Not one of the trio looked up until the nocturne they were playing was done.  Then they rose together, laying aside their instruments, and made the guest welcome.  He had a vivid impression of being done peculiar honour by their recognition of him as a new friend, for so they received him.  As he looked from one to another of their faces he experienced another of those curious sensations which had from time to time assailed him ever since he had first put his head inside the door of this house, the sensation of looking in upon a new world of which he had known nothing, and of being strangely drawn by all he saw there.  It was not alone the effect of meeting a more than ordinarily alluring girl, for each member of the family had for him something of this drawing quality.  As he studied them it was clear to him that they belonged together, that they loved each other, that the very walls of this old home were eloquent of the life lived here.

He had of course seen and noted families before, noted them carelessly enough:  rich families, poor families, big families, little, newly begun families; but of a certain sort of family of which this was the interesting and inviting type he knew as little as the foreigner, newly landed on American shores, knows of the depths of the great country’s interior.  And as he studied these people the desire grew and grew within him to know as much of them as they would let him know.  The very grouping of them, against the effective background of the fine old drawing-room, made, it seemed to him, a remarkable picture, full of a certain richness of colour and harmony such as he had never observed anywhere.

The evening did not contain as much of gay encounter with Roberta as he had anticipated—­but, somehow, as he afterwards looked back upon it, he could not feel that there had been any lack.  He had fancied himself, in prospect, sitting beside her at the table, exchanging that pleasant, half-foolish badinage with which young men are wont to entertain girls who are their companions at dinners, both nearly oblivious of the rest of the company.  But it turned out that his seat was between his hostess and her younger daughter, Ruth, and though Roberta was nearly opposite him at the table and he could look at her to his full content—­conservatively speaking—­he was obliged to give himself to playing the part of the deferential younger man where older and more distinguished men are present.

Yet—­to his surprise, it must be admitted—­he found himself not bored by that table-talk.  It was such table-talk, by the way, as is not to be had under ordinary roofs.  He now recognized that he had only partially appreciated the qualities of mind possessed by Judge Gray—­certainly not his capacity for brilliant conversation.  Mr. Robert Gray was quite his elder brother’s match, however, and more than once Kendrick caught Louis Gray’s eye meeting his own with the glance which means delighted pride in the contest of wits which is taking place.  All three young men enjoyed it to the full, and even Ted listened with eyes full of eager desire to comprehend that which he understood to be worth trying hard for.