He wore his London suit of clothes and he felt that he looked pretty decent.  He could only do his best in the matter of bearing.  He always thought that, so long as a fellow didn’t get “chesty” and kept his head from swelling, he was all right.  Of course he had never been in one of these swell Fifth Avenue houses, and he felt a bit nervous—­but Miss Vanderpoel would have told her father what sort of fellow he was, and her father was likely to be something like herself.  The house, which had been built since Lady Anstruthers’ marriage, was well “up-town,” and was big and imposing.  When a manservant opened the front door, the square hall looked very splendid to Selden.  It was full of light, and of rich furniture, which was like the stuff he had seen in one or two special shop windows in Fifth Avenue—­places where they sold magnificent gilded or carven coffers and vases, pieces of tapestry and marvellous embroideries, antiquities from foreign palaces.  Though it was quite different, it was as swell in its way as the house at Mount Dunstan, and there were gleams of pictures on the walls that looked fine, and no mistake.

He was expected.  The man led him across the hall to Mr. Vanderpoel’s room.  After he had announced his name he closed the door quietly and went away.  Mr. Vanderpoel rose from an armchair to come forward to meet his visitor.  He was tall and straight—­Betty had inherited her slender height from him.  His well-balanced face suggested the relationship between them.  He had a steady mouth, and eyes which looked as if they saw much and far.

“I am glad to see you, Mr. Selden,” he said, shaking hands with him.  “You have seen my daughters, and can tell me how they are.  Miss Vanderpoel has written to me of you several times.”

He asked him to sit down, and as he took his chair Selden felt that he had been right in telling himself that Reuben S. Vanderpoel would be somehow like his girl.  She was a girl, and he was an elderly man of business, but they were like each other.  There was the same kind of straight way of doing things, and the same straight-seeing look in both of them.

It was queer how natural things seemed, when they really happened to a fellow.  Here he was sitting in a big leather chair and opposite to him in its fellow sat Reuben S. Vanderpoel, looking at him with friendly eyes.  And it seemed all right, too—­not as if he had managed to “butt in,” and would find himself politely fired out directly.  He might have been one of the Four Hundred making a call.  Reuben S. knew how to make a man feel easy, and no mistake.  This G. Selden observed at once, though he had, in fact, no knowledge of the practical tact which dealt with him.  He found himself answering questions about Lady Anstruthers and her sister, which led to the opening up of other subjects.  He did not realise that he began to express ingenuous opinions and describe things.  His listener’s interest led him on, a question