o pink your
man--that decorated its white-paneled walls.

Ormiston stood with his back to the fire, one heel on the fender, his
broad shoulders resting against the high chimneypiece, his head bent
forward as he looked down, in steady yet kindly scrutiny, at the boy.
His face was tanned by the sun and wind of the long sea voyage--people
still came home from India by the Cape--till his hair and moustache
showed pale against his bronzed skin. And to Richard, listening and
watching from the deep armchair drawn up at right angles to the hearth,
he appeared as a veritable demigod, master of the secrets of life and
death--beheld, moreover, through an atmosphere of fragrant tobacco
smoke, curiously intoxicating to unaccustomed nostrils. Dickie had
tucked himself into as small a space as possible, to make room for
young Camp, who lay outstretched beside him. The bull-dog's great
underhung jaw and pendulous, wrinkled cheeks rested on the arm of the
chair, as he stared and blinked rather sullenly at the fire--moved and
choked a little, slipping off unwillingly to sleep, to wake with a
start, to stare and blink once more. The embroidered _couvre-pieds_,
which Dickie had spread across him, gathering the top edge of it up
under the front of his Eton jacket, offered luxurious bedding. But Camp
was a typical conservative, slow-witted, stubborn against the ingress
of a new idea. This tall, somewhat masterful stranger must prove
himself a good man and true--according to bull-dog understanding of
those terms--before he could hope to gain entrance to that faithful,
though narrow heart.

Ormiston meanwhile, finely contemptuous of canine criticism, greeted
his sister cheerily.

"You're bound to give us a little law to-night, Kitty," he said,
holding out his hand to her. "We won't break rules and indulge in
unbridled license as to late hours again, will we, Dick? But, you see,
we've both been doing a good deal, one way and another, since we last
met, and there were arrears of conversation to make up."--He smiled
very charmingly at Lady Calmady, and his fingers closed firmly on her
hand.--"We've been getting on famously, notwithstanding our long
separation." He looked down at Richard again. "Fast friends, already,
and mean to remain so, don't we, old chap?"

Thereupon Lady Calmady's soul received much comfort. Her pride was
always on the alert, fiercely sensitive concerning Richard. And the joy
of this meeting had, till now, an edge of je