e spotless floors and walls, the abnormally noiseless maid
in her flamboyant cap and apron--that arrested attention and fixed it.
The soundless brightness of the house was as conspicuous as the contrast
between the maid's black gown and her snow-white cuffs. There was
nothing subdued about anything, although the long, silvery blue curtains
were drawn over the lace window hangings; no shadows anywhere, no
half-lights. The very stillness was gay with suspense, like a pretty
woman's suppressed laughter glimmering in her eyes.

And into this tinted light, framed in palest blue and white, waddled
Mortimer, appropriate as a June-bug scrambling in a Sevres teacup.

"Anybody here?" he growled, leering into the drawing-room at a tiny
grand piano cased in unvarnished Circassian walnut.

"There is nobody at home, sir," said the maid.

"Music lesson over?"

"Yes, sir, at three."

He began to ascend the stairway, breathing heavily, thud, thud over the
deep velvet strip, his fat hand grasping the banister rail.

Somewhere on the second floor a small dog barked, and Mortimer traversed
the ball and opened the door into a room hung with gold Spanish leather
and pale green curtains.

"Hello, Tinto!" he said affably as a tiny Japanese spaniel hurled
herself at him, barking furiously, then began writhing and weaving
herself about him, gurgling recognition and welcome.

He sat down heavily in a padded easy-chair. The spaniel sprang into his
lap, wheezing, sniffling, goggling its protruding eyes. Mortimer liked
the dog, but he didn't like what the owner of the dog said about the
resemblance between his own and Tinto's eyes.

"Get down!" he said; "you're shedding black and white hairs all over
me." But the dog didn't want to get down, and Mortimer's good nature
permitted her to curl up on his fat knees and sleep that nervous,
twitching sleep peculiar to overpampered toy canines.

The southern sun was warm in the room; the windows open, but not a
silken hanging stirred.

Presently another maid entered, with an apple cut into thin wafers and a
decanter of port; and Mortimer lay back in his chair, sopping his apple
in the thick, crimson wine, and feeding morsels of the combination to
himself and to Tinto at intervals until the apple was all gone and the
decanter three-fourths empty.

It was very still in the room--so still, that Mortimer, opening his eyes
at longer and longer intervals to peer at the door, finally opened them
no