Christabel Morrison found him a pleasant but not very entertaining or exciting neighbor at the dinner-table, and was relieved when the time came for her to turn an ear to the artistic compliments of Radlett Barns. But Trafford was too interested and amused by the general effect of the dinner to devote himself to the rather heavy business of really exhilarating Christabel. He didn't give his mind to her. He found the transformation of Sir Rupert into a turbanned Oriental who might have come out of a picture by Carpaccio, gently stimulating and altogether delightful. His attention returned again and again to that genial swarthiness. Mrs. Lee on his left lived in her eyes, and didn't so much talk to him as rattle her mind at him almost absent-mindedly, as one might dangle keys at a baby while one talked to its mother. Yet it was evident she liked the look of him. Her glance went from his face to his robe, and up and down the table, at the bright dresses, the shining arms, the glass and light and silver. She asked him to tell her just where he had tramped and just what he had seen, and he had scarcely begun answering her question before her thoughts flew off to three trophies of china and silver, struggling groups of china boys bearing up great silver shells of fruit and flowers that stood down the centre of the table. "What do you think of my chubby boys?" she asked. "They're German work. They came from a show at Düsseldorf last week. Ben saw I liked them, and sent back for them secretly, and here they, are! I thought they might be too colourless. But are they?" "No," said Trafford, "they're just cool. Under that glow of fruit. Is this salt-cellar English cut glass?" "Old Dutch," said Mrs. Lee. "Isn't it jolly?" She embarked with a roving eye upon the story of her Dutch glass, which was abundant and admirable, and broke off abruptly to say, "Your wife is wonderful." "Her hair goes back," she said, "like music. You know what I mean--a sort of easy rhythm. You don't mind my praising your wife?" Trafford said he didn't. "And there's a sort of dignity about her. All my life, Mr. Trafford, I've wanted to be tall. It stopped my growth." She glanced off at a tangent. "Tell me, Mr. Trafford," she asked, "was your wife beautiful like this when you married her? I mean--of course she was a beautiful girl and adorable and all that; but wasn't she just a slender thing?"