"Not yet, I think.

But let us prepare ourselves." * * * * * Meanwhile the cause of all this agitation was sitting languidly in a great Louis Quinze chair in the picture gallery upstairs, with Aldous beside her.

She had taken off her big hat as though it oppressed her, and her black head lay against a corner of the chair in fine contrast to its mellowed golds and crimsons.

Opposite to her were two famous Holbein portraits, at which she looked from time to time as though attracted to them in spite of herself, by some trained sense which could not be silenced.

But she was not communicative, and Aldous was anxious.
"Do you think I was rude to your grandfather ?" she asked him at last abruptly, cutting dead short some information she had stiffly asked him for just before, as to the date of the gallery and its collection.
"Rude!" he said startled.