knew to be excellent,
supposed at first that the stranger was an epicure in vintages.
He was therefore surprised to find that the next bottle was a vile sham
claret from the colonies, which even colonials (to do them justice)
do not drink. It was only then that he observed that all six
bottles had those bright metallic seals of various tints,
and seemed to have been chosen solely because they have the three
primary and three secondary colours: red, blue, and yellow;
green, violet and orange. There grew upon Inglewood an almost
creepy sense of the real childishness of this creature.
For Smith was really, so far as human psychology can be, innocent.
He had the sensualities of innocence: he loved the stickiness of gum,
and he cut white wood greedily as if he were cutting a cake.
To this man wine was not a doubtful thing to be defended or denounced;
it was a quaintly coloured syrup, such as a child sees in a shop window.
He talked dominantly and rushed the social situation;
but he was not asserting himself, like a superman in a modern play.
He was simply forgetting himself, like a little boy at a party.
He had somehow made the giant stride from babyhood to manhood,
and missed that crisis in youth when most of us grow old.

As he shunted his big bag, Arthur observed the initials
I. S. printed on one side of it, and remembered that Smith had
been called Innocent Smith at school, though whether as a formal
Christian name or a moral description he could not remember.
He was just about to venture another question, when there was a knock
at the door, and the short figure of Mr. Gould offered itself,
with the melancholy Moon, standing like his tall crooked shadow,
behind him. They had drifted up the stairs after the other two
men with the wandering gregariousness of the male.

"Hope there's no intrusion," said the beaming Moses with a glow
of good nature, but not the airiest tinge of apology.

"The truth is," said Michael Moon with comparative courtesy,
"we thought we might see if they had made you comfortable.
Miss Duke is rather--"

"I know," cried the stranger, looking up radiantly from his bag;
"magnificent, isn't she? Go close to her--hear military music going by,
like Joan of Arc."

Inglewood stared and stared at the speaker like one who has
just heard a wild fairy tale, which nevertheless contains
one small and forgotten fact. For he remembered how he had
himself thought of Jeanne d'Arc years ago, when, hard