looked as if it would never wear out, that the rug was good, and that, except for a few meretricious oil paintings on the greenish walls, the room was agreeably bare of decoration.  After her first hesitating glance, she surmised that a certain expensive comfort was the end sought for and achieved, and that in the furnishing beauty had evidently been estimated in figures.

“Mr. O’Hara,” she began firmly, “I wish you would not take my son away from me.”

He did not lower his gaze, and she saw, after an instant in which he appeared merely surprised, a look of amusement creep into his expressive eyes.  Within four walls, in his light summer clothes, with the gauzy drift of tobacco smoke over his head, he looked larger and more irrepressibly energetic than he had done out of doors.

“I am sorry you feel that way,” he returned very slowly after a pause.  Already she had discovered that he had great difficulty with his words except when he was stirred by excitement into self-forgetfulness.  At other times he seemed curiously inarticulate, and she saw now that, while she waited for his answer, he was groping about in his mind for a suitable phrase in which to repel her accusation.