In the yard Annie was clinging around Archelaus, and the big man suffered it with a better grace than in the old days, though with a careless good-nature.  Tom, smiling, stood a little behind the two of them.  Not to Archelaus’s primitive if cunning mind belonged that scheme for returning the evening of Ishmael’s party; it was Tom who for two days had held him in reluctant seclusion at Penzance so as to spring the surprise at the least convenient moment.  It was characteristic of Tom to scheme, even when there was nothing to gain by it but a little malicious gratification, as in this case.

Not for nothing, however, had Ishmael been trained as he had, and his voice, so unmistakably that of a gentleman as to strike them with a sense of something alien, came quietly if a little tremulously for the first few words.

“Hullo, Archelaus!” he said, shaking hands before the other’s slower wits had decided whether to proffer the salute or no.  “Come along in!  You’re just in time for my supper-party....”  No speech could have robbed the conspirators of their little triumph more completely—­it offered a welcome as from one who had the best of rights to invite a guest in, and at the same time accepted the place as the home of both.  Archelaus stood glowering, thought of nothing to say in reply, and found himself following his young brother into the house.

After that the evening ceased to be Ishmael’s and became a background for Archelaus.  He had dug for gold in Australia, and if he had not had the luck of many others who had struck richer claims, he yet brought home money to fling round upon his fancies.  For years he had wandered over the far places of the earth, so that his skin was tanned darker than his bleached hair, and his limited vocabulary had enriched itself with strange and coloured words.  He was indeed a man.  Even Ishmael felt that, as he sat in the dim kitchen where they had all gone to see Archelaus eat a vast meal and listen to his talk.  Annie was entranced; the rare colour burnt on her cheekbones, her fingers rolled and unrolled her apron ceaselessly; she had relapsed into kitchen ways in a flash and, swathed in sacking, waited on her big son herself.  Vassie tilted a superior nose and in the intervals tried to impress Archelaus by the remarkable progress of his family during his absence; but Phoebe, who had planned for Ishmael, fluttered all spontaneously for Archelaus.  It seemed to her that he was like a demi-god as he sat there, thrusting the food into his mouth, golden beard dripping with golden cider, careless limbs outflung.  Vassie only saw the inelegance, for he was her brother, but to Phoebe his very scorn of dainty ways made him more god-like because more man-like.