yment of the room's ensemble was too nearly satisfying to require
examination of it by detail. It was a room of discreet and mellowed
luxury, with an air of jaunty ripeness that distinguished its composer.
The chairs solicited, the walls soothed, the broken light illumined
perfectly without dazzling. He was thrilling agreeably to his host's
evident interest in him when the latter returned, beaming with a smile
of rare good-fellowship.

They were presently at table in a dining room whose plain old mahogany
and thin silver produced, like the library, an impression of finished
luxury without flaunt. The dinner itself possessed an atmosphere of
sophistication, a temperament, even. It sated the exigent appetite of
Ewing--his luncheon with Sydenham had been a mere adventure in
meagerness--and sated without cloying, but it was more than food to him.
As he ate, and drank of a burgundy whose merit he was ill qualified to
appraise, he was conscious of a real fascination growing within him for
the man who favored him with so distinguished a notice; who talked,
seemingly, with the same nice care to please him that he would have
exercised for a tableful of more difficult guests.

Nor did Teevan lack the parts of a listener. Ewing found himself talking
much and enjoyably. With so tactful a listener, so good a friend, it was
no longer necessary to remember that he was new in this land and
unknowing of its smaller ways. It occurred to him, indeed, as he
reviewed this memorable evening, that he had talked more than his host.
But he was spared the youthful blush at this by remembering that he had
been questioned persistently--"toled," as Ben would have said, with
baits of inquiry. Incredible as it seemed, Teevan wished him to talk and
had neatly made him do so. He felt that the little man must know him
through and through. He had been, of course, a book in large print and
short words, but he was flattered to believe that Teevan had found him
worth opening.

And now he was certain he had discovered the longed-for friend; one soul
had come from the oblivious throng to touch his own, to call him out and
speak him fair. He was companioned by one as likable as he was learned,
by one who meant, it was intimated, to seek every opportunity to
befriend him.

And the need of such a friend became more and more apparent to Ewing as
they sat in the library after dinner over coffee and liqueurs. It was
brought upon him that he had never known his