luncheon together, and she had escaped from him as fast as possible in
order to set forth on a madcap adventure with her small brother.

On the day of which he expected to spend the evening with the Grays he
found it not a little difficult to keep his mind upon his work with the
Judge, and that gentleman seemed to him extraordinarily particular, even
fussy, about having every fact brought to him painstakingly verified
down to the smallest detail. When at last he was released, and he rushed
home in his car to dress, he discovered that his spirits were dancing as
he could not remember having felt them dance for a year. And all over a
simple invitation to a family dinner!

As he dressed it might have been said of him that he also could be
particular, even fussy. When, at length, he was ready, he was as
carefully attired as ever he had been in his life--and this not only in
body but in mind. It was curious, to his own observation of himself, how
differently he felt, in what different mood he was, than had ever been
the case when he had left his room for the scene of some accustomed
pleasure-making. He could not just define this difference to himself,
though he was conscious of it; but there was in it a sense of wishing
the people he was to meet to think well of him, according to their own
standards, and he was somehow rather acutely aware that their standards
were not likely to be those with which he was most intimate.

When he entered the now familiar door of the Gray homestead he was
surprised to hear sounds which seemed to indicate that the affair was,
after all, much larger and more formal than he had been led to suppose.
Strains of music fell upon his ears--music from a number of stringed
instruments remarkably well played--and this continued as he made his
entrance into the long drawing-room at the left of the hall, of whose