They sat talking thus until the candles burnt low, guttered and began to
go out, one by one, and at last the distant tinkle of a bell echoed
through the house. For a moment they listened, waiting for one of the
servants to answer and when the bell rang again and again, Lily at last
got up languidly saying, “It must be Irene. I’ll open if the servants
are in bed.”
“She always has a key,” said her mother. “She has never forgotten it
before.”
Lily made her way through the hall and boldly opened the door to
discover that she was right. Irene stood outside covered with snow. As
she stepped in, her sister caught a glimpse through the mist of falling
flakes of a tall man, powerfully built, walking down the long drive
toward Halsted street. He walked rapidly, for he wore no overcoat and
the night was cold.
In the warm lamplighted hall, Irene shook the snow from her coat and
took off her plain ugly black hat. Her pale cheeks were flushed, perhaps
from the effort of walking so rapidly up the drive.
“Who is the man?” asked Lily with an inquisitive smile. Her sister,
pulling off her heavy overshoes, answered without looking up. “His name
is Krylenko. He is a Ukrainian ... a mill worker.”
An hour later the two sisters sat in Lily’s room while she took out gown
after gown from the brightly labeled trunks. Something had happened
during the course of the evening to soften the younger sister. She
showed for the first time traces of an interest in the life of Lily. She
even bent over the trunks and felt admiringly of the satins, the
brocades, the silks and the furs that Lily lifted out and tossed
carelessly upon the big Italian bed. She poked about among the delicate
chiffons and laces until at last she came upon a small photograph of a
handsome gentleman in the ornate uniform of the cuirassiers. He was
swarthy and dark-eyed with a crisp vigorous mustache, waxed and turned
up smartly at the ends. For a second she held it under the light of the
bed lamp.
“Who is this?” she asked, and Lily, busy with her unpacking, looked up
for an instant and then continued her task. “It is the Baron,” she
replied. “Madame Gigon’s cousin ... the one who supports her.”
“He is handsome,” observed Irene in a strange shrewd voice.
“He is a friend.... We ride together in the country. Naturally I see a
great deal of him. We live at his château in the summer.”
The younger sister dropped the conversation. She became silent and
withdrawn, and the queer frightened look showed itself in her pale blue
eyes. Presently she excused herself on the pretense that she was tired
and withdrew to the chaste darkness of her own room where she knelt down
before a plaster virgin, all pink and gilt and sometimes tawdry, to
pray.