“Of course,” said John, with some faint feeling that it was needless to remind him, his uncle’s representative, of his duties as the host.  Rivers said, smiling, “It may not be easy to amuse Mr. Grey.  I did not tell you that your aunt wrote me, she will not be here until the afternoon train on the 9th.  Ah! here is Mr. Grey.”

John was aware of a neatly built, slight man in middle life, clad in a suit of dark grey.  He came down the stairs in a leisurely way.  “Not much of a Grey!” thought Rivers, as he observed the clean-shaven face, which was sallow, or what the English once described as olivaster, the eyes small and dark, the hair black and so long as to darkly frame the thin-featured, clean-shaven refinement of a pleasant and now smiling face.

John went across the hall to receive him, saying, “I am John Penhallow, sir.  I am sorry we did not know you were to be here to-day.”

“It is all right—­all right.  Rather chilly ride.  Less moisture outside and more inside would have been agreeable; in fact, would be at present, if I may take the liberty.”

Seeing that the host did not understand him, Rivers said promptly, “I think, John, Mr. Grey is pleasantly reminding us that we should offer him some of your uncle’s rye.”

“Of course,” said John, who had not had the dimmest idea what the Maryland gentleman meant.

Mr. Grey took the whisky slowly, remarking that he knew the brand, “Peach-flavoured, sir.  Very good, does credit to Penhallow’s taste.  As Mr. Clay once remarked, the mellowing years, sir, have refined it.”

“Dinner is ready,” said John.

There was no necessity to entertain Mr. Grey.  He talked at length, what James Penhallow later described as “grown-up prattle.”  Horses, the crops, and at length the proper methods of fining wine—­a word of encouragement from Rivers set him off again.  Meanwhile the dinner grew cold on his plate.  At last, abruptly conscious of the lingering meal, Mr. Grey said, “This comes, sir, of being in too interesting society.”

Was this mere quaint humour, thought Rivers; but when Grey added, “I should have said, sir, too interested company,” he began to wonder at the self-absorption of what was evidently a provincial gentleman.  At last, with “Your very good health!” he took freely of the captain’s Madeira.

Rivers, who sipped a single glass slowly, was about to rise when to his amusement, using his uncle’s phrase, John said, “My uncle thinks that Madeira and tobacco do not go well together; you may like to smoke in the library.”

Grey remarked, “Quite right, as Henry Clay once said, ’There is nothing as melancholy as the old age of a dinner; who, sir, shall pronounce its epitaph?’ That, sir, I call eloquence.  No more wine, thank you.”  As he spoke, he drew a large Cabana from his waistcoat pocket and lighted it from one of the candles on the table.

Rivers remarked, “We will find it warmer in the library.”