In times probably long past, possibly in the Dowager Lady Anstruthers' early years of marriage, the walls had been hung with white and gold paper of a pattern which dominated the scene, and had been furnished with gilded chairs, tables, and ottomans.

Some of these last had evidently been removed as they became too much out of repair for use or ornament.

Such as remained, tarnished as to gilding and worn in the matter of upholstery, stood sparsely scattered on a desert of carpet, whose huge, flowered medallions had faded almost from view.
Lady Anstruthers, looking shy and awkward as she fingered an ornament on a small table, seemed singularly a part of her background.

Her evening dress, slipping off her thin shoulders, was as faded and out of date as her carpet.

It had once been delicately blue and gauzy, but its gauziness hung in crushed folds and its blue was almost grey.