" Her
sigh pointed unmistakably to a past when young men had come to luncheon to
see _her_.
The sigh led Vibart to look at her, and the look led him to the unwelcome
conclusion that Irene "took after" her mother. It was certainly not from
the sapless paternal stock that the girl had drawn her warm bloom: Mrs.
Carstyle had contributed the high lights to the picture.
Mrs. Carstyle caught his look and appropriated it with the complacency of
a vicarious beauty. She was quite aware of the value of her appearance as
guaranteeing Irene's development into a fine woman.
"But perhaps," she continued, taking up the thread of her explanation,
"you have heard of Mr. Carstyle's extraordinary hallucination. Mr.
Carstyle knows that I call it so--as I tell him, it is the most charitable
view to take."
She looked coldly at the threadbare sofa and indulgently at the young man
who filled a corner of it.
"You may think it odd, Mr. Vibart, that I should take you into my
confidence in this way after so short an acquaintance, but somehow I can't
help regarding you as a friend already. I believe in those intuitive
sympathies, don't you? They have never misled me--" her lids drooped
retrospectively--"and besides, I always tell Mr. Carstyle that on this
point I will have no false pretences. Where truth is concerned I am
inexorable, and I consider it my duty to let our friends know that our
restricted way of living is due entirely to choice--to Mr.
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