le, or
some of the West Indies. One hears such marvelous tales about them."

"Speaking of flowers," Thorpe suddenly decided to mention the fact; "I
met out in one of the greenhouses here this morning, an old acquaintance
of mine, the gardener, Gafferson. The last time I saw him, he was
running the worst hotel in the world in the worst country in the
world--out in British Honduras."

"But he's a wonderful gardener," said Lady Cressage. "He's a magician;
he can do what he likes with plants. It's rather a hobby of mine--or
used to be--and I never saw his equal."

Thorpe told them about Gafferson, in that forlorn environment on the
Belize road, and his success in making them laugh drew him on to other
pictures of the droll side of life among the misfits of adventure. The
ladies visibly dallied over their tea-cups to listen to him; the
charm of having them all to himself, and of holding them in interested
entertainment by his discourse--these ladies of supremely refined
associations and position--seemed to provide an inspiration of its own.
He could hear that his voice was automatically modulating itself to
their critical ears. His language was producing itself with as much
delicacy of selection as if it came out of a book--and yet preserving
the savour of quaint, outlandish idiom which his listeners clearly
liked. Upon the instant when Lady Plowden's gathering of skirts, and
glance across the table, warned him that they were to rise, he said
deliberately to himself that this had been the most enjoyable episode of
his whole life.

There were cigar boxes on the fine old oak mantel, out in the hall, and
Winnie indicated them to him with the obvious suggestion that he was
expected to smoke. He looked her over as he lit his cigar--where she
stood spreading her hands above the blaze of the logs, and concluded
that she was much nicer upon acquaintance than he had thought. Her
slight figure might not be beautiful, but beyond doubt its lines were
ladylike. The same extenuating word applied itself in his mind to her
thin and swarthy, though distinguished, features. They bore the stamp
of caste, and so did the way she looked at one through her eye-glasses,
from under those over-heavy black eyebrows, holding her head a little
to one side. Though it was easy enough to guess that she had a spirit of
her own, her gentle, almost anxious, deference to her mother had shown
that she had it under admirable control.

He had read about her