Mr. Keith was a perfect host.  He had the right word for everybody; his infectious conviviality made them all straightway at their ease.  The overdressed native ladies, the priests and officials moving about in prim little circles, were charmed with his affable manner “so different from most Englishmen”; likewise that flock of gleeful tourists who had suddenly turned up, craving for admission without a single letter of introduction between them, and were forthwith welcomed on the strength of the fact that one of their party had been to Easter Island.  Even the parroco could not help laughing as Keith, with irresistible good nature, seized him by the arm and thrust a Marron Glace between his lips.  An ideal host!  The “Falernian system” was in abeyance that day.  It was the one evening in the year when, in the interests of his guests, he could be relied upon to remain absolutely sober to the last moment; a state of affairs which doubtless had its drawbacks, seeing that it made him, in longer conversational efforts, rather more abstruse and unintelligible than usual—­“blind sober,” as Don Francesco once said.  Even sobriety was forgiven him.  He took the precaution, of course, to keep the house locked and to replace his ordinary services of plate by Elkington; people being pardonably fond of carrying away memories of so enjoyable an evening.  Bottles, plates, and glasses were smashed by the dozen.  He liked to see them smashed.  It proved that everybody was having a good time.

A person unacquainted with Keith’s nature could never have guessed what a sacrifice this entertainment was to him.  He was an egoist, a solitary, in his pleasures; he used to contend that no garden on earth, however spacious, was large enough for more than one man.  And this little Nepenthe domain, though he saw it for only a few weeks in the year, was the apple of his eye.  He guarded it jealously, troubled at the thought that its chaste recesses might be profaned, if but for one day, by the presence of a motley assemblage of nonentities.  But a man of his income is expected to do something to amuse his fellow-creatures.  One owes certain duties to society.  Hence this gathering, which had become a regular feature in the spring calendar of the island.  Having once decided on the step, he did not propose to be bound by conventionalities which were the poison of rational human intercourse.  Unlike the Duchess and Mr. Parker, he refused to draw the line at Russians; the Club, too, was represented by some of its most characteristic members.  He often descanted on the social intolerance of men, their lack of graciousness and generous instincts; he would have made room for the Devil himself—­at all events in his “outer circle.”  Such being the case, it stands to reason that he did not draw the line at freethinkers.  It was sometimes rather hard to know where he did draw the line.