Harkness started upstairs. There is a lift here, but if the gentleman doesn't mind. . . . His room is only on the second floor and instead of waiting. . . . Of course the gentleman doesn't mind. And still less does he mind when he sees his room. 

 This is mine absolutely, Harkness said, as though it had been waiting for me for years and years with its curved bow-window, its view over that enchanting garden and the line of sea beyond, its white wall unbroken by those coloured prints that hotel managers in my own country find it so necessary always to provide. Those chintz curtains with the roses are delicious. Just enough furniture. "There is no private bath of course?" 

 "The bathroom is just across the passage. Very convenient," said the man. 

 "Yes, in England we haven't reached the private bathroom yet, although we are supposed to be so fond of bathing." 

 "No, sir," said the man. "Anything else I can do for you?" 

 "No, thank you," said Harkness, smiling, as he looked on the white sunlit walls and checking the tip that, American fashion, he was about to give. "How strong the smell of the roses. It is very late for them, isn't it?" 

 "They are just about over, sir." 

 "So I should have thought." 

 Left alone he slowly unpacked. He liked unpacking and putting things away. It was packing that he detested. He had a few things with him that he always carried when he travelled—a red leather writing-case, a little Japanese fisherman in coloured ivory, two figures in red amber, photographs of his sisters in a silver frame. He put out these little things on a table of white wood near his bed, not from any affectation, but because when they were there the room seemed to understand him, to settle about him with a little sigh as though it granted him citizenship—for so long as he wished to stay. Then there were his prints. He took out four, the Lepère "St. Gilles," Strang's "Etcher," the Rembrandt "Flight into Egypt" and the Whistler "Drury Lane." The Strang he had on one side of the looking-glass, the "Drury Lane" on the other, the "Flight into Egypt" at the back of the writing-table, whither he might glance across the room at it as he lay in bed, the "St. Gilles" close to him near to the red writing-case and the ivory fisherman. 

 He sighed with satisfaction as, sitting down on his 

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