Tynn wished there had been no French invented, so far as her comprehension was concerned.  While she stood, undecided what reply to make, wishing very much to express her decided opinion upon the extravagance she saw around her, yet deterred from it by remembering that Mrs. Verner was now her mistress, Phoeby entered with the chocolate.  The girl put it down on the mantel-piece—­there was no other place—­and then made a sign to Mrs. Tynn that she wished to speak with her.  They both left the room.

“Am I to be at the beck and call of that French madmizel?” she resentfully asked.  “I was not engaged for that, Mrs. Tynn.”

“It seems we are all to be at her beck and call, to hear her go on,” was Mrs. Tynn’s wrathful rejoinder.  “Of course it can’t be tolerated.  We shall see in a day or two.  Phoeby, girl, what could possess Mrs. Verner to buy all them cart-loads of finery?  She must have spent the money like water.”

“So she did,” acquiesced Phoeby.  “She did nothing all day long but drive about from one place to another and choose pretty things.  You should see the china that’s coming over!”

“I wonder Mr. Lionel let her,” was the thoughtlessly-spoken remark of Tynn.  And she tried, when too late, to cough it down.

“He helped her, I think,” answered Phoeby.  “I know he bought some of that beautiful jewellery for her himself, and brought it home.  I saw him kiss her, through the doorway, as he clasped that pink necklace on her neck.”

“Oh, well, I don’t want to hear about that rubbish,” tartly rejoined Tynn.  “If you take to peep through doorways, girl, you won’t suit Verner’s Pride.”

Phoeby did not like the rebuff.  She turned one way, and Mrs. Tynn went off another.

In the breakfast-room below, in her charming French morning costume, tasty and elegant, sat Sibylla Verner.  With French dresses, she seemed to be acquiring French habits.  Late as the hour was, the breakfast remained on the table.  Sibylla might have sent the things away an hour ago; but she kept a little chocolate in her cup, and toyed with it.  She had never tasted chocolate for breakfast in all her life, previous to this visit to Paris:  now she protested she could take nothing else.  Possibly she may have caught the taste for it from Mademoiselle Benoite.  Her husband sat opposite to her, his chair drawn from the table, and turned to face the room.  A perfectly satisfied, happy expression pervaded his face; he appeared to be fully contented with his lot and with his bride.  Just now he was laughing immoderately.

Perched upon the arm of a sofa, having there come to an anchor, his legs hanging down and swaying about in their favourite fashion, was Jan Verner.  Jan had come in to pay them a visit and congratulate them on their return.  That is speaking somewhat figuratively, however, for Jan possessed no notion of congratulating anybody.  As Lady Verner sometimes resentfully said, Jan had no more social politeness in him than a bear.  Upon entering, Sibylla asked him to take some breakfast.  Breakfast! echoed Jan, did she call that breakfast?  He thought it was their lunch—­it was getting on for his dinner-time.  Jan was giving Lionel a history of the moonlight flitting, and of Susan Peckaby’s expected expedition to New Jerusalem on a white donkey.