"Subdue yourself with this," laughed Mary, holding out the desired glass of milk. "Miss Berber, can I get anything for you?"
Felicity by this time was unwrapped, and had disposed herself upon a window-seat, her back to the light.
"Wine or water, Mrs. Byrd; I do not drink milk," she breathed, lighting a cigarette.
"We have some Chianti; nothing else, I'm afraid," said Mary, and a glass of this the designer deigned to accept, together with a little yellow cake set with currants, and served upon a pewter plate.
"I see, Mrs. Byrd," Felicity murmured, as Constance in momentary silence sipped her milk, "that you comprehend the first law of decoration for woman--that her accessories must be a frame for her type. I--how should I appear in a room like this?" She gave a faint shrug. "At best, a false tone in a chromatic harmony. You are entirely in key."
Her eyelids drooped; she exhaled a long breath of smoke. "Very well thought out--unusually clever--for a layman," she uttered, and was still, with the suggestion of a sibyl whose oracle has ceased to speak.
Mary tried not to find her manner irritating, but could not wholly dispel the impression that Miss Berber habitually patronized her.
"I'm afraid I can't claim to have been guided by any subtle theories--I have merely collected together the kind of things I am fond of."
"Mary decorates with her heart, Felicity, you with your head," said Constance, setting down her empty tumbler.
"I'm afraid I should find the heart too erratic a guide to art. Knowledge, Mrs. Byrd, knowledge must supplement feeling," said Felicity, with a gesture of finality.
"Really!" answered Mary, falling back upon her most correct English manner. There was nothing else to say. "She is either cheeky, or a bromide," she thought.
"Felicity," exclaimed Constance, "don't adopt your professional manner; you can't take us in. You know you are an outrageous humbug."
"Dear Connie," replied the other with the ghost of a smile, "you are always so amusing, and so much more wide awake in the morning than I am."
Conversation languished for a minute, Constance having embarked on a cake. For some reason which she could not analyze, Mary felt in no great hurry to call Stefan from the barn, should he be there.