"Nothing. Halloo! I hear wheels. That must be my uncle. Turn the hot water off, there's a good chap. I must just see him before I come upstairs."

[Pg 13]

[Pg 13]

 CHAPTER II

THE COMING OF THE LUCK

The dining room at Vail was of the same antique spaciousness as the hall, and, as there on the lounger, so here on the diner, looked down a spacious company of ancestors. For so small a party it had been thought by the butler that conviviality would be given a better chance if, on this frosty night, he laid them a small table within range of the fire rather than that the three should be cut off, as it were, on a polar island in the centre of that vast sea of floor. And, indeed, though naturally a modest man, Templeton felt a strong self-approval at the success of his kind thought, for, from the moment of sitting down, a cheerful merriness had held the table, rising sometimes into loud hilarity, and never sinking into the content of growing repletion, which is held in England to be the proper equivalent for joviality. But if it was Templeton in part who was responsible for so desirable an atmosphere, there was credit to be given to at least one of the diners.

Pleasant and pink was Mr. Francis's face; his hair, though silver, still crisp and vigorous, his mouth a perpetual smile. In absolute repose[Pg 14] even a sunshine lingered there, as in a bottle of well-matured wine, and its repose left it but to give place to laughter. All dinner through he had been the mouthpiece of delightful anecdote, of observations shrewd but always kindly, rising sometimes almost to the dry levels of wit, and never failing in that genial humour without which all conversation, not directed to a definite end, becomes intolerable. Though talking much, he was no usurper of the inalienable right of the others to wag the tongue; and though his own wagged to vibration, he was never tedious. Even in the matter of riddles, introduced by Geoffrey, he had a contribution or two to make, of so extravagant a sort that this ordinarily dismal mode of entertainment was for the moment rendered delightful. He unbent to the level of the young men, to the futility of most disconnected conversation, without ever seeming to unbend; you would have said that 

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