Miss Boyd had described everyone to Arthur except young Raggles, who painted still life with a certain amount of skill, and Clayson, the American sculptor.  Raggles stood for rank and fashion at the Chien Noir.  He was very smartly dressed in a horsey way, and he walked with bowlegs, as though he spent most of his time in the saddle.  He alone used scented pomade upon his neat smooth hair.  His chief distinction was a greatcoat he wore, with a scarlet lining; and Warren, whose memory for names was defective, could only recall him by that peculiarity.  But it was understood that he knew duchesses in fashionable streets, and occasionally dined with them in solemn splendour.

Clayson had a vinous nose and a tedious habit of saying brilliant things.  With his twinkling eyes, red cheeks, and fair, pointed beard, he looked exactly like a Franz Hals; but he was dressed like the caricature of a Frenchman in a comic paper.  He spoke English with a Parisian accent.

Miss Boyd was beginning to tear him gaily limb from limb, when the door was flung open, and a large person entered.  He threw off his cloak with a dramatic gesture.

’Marie, disembarrass me of this coat of frieze.  Hang my sombrero upon a convenient peg.’

He spoke execrable French, but there was a grandiloquence about his vocabulary which set everyone laughing.

‘Here is somebody I don’t know,’ said Susie.

‘But I do, at least, by sight,’ answered Burdon.  He leaned over to Dr Porhoet who was sitting opposite, quietly eating his dinner and enjoying the nonsense which everyone talked.  ‘Is not that your magician?’

‘Oliver Haddo,’ said Dr Porhoet, with a little nod of amusement.

The new arrival stood at the end of the room with all eyes upon him.  He threw himself into an attitude of command and remained for a moment perfectly still.

‘You look as if you were posing, Haddo,’ said Warren huskily.

‘He couldn’t help doing that if he tried,’ laughed Clayson.

Oliver Haddo slowly turned his glance to the painter.

’I grieve to see, O most excellent Warren, that the ripe juice of the aperitif has glazed your sparkling eye.’

‘Do you mean to say I’m drunk, sir?’

‘In one gross, but expressive, word, drunk.’

The painter grotesquely flung himself back in his chair as though he had been struck a blow, and Haddo looked steadily at Clayson.

’How often have I explained to you, O Clayson, that your deplorable lack of education precludes you from the brilliancy to which you aspire?’

For an instant Oliver Haddo resumed his effective pose; and Susie, smiling, looked at him.  He was a man of great size, two or three inches more than six feet high; but the most noticeable thing about him was a vast obesity.  His paunch was of imposing dimensions.  His face was large and fleshy.  He had thrown himself into the arrogant attitude of Velasquez’s portrait of Del Borro in the Museum of Berlin; and his countenance bore of set purpose the same contemptuous smile.  He advanced and shook hands with Dr Porhoet.