The great live oaks were casting long shadows on the large, smooth lawn when Constance drove up to the doors of Malvern Court. It was a spacious brick house with wings, and at the back a four-roomed structure common to Virginia houses, and known as “the office,” where the bachelors were lodged. The house-guests were having tea under the trees, where the shadows were long, when Thorndyke and Constance joined them. Scipio Africanus served the tea, which was iced, and was like water in the desert to travellers. It was handed with much ceremony by Scipio, who had doffed his smart livery, and appeared in a snow-white linen jacket. He was assisted by one of the coloured maids, who now wore the smartest of smart caps and the neatest of neat print gowns instead of the short skirt, pink shirtwaist, and picture-hat which had electrified Thorndyke at the Washington station a few weeks before. Constance Maitland knew precisely when to relax and when to tighten discipline among her staff of negro servants. Like all people in a country house, the guests were glad to see some one from the outside world. It was a pleasant and amiable party, and Thorndyke enjoyed himself in spite of Cathcart’s presence; but Cathcart, being a remarkably pleasant and personable man, everybody except Thorndyke relished his company. While they were lingering over tea, a ramshackly buggy of the prehistoric age of buggies, with an unkempt horse, was seen driving up the winding, shady road which led to the lawn. In the buggy sat no less a person than Senator Mince Pie Mulligan. He had seen himself ignominiously left in the lurch by Thorndyke, but with the same spirit of enterprise which had made him the greatest pie-manufacturer on earth he had investigated his resources, and promptly pursued his object with the best means at hand--a sure mark of superiority. When he alighted from his ancient buggy, Constance advanced to meet him, and greeted him with a cordiality which inspired Mr. Mulligan with admiration and hope. He did not know that Southerners in their own habitat meet every guest, however undesirable, with the same overflowing cordiality, which is reckoned as merely good manners. Senator Mulligan, however, thought this custom of generations a special tribute to himself, and gloated over that cool, supercilious Thorndyke, who had smiled in a superior manner at the Senator’s predicament at Roseboro’ station. So he replied genially to Constance’s greeting: “As you were good enough to ask me to call, and as I don’t know how long I’ll be in these parts, I said to myself, ‘Faith, I’ll pay Miss Maitland a visit this very afternoon.’ And here I am with this ould cruelty cart, when I’ve got a stable full of horses at home, and a Panhard red devil that cost me six thousand dollars to buy and a thousand a year to keep--but, like the butterfly, I get there just the same.”