s perplexity and trouble, too, in the Ian complex, but
for all that he rode with the color and sparkle of happiness in his
face. In his gray eyes light played to great depths.

Black Hill appeared before him, the dark pine and crag of the hill
itself, and below that the house with its far-stretching, well-planted
policy. He passed the gates, rode under the green elm boughs of the
avenue, and was presently before the porch of the house. A man
presented himself to take Black Alan.

"Aye, sir, there's company. Mr. Touris and Mrs. Alison are with them
in the gardens."

Glenfernie went there, passing by a terrace walk around the house.
Going under the windows of the room that was yet Ian's when he came
home. Ian still in his mind, he recovered strongly the look of that
room the day Ian had taken him there, in boyhood, when they first met.
Out of that vividness started a nucleus more vivid yet--the picture in
the book-closet of the city of refuge, and the silver goblet drawn
from the hidden shelf of the aumry. The recaptured moment lost shape
and color, returned to the infinite past. He turned the corner of the
house and came into the gardens that Mr. Touris had had laid out after
the French style.

Here by the fountain he discovered the retired merchant, and with him
a guest, an old trade connection, now a power in the East India
Company. The laird of Black Hill, a little more withered, a little
more stooped than of old, but still fluent, caustic, and with now and
then to the surface a vague, cold froth of insincerity, made up much
to this magnate of commerce. He stood on his own heath, or by his own
fountain, but his neck had in it a deferential crook. Lacs--rupees--
factories--rajahs--ships--cottons--the words fell like the tinkle of a
golden fountain. Listening to these two stood, with his hands behind
his back, Mr. Wotherspoon, Black Hill's lawyer and man of business
down from Edinburgh. At a little distance Mrs. Alison showed her roses
to the wife of the East India man and to a kinsman, Mr. Munro Touris,
from Inverness way.

Mr. Touris addressed himself with his careful smile to Alexander.
"Good day, Glenfernie! This, Mr. Goodworth, is a good neighbor of
mine, Mr. Jardine of Glenfernie. Alexander, Mr. Goodworth is art and
part of the East India. You have met Mr. Wotherspoon before, I think?
There are Alison and Mrs. Goodworth and Munro Touris by the roses."

Glenfernie went over to the roses. Mrs. Alison, smiling