his sardonic grin to point the satire of his words. The
way he had uttered "sacred to reflection and research," was positively
savage.

Rodney said curtly, "Eleanor sent me up herself. I didn't much want to
come, to tell the truth, when I heard you were busy."

"Eleanor!" her husband repeated. "I thought she'd gone out--with her
poodle."

Rodney said, with unconcealed distaste, "They were on the point of going
out when I came in. That's how Eleanor happened to see me."

With a visible effort, Randolph recovered a more normal manner. "I'm
glad it happened that way," he said. "Get yourself a drink. You'll find
anything you want over there, I guess, and something to smoke; then
we'll sit down and have an old-fashioned talk."

The source of drinks he indicated was a well-stocked cellarette at the
other side of the room. But Rodney's eye fell first on a decanter and
siphon on the table, within reach of the chair Randolph had been sitting
in. His host's glance followed his.

"This is Bourbon I've got over here," he added. "I suppose you prefer
Scotch."

"I don't believe I want anything more to drink just now," Rodney said.
And as he turned to the smoking table to get a cigar, Randolph allowed
himself another sardonic grin.

The preliminaries were gone through rather elaborately; chairs drawn up
and adjusted, ash-trays put within reach; cigars got going
satisfactorily. But the talk they were supposed to prepare the way for
didn't at once begin.

Randolph took another stiffish drink and settled back into a dull
sullen abstraction.

Rodney wanted to say, "I hear from Rose you had a little visit with her
in New York." But, with his host's mood what it was, he shrank from
introducing that topic. Finally, for the sake of saying something, he
remarked:

"This is a wonderful room, isn't it?"

Randolph roused himself. "Never been in here before?" he asked.

"I've never been in the house before, I'm ashamed to say."

"What!" Randolph cried. "My God! Well, then, come along."

Rodney resisted a little. He was comfortable. They could look over the
house later. But Randolph wouldn't listen.

"That's the first thing to do," he insisted. "Indispensable preliminary.
You can't enjoy the opera without a libretto. Come along."

It was a remarkable house. Before the first fifteen minutes of their
inspection were over, Rodney had come to the conclusion that though
Bertie Willis might be an ass, was indeed an indisputable ass,