"Acres and acres. But he only came into it about three years ago. He is
on the same railway board where Hugh is Chairman. He doesn't like Hugh,
and he certainly won't like me. But you see he's bound to be civil to us.
Hugh says he's always making quarrels on the board--in a kind of
magnificent, superior way. He never loses his temper--whereas the others
would often like to flay him alive. Now then"--Mrs. Flaxman laid a finger
on her mouth--"'Papa, potatoes, prunes, and prism'!"

Steps were heard in the hall, and the butler announced "Mr. and Miss
Barron."

A tall man, with an iron-gray moustache and a determined carriage,
entered the room, followed by a timid and stooping lady of uncertain age.

Mrs. Flaxman, transformed at once into the courteous hostess, greeted the
newcomers with her sweetest smiles, set the deaf daughter down on the
hearing side of Mr. Manvers, ordered tea, and herself took charge of Mr.
Barron.

* * * * *

The task was not apparently a heavy one. Mrs. Flaxman saw beside her a
portly man of fifty-five, with a penetrating look, and a composed manner;
well dressed, yet with no undue display. Louis Manvers, struggling with
an habitual plague of shyness, and all but silenced by the discovery that
his neighbour was even deafer than himself, watched the "six-foot-two
Inquisitor" with curiosity, but could find nothing lurid nor torturous in
his aspect. There was indeed something about him which displeased a
rationalist scholar and ascetic. But his information and ability, his
apparent adequacy to any company, were immediately evident. It seemed to