The clerk returned, came through a gateway in the railing, led the way into a rich inner room, and turning with another courtly bow, handed her a cushioned armchair and retired.
"After eighteen years," thought Aurora, as she found herself alone.

It had been eighteen years since any representative of the De Grapion line had met a Grandissime face to face, so far as she knew; even that representative was only her deceased husband, a mere connection by marriage.

How many years it was since her grandfather, Georges De Grapion, captain of dragoons, had had his fatal meeting with a Mandarin de Grandissime, she did not remember.

There, opposite her on the wall, was the portrait of a young man in a corslet who might have been M.
Mandarin himself.

She felt the blood of her race growing warmer in her veins.