And, indeed, when they entered the house--the balconies and windows were
a blaze of flowers all shining in the sun--they found that their host
and hostess had already come downstairs, and were seated at table with
their small party of guests. This circumstance did not lessen Sir Keith
Macleod's trepidation; for there is no denying the fact that the young
man would rather have faced an angry bull on a Highland road than this
party of people in the hushed and semi-darkened and flower-scented room.
It seemed to him that his appearance was the signal for a confusion that
was equivalent to an earthquake. Two or three servants--all more solemn
than any clergyman--began to make new arrangements; a tall lady, benign
of aspect, rose and most graciously received him; a tall gentleman, with
a gray mustache, shook hands with him; and then, as he vaguely heard
young Ogilvie, at the other end of the room, relate the incident of the
upsetting of the cab, he found himself seated next to this benign lady,
and apparently in a bewildering paradise of beautiful lights and colors
and delicious odors. Asparagus soup? Yes, he would take that; but for a
second or two this spacious and darkened room, with its stained glass
and its sombre walls, and the table before him, with its masses of roses
and lilies-of-the-valley, its silver, its crystal, its nectarines, and
cherries, and pineapples, seemed some kind of enchanted place. And then
the people talked in a low and hushed fashion, and the servants moved
silently and mysteriously, and the air was languid with the scents of
fruits and flowers. They gave him some wine in a tall green glass that
had transparent lizards crawling up its stem; he had never drunk out of
a thing like that before.

"It was very kind of Mr. Ogilvie to get you to come; he is a very good
boy; he forgets nothing," said Mrs. Ross to him; and as he became aware
that she was a pleasant-looking lady of middle age, who regarded him
with very friendly and truthful eyes, he vowed to himself that he would