Chapter XI
THE evenings had grown milder, and after dinner it was possible to sit in one of the airier drawing–rooms which opened on the stoep. So soft was the weather that the great windows were left half open, and through them blew scented wafts from the gardens.
Mrs Deloraine's beautiful head was silhouetted by a little lamp against an ebony screen. She arranged some papers on a table beside her and began to speak in her curiously gentle voice.
"I have been given my orders by Francis, and I can't disobey them. But I hope you will be a very charitable audience. I am not a controversialist, and, though I have written a little it is very hasty and imperfect, and I shall have to supplement it as best I can. I want to speak about the bearing of our creed upon the aesthetic side of life, a
