The last pair of guests drove up to the house in a handsome carriage with two dummies on the outside seat, wearing tall hats with ornaments at the sides, and dark green overcoats with silver buttons. Joe watched them from the window. One dummy jumped down from his seat before the carriage quite stopped, as if he was worked by clockwork, and ran around behind the carriage to be ready to open the door. That’s what I call style, thought Joe. The entrance of this pair into the drawing-room changed the whole atmosphere of the party. It was clear to Joe from the silky quality that appeared in the attitude of everybody present, that these were not just ordinary rich people, but something exceptional. The professor was nowhere now. Seeing this, all Joe’s faculties sharpened. He recognized a great opportunity. His whole nature went out to the new arrivals. He became one great yearning; to get next! to get next! The other people in the room ceased to exist for him. The gentleman was a handsome, middle-aged man, somewhat soft in face and body. He wore a fine dress suit; and sported a neat, pointed beard. His expression was inclined to be sulky; his eyes gave nothing away. The lady was a tall, spare, faded blonde; wearing an expensive, ugly green silk dress, and a good deal of jewelry. She had a proud, sour look; and took all the smiles and bows of the people present as her right; whereas the gentleman was indifferent to them. Joe hung around them, hoping to be taken notice of. He had not been brought to the attention of any of the guests yet. The lady put up her glasses, and looked at him as if he had been something in the menagerie; the gentleman took no notice of him whatever. Joe soon gave the lady up. She was not in his line at all. He concentrated passionately on the gentleman. He surrendered himself, that, by entering into this other nature, he might command it. By degrees Joe became aware that the gentleman scorned spirits and spiritualists: that he had been brought there against his will: that rich though they might be, his wife had him tied fast to her strings: that behind his grand front lurked a timid soul. He was an intensely respectable party; his clothes; his expression; his whole bearing showed how conscious he was of being respectable: and yet! . . . and yet! . . . The sharpened Joe at certain moments perceived a pained roll to the man’s eyeballs, such as you see sometimes in a horse. He had a trick of wetting his lips with his tongue; and when he did so, Joe took note between mustache and beard of how fleshy and dark those lips were. Joe glanced at the sour-faced wife, and smiled inwardly. Hope dawned. With a man so respectable as that, you’d have to be damn careful what you _said_; but you could let him see things without saying them.