She believed that such forms of play were peculiar to themselves, so she guarded them as the deepest kind of secret; for she thought, if her mother ever found out about them, she would at once conclude that the whole relation was childish.

To all other lovers Mathilde attributed a uniform seriousness.
It took them a long time to choose their house-furnishings: there was a piece of black-and-gold lacquer; a set of painted panels; a Persian rug, swept by the tails of two haughty peacocks; some cloud-gray Chinese porcelains; a set of Du Barry vases; a crystal-and-enamel box, designed probably for some sacred purpose, but contributed by Pete as an excellent receptacle for chocolates at her bedside.

"The Boy with the Sword" for the dining-room, Ver Meer's "Women at the Window," the small Bonnington, and then, since Mathilde wanted the portrait of Mrs.Fitzherbert, and Wayne felt a faint weariness with the English school, a compromise was effected by the selection of Constable's landscape of a bridge.

Wayne kept constantly repeating that he was exactly like Warren Hastings, astonished at his own moderation.

They had hardly begun, indeed, before Mathilde felt herself overcome by that peculiar exhaustion that overtakes even the robust in museums.
Wayne guided her to a little sofa in a room of gold and jade.
"How beautifully you know your way about here!" she said.