ot but impress the ordinary
man with its distinction, suggests to all but the very observant the most
modest plainness and simplicity. How few realize that simplicity must be
profound, complex, studied, not to be and to appear crude and coarse. In
those days that truth had just begun to dawn on me.

"Mr. Langdon isn't at home," said the servant.

I had been at his house once before; I knew he occupied the left side--the
whole of the second floor, so shut off that it not only had a separate
entrance, but also could not be reached by those in the right side of
the house without descending to the entrance hall and ascending the left
stairway.

"Just take my card to his private secretary, to Mr. Rathburn," said I. "Mr.
Langdon has doubtless left a message for me."

The butler hesitated, yielded, showed me into the reception-room off the
entrance hall. I waited a few seconds, then adventured the stairway to
the left, up which he had disappeared. I entered the small salon in which
Langdon had received me on my other visit. From the direction of an open
door, I heard his voice--he was saying: "I am not at home. There's no
message."

And still I did not realize that it was I he was avoiding!

"It's no use now, Langdon," I called cheerfully. "Beg pardon for seeming to
intrude. I misunderstood--or didn't hear where the servant said I was to
wait. However, no harm done. So long! I'm off." But I made no move toward
the door by which I had entered; instead, I advanced a few feet nearer the
door from which his voice had come.

After a brief--a very brief--pause, there came in Langdon's
voice--laughing, not a trace of annoyance: "I might have known! Come in,
Matt!"

IX. LANGDON AT HOME

I entered, with an amused glance at the butler, who was giving over his
heavy countenance to a delightful exhibition of disgust and discomfiture.
It was Langdon's sitting-room. He had had the carved antique oak interior
of a room in an old French palace torn out and transported to New York
and set up for him. I had made a study of that sort of thing, and at Dawn
Hill had done something toward realizing my own ideas of the splendid.
But a glance showed me that I was far surpassed. What I had done seemed
in comparison like the composition of a school-boy beside an essay by
Goldsmith or Hazlitt.

And in the midst of this quiet splendor sat, or rather lounged, Langdon,
reading the newspapers. He was dressed in a dark blue velvet house-s