"Company" in short was in the air and expectation in the picture.

The flowers on the little tables bloomed with a consciousness sharply taken up by the glitter of nick-nacks and reproduced in turn in the light exuberance of cushions on sofas and the measured drop of blinds in windows.

The numerous photographed friends in particular were highly prepared, with small intense faces, each, that happened in every case to be turned to the door.

The pair of eyes most dilated perhaps was that of old Van, present under a polished glass and in a frame of gilt-edged morocco that spoke out, across the room, of Piccadilly and Christmas, and visibly widening his gaze at the opening of the door, at the announcement of a name by a footman and at the entrance of a gentleman remarkably like him save as the resemblance was on the gentleman's part flattered.

Vanderbank had not been in the room ten seconds before he showed ever so markedly that he had arrived to be kind.