He had passed, on his drive from New York, many great stone gates, so high and so formidable that they gave only a niggard glimpse of blue stone road, perhaps the outline of proud roofs upheld above the trees, and he had expected the Corthwaite driveway to be at least as fine as the finest of these. But this was just a comfortable country road, distinguished from its kind only by a pair of lowly stone pillars and a squat frame cottage doing duty as a gatekeeper’s lodge. He drove through a small woodland, not pruned or landscaped at all, turned a corner, and found himself facing an expanse of lawn and a rambling frame house, painted a soft faded yellow and adorned with plain white shutters. The Corthwaite house laid claim to no other beauty than that which is inherent in old colonial houses and in ancient Greek vases, the unadorned beauty of line. Hal Levering was disappointed in it. A butler, not in livery, met him at the door. He was an old man and grumpy. “Mr. Levering?” he asked. Levering had an uncomfortable feeling that his clothes, his car, and his abilities were all being evaluated, but he dismissed the suspicion as absurd, for the old man’s eyes had not moved. He was at the moment holding open the door. “Miss Corthwaite left word that if she had not returned at the time of your arrival you were to make yourself at home and ask me for anything you might require--sir.” Levering entered. “The Car?” he asked, and one had, as always, a feeling that he was thinking of it with at least a capital “C.” “The Car will be all right there?” “The chauffeur will take it around if you will give me the keys--sir,” said the old man. “Oh!” There was an appreciative pause from Levering. This place was like one of those English places he had heard of--all service--no show. The old man led him upstairs, and down a long hall to a bedroom, which like the rest of the house gave the impression of luxury, although the chintz was faded and the old furniture austerely simple. The windows gave one a view of a garden, a box hedge, and, looming friendly in the rear, fruit trees not bowed as yet with the crop, but holding the green fruit as sturdily as a street lamp its light. That was no drawing room of a garden. The fruit trees were welcome to come in if they liked. “I don’t call that much,” Levering remarked to the air at large. He compared unfavourably the gay simple little flower beds before him to the marble swimming pool and formal terraces of his friend, Isaac Lowenstein, the moving-picture magnate. He carefully dusted his gray tweeds, straightened his tie an infinitesimal fraction, and from his bag searched out a bottle of brilliantine, and, anointing a comb, smoothed his hair.