THE great tree in the hall was hung with gold and silver balls which caught the light, and festooned with shimmering tinsel. On the topmost branch was a gay little Santa Claus, red as a flame and powdered with snow. Under the tree, and on the low tables which flanked it, were tissue-wrapped parcels—hundreds, it seemed to Crispin—mountains of treasure.
Carew, thin and dark, excitement in his gray eyes, read the names on the parcels, and Sampson and Delia, in fluttering ecstasy, distributed them.
For Hildegarde there was, from her father, a sapphire hung on a fragile platinum chain. It had belonged to her grandmother and had been reset. Miss Anne gave her crystal bottles for her dressing-table; Winslow, a gorgeous fan of sapphire feathers.
"Your father and I have decided," Winslow told Hildegarde, "that this deep blue is your color. Women with your smoky hair and white skin can always wear blue, but some of them don't know it."
Crispin, standing by, hated Winslow's manner of close intimacy. He did not like the man. There was something frigid about him, brittle, insincere. His own gift to Hildegarde had been book-ends which he had
