But at moments such as this she knew that there was another Laura Jadwin⁠—the Laura Jadwin who might have been a great actress, who had a “temperament,” who was impulsive. This was the Laura of the “grand manner,” who played the role of the great lady from room to room of her vast house, who read Meredith, who revelled in swift gallops through the park on jet-black, long-tailed horses, who affected black velvet, black jet, and black lace in her gowns, who was conscious and proud of her pale, stately beauty⁠—the Laura Jadwin, in fine, who delighted to recline in a long chair in the dim, beautiful picture gallery and listen with half-shut eyes to the great golden organ thrilling to the passion of Beethoven and Liszt.

The last notes of the organ sank and faded into silence⁠—a silence that left a sense of darkness like that which follows upon the flight of a falling star, and after a long moment Laura sat upright, adjusting the heavy masses of her black hair with thrusts of her long, white fingers. She drew a deep breath.