its principal bulk dark, but one wing sending out a ray of welcome; and
the next moment Faxon was receiving a violent impression of warmth and
light, of hot-house plants, hurrying servants, a vast spectacular oak
hall like a stage-setting, and, in its unreal middle distance, a small
figure, correctly dressed, conventionally featured, and utterly unlike
his rather florid conception of the great John Lavington.

The surprise of the contrast remained with him through his hurried
dressing in the large luxurious bedroom to which he had been shown.
"I don't see where he comes in," was the only way he could put it, so
difficult was it to fit the exuberance of Lavington's public personality
into his host's contracted frame and manner. Mr. Laving ton, to whom
Faxon's case had been rapidly explained by young Rainer, had welcomed
him with a sort of dry and stilted cordiality that exactly matched
his narrow face, his stiff hand, and the whiff of scent on his evening
handkerchief. "Make yourself at home--at home!" he had repeated, in a
tone that suggested, on his own part, a complete inability to perform
the feat he urged on his visitor. "Any friend of Frank's... delighted...
make yourself thoroughly at home!"

II

In spite of the balmy temperature and complicated conveniences of
Faxon's bedroom, the injunction was not easy to obey. It was wonderful
luck to have found a night's shelter under the opulent roof of Overdale,
and he tasted the physical satisfaction to the full. But the place,
for all its ingenuities of comfort, was oddly cold and unwelcoming.
He couldn't have said why, and could only suppose that Mr. Lavington's
intense personality--intensely negative, but intense all the same--must,
in some occult way, have penetrated every corner of his dwelling.
Perhaps, though, it was merely that Faxon himself was tired and hungry,
more deeply chilled than he had known till he came in from the cold,
and unutterably sick of all strange houses, and of the prospect of
perpetually treading other people's stairs.

"I hope you're not famished?" Rainer's slim figure was in the doorway.
"My uncle has a little business to attend to with Mr. Grisben, and we
don't dine for half an hour. Shall I fetch you, or can you find your way
down? Come straight to the dining-room--the second door on the left of
the long gallery."

He disappeared, leaving a ray of warmth behind him, and Faxon, relieved,
lit a cigarette and sat down by the fire.