XII
ELEANORS
"Constant you are—
. . . And for secrecy
No lady closer."
Henry IV.
"No, 't is slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile."
Cymbeline.
THE door was opened by Molly. "You will find Miss Eleanore in the drawing-room, sir," she said, ushering me in.
Fearing I knew not what, I hurried to the room thus indicated, feeling as never before the sumptuousness of the magnificent hall with its antique flooring, carved woods, and bronze ornamentations:—the mockery of things for the first time forcing itself upon me. Laying my hand on the drawing-room door, I listened. All was silent. Slowly pulling it open, I lifted the heavy satin curtains hanging before me to the floor, and looked within. What a picture met my eyes!
Sitting in the light of a solitary gas jet, whose faint glimmering just served to make visible the glancing satin and stainless marble of the gorgeous apartment, I beheld Eleanore Leavenworth. Pale as the sculptured image of the Psyche that towered above her from the mellow dusk of the bow-window near which she sat, beautiful as it, and almost as immobile, she crouched
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