was a cousin of Stewart's, between whom and himself there
existed a mutual antipathy, expressing itself in terms of avoidance. His
own acquaintance with Davison was recent and in the way of business. He
had had the fancy to build for the accommodation of his Hellenic
treasures a room in imitation of the court of a Graeco-Roman house which
he had helped to excavate in Asia Minor. He had commissioned Davison to
buy him hangings for it to harmonize with an old Persian carpet in cream
color and blue of which he was already possessed. Davison had brought
these with him and a little collection of other things which he thought
Meres might care to look at. He did not know the Stewarts had moved to
London, and it was an unpleasant surprise to find himself seated at the
same table with Mildred; he had not forgotten, still less forgiven, the
lure of her coquetry, the insult of her rebuff.

Lady Thomson was next him and questioned him exhaustively about his book
on Persian Literature and the travels of his lifetime. Miss Ormond took
advantage of Mrs. Stewart's sudden silence to talk to the table rather
cleverly around the central theme of herself. Goring conversed apart
with Mrs. Stewart.

Coffee was served in the shrine which Sir Cyril had reared for his Greek
collection, of which the gem was a famous head of Aphrodite--an early
Aphrodite, divine, removed from all possible pains and agitations of
human passion. The room was an absurdity on Campden Hill, said some,
but undeniably beautiful in itself. The columns, of singular lightness
and grace, were of a fine marble which hovered between creamy white and
faint yellow, and the walls and floor were of the same tone, except for
a frieze on a Greek model, very faintly colored, and the old Persian
carpet. In fine summer weather the large skylight covering the central
space was withdrawn, and such sky as London can show looked down upon
it. The new hangings which Maxwell Davison had brought with him were
already displayed on a tall screen, and his miscellaneous collection of
antiquities, partly sent from Durham College, partly lately acquired,
were arranged on a marble bench.

"I shouldn't have brought these things, Sir Cyril," he said; "if I'd
known Mrs. Stewart was here. She's got a way of hinting that my most
cherished antiquities are forgeries; and the worst of it is, she makes
every one believe her, including myself."

Mildred protested.

"I don't pretend to know anything abou