bridge?"




CHAPTER V


The Princess was only obeying a faint sign from Forrest. She leaned
forward and addressed her host.

"It isn't a bad idea," she declared. "Where are we going to play
bridge, Cecil? In some smaller room, I hope. This one is really
beginning to get on my nerves a little. There is an ancestor exactly
opposite who has fixed me with a luminous and a disapproving eye.
And the blank spaces on the wall! Ugh! I feel like a Goth. We are
too modern for this place, Cecil."

Their host laughed as he rose and turned towards Jeanne.

"Your mother," he said, "is beginning to be conscious of her
environment. I know exactly how she is feeling, for I myself am a
constant sufferer. Are you, too, sighing for the gilded salons of
civilization?"

"Not in the least," Jeanne answered frankly. "I am tired of mirrors
and electric lights and babble. I prefer our present surroundings,
and I should not mind at all if some of those disapproving ancestors
of yours stepped out of their frames and took their places with us
here."