in the air, which was intensified to him by the sight of St. John, in his
bare, bald head and the neglige of a flannel housecoat, inspecting, with
the gardener and one of the grooms, the fallen trellis under the library
window, which from time to time they looked up at, as they talked. Hewson
made haste to join them, through the garden gate, and to say shamefacedly
enough, "Oh, I'm afraid I'm responsible for that," and he told how he
must have thrown down the trellis in getting out of the window.

"Oh!" said St. John, while the two men walked away with dissatisfied
grins at being foiled of their sensation. "We thought it was burglars.
I'm so glad it was only you." But in spite of his profession, St. John
did not give Hewson any very lively proof of his enjoyment. "Deuced
uncomfortable to have had one's guests murdered in their beds. Don't say
anything about it, please, Hewson. The women would all fly the premises,
if there'd been even a suspicion of burglars."

"Oh, no; I won't," Hewson willingly assented; but he perceived a
disappointment in St. John's tone and manner, and he suspected him,
however unjustly, of having meant to give himself importance with his
guests by the rumor of a burglary in the house.

He was a man quite capable of that, Hewson believed, and failing it,
capable of pretending that he wanted the matter hushed up in the interest
of others.

In any case he saw that it was not to St. John primarily, or secondarily
to St. John's guests, that he could celebrate the fact of his apparition.
In the presence of St. John's potential vulgarity he keenly felt his own,
and he recoiled from what he had imagined doing. He even realized that he
would have been working St. John an injury by betraying his house to his