“From her who you fancied was my wife,” he explained, enjoying her confusion. “Ernestine Christian, one of our ‘family.’ She does not start her season until January, but then she’s going to tell you all that. You’ll have to drive fast to be on time, for you’re to take tea with her at half after four. And don’t forget two things: First, you sang the aria in five-and-ten-cent style; and, secondly, you’re a nice apple-cheeked kiddie and deserve splendid things!” He waved her out jocularly, and she found herself going through the anterooms reading the note and not speaking to the secretary.
Come take tea with me at half-past four. Bliss says we are to know each other.
Here at least was a breathing space from lessons. Some one had asked her to tea who would, one would assume, be willing to answer questions. She called a cab and drove to the address.
Thurley had no calling cards—not every detail can be achieved in a magical space of time—so she told the maid to say it was Miss Precore and that she was expected. At which she was shown into the strangest living-room, to her untutored eyes, that she could imagine. It had a black and white tiled floor and green Pompeiian furniture with oddly shaped cushions in still odder places and distinctive mirrors hung on dull, green chains. The piano was in the center of the room and all about the walls were bizarre black and white etchings and some fascinating marines. At the end of the room, the light striking it in excellent manner, was the portrait of a man. As Thurley looked at it, she wondered if she was to go from strange room to stranger room seeing portraits which fascinated her and then meet their originals only to gaze on another portrait equally strange and winsome.
This man was noticeable for his well-shaped head with its short, dark hair and fine, large eyes, hazel she would judge, slightly mocking and lying-in-wait in their expression. They were encased with spectacles of scholarly aspect. He had a womanish chin and the tortured, lined brow of the apostle. Dressed in riding togs, he was sitting on the bench of an old garden, one hand betraying slim, artistic fingers as it rested on the head of a grizzled dog.
Thurley was settling herself in a nearby chair, trying to become accustomed to this very different sort of “scenery,” when a woman began saying in a deep, rich voice,