The big red-shaded lamp in the centre of the table shed a soft light upon the snowy cloth, the flowers and the glittering silver; and as my hostess took her seat she sighed slightly, and for the first time asked of Ethelwynn.
"I haven't seen her for a week," I was compelled to admit. "Patients have been so numerous that I haven't had time to go out to see her, except at hours when calling at a friend's house was out of the question."
"Do you like the Hennikers?" her mother inquired, raising her eyes inquiringly to mine.
"Yes, I've found them very agreeable and pleasant."
"H'm," the old lady ejaculated dubiously. "Well, I don't. I met Mrs. Henniker once, and I must say that I did not care for her in the least. Ethelwynn is very fond of her, but to my mind she's fast, and not at all a suitable companion for a girl of my daughter's disposition. It may be that I have an old woman's prejudices, living as I do in the country always, but somehow I can never bring myself to like her."
Mrs. Mivart, like the majority of elderly widows who have given up the annual visit to London in the season, was a trifle behind the times. More charming an old lady could not be, but, in common with all who vegetate in the depths of rural England, she was just a trifle narrow-minded. In religion, she found fault constantly with the village parson, who, she declared, was guilty of ritualistic practices, and on the subject of her daughters she bemoaned the latter-day emancipation of women, which allowed them to go hither and thither at their own free will. Like all such mothers, she considered wealth a necessary adjunct to happiness, and it had been with her heartiest approval that Mary had married the unfortunate Courtenay, notwithstanding the difference between the ages of bride and bridegroom. In every particular the old lady was a typical specimen of the squire's widow, as found in rural England to-day.
Scarcely had we seated ourselves and I had replied to her question when the door opened and a slim figure in deep black entered and mechanically took the empty chair. She crossed the room, looking straight before her, and did not notice my presence until she had seated herself face to face with me.