She paused dramatically before she threw open the door of the sun parlour. She was after all such a fluffy, good-hearted child that her pride in her possessions was no more offensive than the pride of a child in new toys, and Ruth couldn’t blame her for being proud of the room they entered. They all stood at the open door looking at it a moment before entering—a long, narrow room, evidently running the full length of the house from north to south, with two sides of glass, window after window with drawn-back draperies of amber silk, and between each window a bird cage, hung above a tall blue vase filled with cut flowers. At one end of the room the breakfast table was spread and at the other, where there were no windows, was a fireplace, round which the men were standing—Terry, Prince Aglipogue and John Peyton-Russell. There was a lady seated there, too, and in another big, wing chair Ruth thought she could discern the top of Professor Pendragon’s head. They had satisfied Angela with their admiration, and as they came in the three standing men advanced to meet them, and the woman turned her head. Ruth looked at her, and her brain working by a sort of double process, she had time to compare her with the maid’s description, even while her heart was standing still because of the imminent meeting of Gloria and Professor Pendragon. Miss Gilchrist did have short hair, not a fluffy mass like Dorothy Winslow’s, but lank, dank, soiled-brown locks that framed a lank, soiled-brown countenance. Her gown also seemed to be of a dusty black, and Ruth could easily imagine that if her manners were no more attractive than her appearance, she would be quite as disagreeable as the maid described her. A closer view showed an out-thrust foot in a long, flat, soiled-brown shoe, and Ruth remembered what Dorothy had once told her: “Never trust a woman who wears common sense shoes—there is something radically wrong with her.” She was being introduced to Mr. Peyton-Russell now. She had never met him before. He was a large man who looked as if he took his material wealth very seriously indeed and thought he owed some reparation to the public from which he had extracted it, but he had a heavy cordiality that was rather charming because it was so obviously sincere. “And now you must meet the others,” chirped Angela. Ruth realized for the first time that Angela was like a yellow canary. The birds, singing gaily in the sunshine, made the comparison almost compulsory. “You’ll have to come to them, and anyway, I always have cocktails in front of the fireplace. After that lone, cold ride, you must need one, though it is only ten o’clock in the morning.”