“Stop just here, Aleck, for a minute,” Burns requested, and the car came to a standstill.  Burns looked at Jordan King.

“Ever see that row of white lilacs before, Jord?” he asked with interest.

King was staring at it, a strange expression of mingled perplexity and astonishment upon his fine, dark face.  After a minute he turned to Burns.

“What—­when—­where—­” he stammered, and stopped, gazing again at the lilac hedge and the box-bordered beds with their splashes of bright colour.

“Well, I don’t know what, when, or where, if you don’t,” Burns returned.

But evidently King did know, or it came to him at that instant, for he set his lips in a certain peculiar way which his friend understood meant an attempt at quick disguise of strong feeling.  He gave his mother one glance and sat back in his seat.  Then he looked again at Burns.  “What is this, anyway?” he asked rather sternly.  “The home of your patient, or a show place you’ve stopped to let us look at?”

“My patient’s in the house up there.  Drive on, Aleck, please.  They’ll be expecting us at the back of the house, where the long porches are, and where they’re probably having afternoon tea at this minute.”  He glanced at his watch.  “Happy time to arrive, isn’t it?”

Ellen found herself experiencing a most extraordinary sensation of excitement as the car rounded the drive and approached the porch, where she could see a number of people gathered.  The place was not more imposing than many with which she was familiar, and if it had been the home of one of the world’s greatest there would have been nothing disconcerting to her in the prospect.  But something in her husband’s manner assured her that he had been preparing a surprise for them all, and she had no means of guessing what it might be.  The little hasty sketch of lilac trees against a spring sky, though she had seen it, had naturally made no such impression upon her as upon King, and she did not even recall it now.

The car rolled quietly up to the porch steps, and immediately a tall figure sprang down them.  “It’s Gardner Coolidge, my old college friend, Len,” Burns said in his wife’s ear.  “Remember him?” The afternoon sunlight shone upon the smooth, dark hair and thin, aristocratic face of a man who spoke eagerly, his quick glance sweeping the occupants of the car.

“Mrs. King!  This is a great pleasure, I assure you—­a great pleasure.  Mrs. Burns—­we are delighted.  And this is your son, Mrs. King—­welcome to you, my dear sir!  Red, no need to say we’re glad to see you back.  Let me help you, Mrs. King.  Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have known me; that would be a blow.  Alicia”—­he turned to the graceful figure approaching across the porch to meet the elder lady of the party as she came up the steps upon the arm of the man who had taken her from the car—­“Mrs. King, this is my wife.”

Red Pepper Burns, laughing and shaking hands warmly with Alicia Coolidge, was watching Mrs. Alexander King as, after the first look of bewilderment, she cried out softly with pleasure at recognizing the son of an old friend.