The coming of the car had been heard evidently, for the hall door stood wide open to receive the owner and his guest. Behind the decorous form of the stately white-haired butler, Duncan, appeared the gaily-apparelled Mrs. Barnard, and the slim exquisite figure of the smiling Gloria. Stormont sprang out of the car and grasped Leonard’s hand in a hearty grip. “Welcome, my dear boy, to Effington,” he said in his loud, ringing voice. CHAPTER FOUR There was a big dinner party in the evening, somewhat to Leonard’s disappointment. He had hoped they would have spent the first night by themselves, so that he would have an opportunity of appropriating more or less the charming Gloria. Instead of this, she would be lost to him amidst a crowd. Perhaps it was Howard Stormont’s way of impressing a new guest. Craig had always said the man was a vulgarian at heart, and that the vulgarity was always peeping through the thin veneer of a lately-acquired refinement. Lydon was far from prepared to go this length, but he did wish his host had avoided so much ostentation the first time he sat at his table. The house was run on very magnificent lines, and the rather overpowering sense of wealth depressed him a little. In spite of her frank and unaffected manners, it made Gloria seem very far away from him. Even if she reciprocated his feelings, how could he dare to think of taking her from such a splendid home as this to share his own very moderate fortunes? There were about a dozen people to dinner besides himself and the Stormonts. The white-haired Duncan was assisted by four footmen. The majority of the guests were neighbours, a few obviously with the stamp of the county on them. Two married couples were London friends and had come down to dine and stay the week-end like Lydon himself. The dinner was a very lengthy affair, exquisitely cooked and served with the utmost elegance. The wines and liqueurs were of unexceptionable quality. Lydon’s father, probably a man of greater wealth than Stormont, had lived in much the same profuse style. But Leonard had not seen a great deal of it; he had been away from home so much. His own tastes were very simple, and he had no hankerings after luxury. To judge by Howard Stormont’s beaming countenance, as he sat at his end of the table, with a rather severe-looking “county” lady on his right, he seemed to revel in it. Lydon did not think for a moment that the man had been born to it; from many little signs he could deduce the contrary. But possibly he was one of those ambitious souls to whom magnificent surroundings seem a quite commonplace part of their environment. What to Lydon seemed ostentation only appeared to the other ordinary comfort.