Morrison rose, but stood quietly by his chair, his face entirely expressionless, palpably and correctly "at attention." He had not seen Sylvia since the announcement of his engagement the day before. He gave her now a graceful, silent, friendly salute from a distance as she stood by her aunt, he called out to her companion a richly cordial greeting of "Well, Page. This is luck indeed!" but he indicated by his immobility that as a stranger he would not presume to go further until the first interchange between blood-kin was over. As for Arnold, he neither stirred from his chair, nor opened his mouth to speak. A slow smile widened on his lips: it expanded. He grinned delightedly down at his cigarette, and up at the ceiling, and finally broke into an open laugh of exquisite enjoyment of the scene before him. Four people were talking at once; Mr. Sommerville, a dismayed old hand still clutching at the new-comer, was protesting with extreme vigor, and being entirely drowned out by the others. "Of course he can't stay--as he _is!_ I'll go home with him at once! His room at my house is always ready for him!--fresh clothes!--No, no--impossible to stay!" Mrs. Marshall-Smith was holding firm with her loveliest manner of warm friendliness concentrated on Page. "Oh, no ceremony, Mr. Page, not between old friends. Luncheon is just ready--who cares how you look?" She did not physically dispute with Mr. Sommerville the possession of the new-comer, but she gave entirely that effect. Sylvia, unable to meet Morrison's eyes, absorbed in the difficulty of the moment for her, unillumined by the byplay between her aunt and old Mr. Sommerville, strove for an appearance of vivacious loquacity, and cast into the conversation entirely disregarded bits of description of the fire. "Oh, Tantine, such an excitement!--we took nine men with hoes up such a steep--!" And finally Page, resisting old Mr. Sommerville's pull on his arm, was saying: "If luncheon is ready, and I'm invited, no more needs to be said. I've been haying and fire-fighting since seven this morning. A wolf is nothing compared with me." He looked across the heads of the three nearest him and called to Arnold: "Smith, you'll lend me some flannels, won't you? We must be much of the same build." Mrs. Marshall-Smith turned, taking no pains to hide her satisfaction. She positively gloated over the crestfallen Mr. Sommerville. "Sylvia, run quick and have Hélène smooth your hair. And call to Tojiko to put on an extra place for luncheon. Arnold, take Mr. Page up to your room, won't you, so that he--" Sylvia, running up the stairs, heard her late companion protesting: "Oh, just for a change of clothes, only a minute--you needn't expect me to do any washing. I'm clean. I'm washed within an inch of my life--yellow soap--kitchen soap!" "And our little scented toilet futilities," Morrison's cameo of small-talk carried to the upper hall. "What could they add to such a Spartan lustration?"