Several people were walking up and down the gravel paths pausing before going in to dinner. In the golden haze only those things stood out that were more important for the scene, nature, as always, being more theatrical than any man-contrived theatre. The stage being set, the principal actor made his entrance. A window running to the gravel path caught the level rays of the setting sun. A man stepped before this, stopping to light a cigarette and then, being there, stayed like an oriental image staring out into the garden. Harkness looked casually, then looked again, then, fascinated, remained watching. He had never before seen such red hair nor so white a face, nor so large a stone as the green one that shone in a ring on the finger of his raised hand. He was lighting his cigarette--it was after this that he fell into rigid immobility, and the fire of the match caught the ring until, like a great eye, it seemed to open, wink at Harkness, and then regard him with a contemptuous stare. The man's hair was _en brosse_, standing straight on end as Loge's used to do in the old pre-war Bayreuth "Ring." It was, like Loge's, a flaming red, short, harsh, instantly arresting. Evening dress. One small black pearl in his shirt. Very small feet in shining shoes. There had stuck in Harkness's mind a phrase that he had encountered once in George Moore's description of Verlaine in _Memories and Opinions_--"I shall not forget the glare of the bald prominent forehead (_une tête glabre_). . . ." That was the phrase now, _une tête glabre_--the forehead glaring like a challenge, the red hair springing from it like something alive of its own independence. For the rest this interesting figure had a body round, short and fat like a ball. Over his protruding stomach stretched a white waistcoat with three little plain black buttons. The colour of his face had an unnatural pallor, something theatrical like the clown in _Pagliacci_, or again, like one of Benda's masks. Yes, this was the truer comparison, because through the mask the eyes were alive and beautiful, dark, tender, eloquent, but spoilt because above them the eyebrows were so faint as to be scarcely visible. The mouth in the white of the face was a thin hard red scratch. The eyes stared into the garden. The body soon became painted into the window behind it, the round short limbs, the shining shoes, the little black pearl in the gleaming shirt. Harkness, from the shadow where he stood, looked and looked again. Then, fearing that he might be perceived and his stare be held offensive, he moved forward. The man saw him and, to Harkness's surprise, stepped forward and spoke to him. "I beg your pardon," he said; "but do you happen to have a light? My cigarette did not catch properly and I have used my last match."