They hadn’t come, though, nor had I received any word of any sort from The Oaks, when, at a little after eleven, Victoria delivered her guest at my door. On hearing the car drive up I’d sent out Donovan, my nurse, to help fetch the old gentleman inside, and I’m afraid I betrayed my surprise with an unmannerly stare when there came in at her heels a very tall old man, slender and straight as a lance, as he stood erect after the rather ceremonious bow he had made when he ushered Victoria into my doorway. Anything more unlike the image of senile decay which she had prepared me for, it would be hard to imagine. He was old, to be sure, very old, perhaps, for his lean clean-shaven face was deeply lined and his short white hair was, no doubt, thinner than it once had been. He looked a little like the picture of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Not Mr. Justice Holmes--his father. His dark eyes had a twinkle of ironic amusement in them, which may have been due merely to the astonishment I had momentarily exhibited at sight of him, or may have been due to something else. Victoria introduced us rather breathlessly and then, cutting across our politely reciprocal murmurs, said, “I really can’t stop a minute. If you knew what things were like at the house.... You’ll both excuse me, won’t you? And we’ll all see you at dinner; it’s at eight, you know.” With that she was gone, so hastily that she almost collided in the entry with the chauffeur who was bringing in Mr. Smith’s bags. “There’s a certain economy about Victoria’s method,” he remarked in a tone of dry amusement. He added instantly, with the friendliest concern, “Oh, don’t let me keep you on your crutches.” He waved me back to my couch, and to make it easier for me to obey the gracious gesture, he promptly seated himself in a near-by chair. “I’m afraid she’s rather foisted me upon you,” he went on, “under the pretext that she can’t make me comfortable in the other house. I don’t know what she thinks I want. I’m an old campaigner, and not an exigent person at all, so you’re not to allow me to weigh upon your conscience or your spirits. Presently your man shall show me where my room is, and then you’re to trust me to make myself comfortable.” He left me with something to think about after these suggestions had been carried out. Whatever reason Victoria might have had for not wanting Mr. Ethelbert Smith at The Oaks, it was not the reason she had given me. The man would have been a social asset at any house party. I felt sure that he would have enjoyed the jolly confusion generated by a crowd of high-spirited young people as well as anybody. And I believed Victoria knew it perfectly well. They seemed, at least, to be pretty well acquainted. His characterization of her high-handed ways as “economy of method” showed that. He’d seemed a little surprised at my asking him if he’d just returned from Paris.