The rooms in which he lived were on the second floor of an old house which had been turned into an apartment building. There was an old-fashioned alcove in his living-room, and the circular walls were lined with books except where a long window cut into the structure of shelves. The rest of the living-room was furnished with a taste and skill which hit just the right note of spaciousness without seeming bare--a few easy-chairs, a dark red Turkish rug and a black oak table. It was on this table that he ate his meals, prepared for him by the Swedish woman who cooked and cleaned for him. There was a bedroom which was furnished almost with ascetic plainness, and that was all except for the kitchen and the room occupied by the cook. It was not an elaborate establishment for as wealthy a man as Matthew Allenby, but he had lived there in complete satisfaction for five years. A week after the encounter at the Palladium he called on the Harrisons and found them at home. They were pleasant enough in their welcome and before half an hour he had justified himself for breaking in on one of their deliberately domestic evenings. He knew how to be entertaining, how to talk business with Dick in such a way that Cecily was not excluded from the conversation, how to make the conversation broaden itself into interesting fields outside of the specific ones in which the talk might begin. Dick enjoyed himself hugely. He had always liked Matthew Allenby and had various plans for business deals with him. Matthew was some years older and had drifted into the companionship of older men than Dick. They talked war for the most part, as people did in 1915--with abstract enthusiasm, impersonal analysis. Then Cecily played for them. She played well, without brilliance, but with an accuracy and feeling for melody that the convent was directly responsible for. It was less her playing than the fact of her playing, the picture she made at the piano, singing and playing softly in the light of the tall candles which framed her, that was charming. The men watched her silently from across the room. “I don’t want in the least to go home,” said Matthew, as Cecily turned to them finally. “I could sit here for days and days sipping this very remarkable liqueur that your husband is offering up and watching a very perfect picture of what homes may be--and rarely are outside of the Victrola advertisements.” “Haven’t you a home, Mr. Allenby?”