e and
walls; last night's orchids seemed to lean from their vases toward this
delightful and tropical warmth, and there, with a chair drawn up as near
the hearth as comfort permitted, was Horace Penfield, long, lean,
cold-blooded, enjoying the permeating glow and radiance.

He turned his head lazily when Hayden opened the door, and Robert in his
indignation felt a faint chill of apprehension as he met that glance.
Penfield's eyes had lost their usual saurian impassiveness. They were
almost alive, with that expression of interest which only the lapses and
moral divagations of others could arouse in them.

"Hello!" he said, indifferent to the fact that Hayden still stood
frowning in the doorway. "I've been waiting about half an hour for you."

"Anything especial?" asked Robert coldly, walking over and standing by
the mantelpiece, his moody gaze on the burning logs.

Penfield chuckled. "Oh, I don't know." There was an unconcealed triumph
in his tones; but he had no intention of being hasty, he meant to extract
the last drop of epicurean pleasure that was possible in this situation.
Penfield was not lacking in dramatic sense, and he had no intention of
losing any fine points in the narration of his news by careless and
slovenly methods of relation.

"No," he continued, "nothing particular; but I've lately run across one
or two things which I fancied might be of interest to you. By the way,"
with the effect of branching off with a side issue, "of course you know
that Ames' engagement to the Mariposa is announced?"

"I know nothing of Ames' private affairs," returned Hayden shortly. "How
should I?"

"You might have judged that from the way he behaved last night." Penfield
again indulged in a series of unpleasant chuckles. "His mother! Lord!
There'll be the deuce to pay there! Look at the way she's been behaving
over his attentions to Marcia Oldham, and then just fancy how she'll take
this! She evidently gave that luncheon the other day to propitiate
Marcia, and invited the Mariposa to show the world that Wilfred's
so-called infatuation was merely an amiable and tepid interest. I
wouldn't miss seeing the fun for a farm--no, not for all those lost mines
of yours. I think that I shall drop in for a cup of tea with the old lady
this afternoon, and murmur a few condolences in her ear, and then watch
her fly to bits." He rolled about in his chair in paroxysms of silent
mirth. "But," sobering, "it's too bad to think of missin