Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/403



ETWEEN four and five o'clock on the afternoon of this day a long, impatient ring came at the door of Lord Petres' apartment on the Boulevard Malesherbes.

Many men—well-meaning, fussy men, human creatures weakly troubled about other things than their own immediate comfort—require time to settle themselves after a journey or other break upon the common habits of their life. Lord Petres, guided only by the admirably-consistent philosophy of selfishness, could subside into his narrow little sybarite groove in an hour. He had been back one day and a half in Paris (after the conscientious yearly martyrdom among his tenants at Eccleston), and already the clock-work order of his serene existence was going on smooth as ever. Piled-up wood fires in every room of the apartment transformed the gloomy February afternoon into light and cheerfulness. Flowers bloomed against the double windows; the great Persian cat dozed peacefully upon the library hearth-rug; books, papers—the evidence of Lord Petres' morning study—lay on the table. Lord Petres himself, outstretched in his easy chair, was waiting, his eyes closed, for the clocks to strike the half hour at which it would be incumbent upon him to put on his wraps and take exercise; also, now that Miss Fane chanced to be in Paris, to attend to his courtship.

"Milor," said M. Felix, the valet, coming across the Velvet-piled floor with the slow, deliberate noiselessness to which all Lord Petres' attendants had to attune themselves, "here is a lady who demands Milor."

"Give her everything she asks, my good Felix, and let her depart," answered Milor in his plaintive little voice. "After living