She certainly had never before been so genuinely glad to see him.  As she smilingly held out her hand, her eye took in his changed appearance.  Gone were the overalls and the flannel shirt, the heavy boots and broad belt.  Before her stood the Reggie of former days in a well-cut suit of blue serge and spotless linen.  She was surprised to find herself thinking, after all, men looked better in flannels.

“I was wondering what on earth you were doing with yourself,” she said gayly.

“I say,” he said, his eye taking in the bright little room, “this is a swell shack you’ve got.”

“I’ve tried to make it look pretty and homelike.”

“Helloa, what’s this!” said Marsh, whose eye had fallen for the first time on the bowl of flowers.

“Aren’t they pretty?  I’ve only just picked them.  They’re mustard flowers.”

“We call them weeds.  Have you much of it?”

“Oh, yes; lots.  Why?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Eddie tells me you’re going home.”

“Yes,” said Reggie, seating himself and carefully pulling up his trousers.  “I’m fed up for my part with God’s own country.  Nature never intended me to be an agricultural laborer.”

“No?  And what are you going to do now?”

“Loaf!” Mr. Hornby’s tone expressed profound conviction.

“Won’t you get bored?” smiled Nora.

“I’m never bored.  It amuses me to watch other people do things.  I should hate my fellow-creatures to be idle.”

“I should think one could do more with life than lounge around clubs and play cards with people who don’t play as well as oneself.”

Hornby gave her a quick ironic look.  “I quite agree with you,” he said with his most serious air.  “I’ve been thinking things over very seriously this winter.  I’m going to look out for a middle-aged widow with money who’ll adopt me.”

“I recall that you have decided views about the White Man’s Burden.”

“All I want is to get through life comfortably.  I don’t mean to do a stroke more work than I’m obliged to, and I’m going to have the very best time I can.”

“I’m sure you will,” said Nora, smiling.

But her smile was a little mechanical.  Somehow she could no longer be genuinely amused at such sentiments which, in spite of his airy manner, she knew to be real.  And yet, it was not so very long ago that she would have thought them perfectly natural in a man of his position.  Somehow, her old standards were not as fixed as she had thought them.

“The moment I get back to London,” continued Hornby imperturbably, “I’m going to stand myself a bang-up dinner at the Ritz.  Then I shall go and see some musical comedy at the Gaiety, and after that, I’ll have a slap-up supper at Romano’s.  England, with all thy faults, I love thee still!” he finished piously.

“I suppose it’s being alone with the prairie all these months,” said Nora, more to herself than him; “but things that used to seem clever and funny—­well, I see them altogether differently now.”