and the hard professional
observation, so remarkably like the ferrule of an umbrella being poked
with a noiseless persistence into one's eye, of Miss Sharsper. And as he
thought these afterthoughts Lady Beach-Mandarin's chauffeur darted and
dodged and threaded his way with an alacrity that was almost distressing
to Putney.

They ran over the ghost of Swinburne, at the foot of Putney Hill,--or
perhaps it was only the rhythm of the engine changed for a moment, and
in a couple of minutes more they were outside the Harman residence.
"Here we are!" said Lady Beach-Mandarin, more capaciously gaminesque
than ever. "We've done it now."

Mr. Brumley had an impression of a big house in the distended
stately-homes-of-England style and very necessarily and abundantly
covered by creepers and then he was assisting the ladies to descend and
the three of them were waiting clustered in the ample Victorian doorway.
For some little interval there came no answer to the bell Mr. Brumley
had rung, but all three of them had a sense of hurried, furtive and
noiseless readjustments in progress behind the big and bossy oak door.
Then it opened and a very large egg-shaped butler with sandy whiskers
appeared and looked down himself at them. There was something paternal
about this man, his professional deference was touched by the sense of
ultimate responsibility. He seemed to consider for a moment whether he
should permit Lady Harman to be in, before he conceded that she was.

They were ushered through a hall that resembled most of the halls in the
world, it was dominated by a handsome oak staircase and scarcely gave
Miss Sharsper a point, and then across a creation of the Victorian
architect, a massive kind of conservatory with classical touches--there
was an impluvium in the centre and there were arches hung with
manifestly costly Syrian rugs, into a large apartment looking through
four French windows upon a verandah and a large floriferous garden. At a
sideways glance it seemed a very pleasant garden indeed. The room itself
was like the rooms of so many prosperous people nowadays; it had an
effect of being sedulously and yet irrelevantly over-furnished. It had
none of the large vulgarity that Mr. Brumley would have considered
proper to a wealthy caterer, but it confessed a compilation of "pieces"
very carefully authenticated. Some of them were rather splendid
"pieces"; three big bureaus burly and brassy dominated it; there was a
Queen Anne c