They had gone through the open double doors into the dining-hall. At the further end a table was laid for one. "When did you arrive?" asked John. "By the seven-ten. I walked up and found you were missing. It is distressing to see a man eat when one is not hungry one's self," continued Archie plaintively as the servant brought in the "hot things" which he had been recently devastating. "No, thanks, I won't sit opposite you and watch you satisfying your country appetite. You don't mind my smoking in here, I suppose? No womankind to grumble as yet." He lit his pipe, and began wandering slowly about the room, which was lit with candles in silver sconces at intervals along the panelled walls. John wondered how much money he wanted, and ate his cutlets in silence. He had as few illusions about his fellow-creatures as the steward of a Channel steamer, and it did not occur to him that Archie could have any reason but one for coming to Overleigh out of the shooting season. Archie was evidently pensive. "It is a large sum," said John to himself. Presently he stopped short before the fireplace, and contemplated the little silver figures standing in the niches of the highcarved mantelshelf. They had always stood there in John's childhood, and when he had come back from Russia in the spring he had looked for them in the plate-room, and had put them back himself: the quaint-frilled courtier beside the quaint-ruffed lady, and the little Cavalier in long boots beside the Abbess. The dresses were of Charles I.'s date, and there was a family legend to the effect that that victim of a progressive age had given them to his devoted adherent Amyas Tempest the night before his execution. It was extremely improbable that he had done anything of the kind, but, at any rate, there they were, each in his little niche. Archie lifted one down and examined it curiously. "Never saw that before," he said, keeping his teeth on the pipe, which desecrated his profile. "Everything was put away when I was not regularly living here," said John. "I dug out all the old things when I came home in the spring, and Mitty and I put them all back in their places."