Satisfied by his answer, she ushered him into a room where a gas fire burned feebly with an apologetic air, as though painfully conscious of its meretricious logs. Half a dozen people, muffled in coats and furs, were scattered about a long dining table, occupied in reading listlessly the papers, to avoid the temptation of staring at each other. The place smelt of biscuits, of fog and of gas, like an unaired buffet in a railway station. McTaggart, weighed down by a sense of impending doom, picked up a "Punch" and retired to the window, ostensibly to amuse himself, in reality to rehearse for the hundredth time his slender stock of "symptoms." The clock ticked on, and a bleak silence reigned, broken at intervals by the sniff of a small boy, who, accompanied by a parent and a heavy cold in the head, was feasting his soul on a volume of the "Graphic." Something familiar in the cartoon under his eyes drew McTaggart away from his own dreary thoughts. "I mustn't forget to tell him..." he was saying to himself, when he realized that the paper he held was dated five months back! He felt immediately quite unreasonably annoyed. A sudden desire to rise up and go invaded his mind. In his nervous state the excuse seemed amply sufficient. A "Punch" five months old! ... it was a covert insult. A doctor who could trade on his patient's credulity--pocketing his three guineas, don't forget that!--and offer them literature but fit to light the fire... A "Punch" Five Months Old! ... he gathered up his gloves. But a noiseless step crossed the room, a voice whispered his name. "Mr. McTaggart? This way, please." He found himself following the bony parlour maid, past the aggressive eyes of the still-waiting crowd, out into the hall and down a glass-roofed passage. "Now I'm in for it..." he said silently... "Oh! ... _damn_!" He put on his most truculent air. The maid tapped at a door. "Come in," said a sharp voice. McTaggart entered and stood still for a moment, blinking on the threshold, irresolute. For the scene was unexpected. Despite the heavy fog that filtered through the windows with its insidious breath, a hint of Spring was there in the fresh white walls, the rose-covered chintzes and the presence of flowers. The place seemed filled with them. An early bough of blossom, the exquisite tender pink of the almond in bloom, stood against a mirror that screened a recess; and the air was alive with the scent of daffodils, with subtle yellow faces, like curious Chinamen, peering over the edge of a blue Nankin bowl. In the centre of the room a man in a velvet coat was bending over a mass of fresh violets, adding water carefully to the surrounding moss out of a copper jug that he held in his hands.