alone in the garden.

Down the centre of the central garden path, preceded by a blue
cloud from a cigarette, was walking a gentleman who evidently
understood all the relish of a garden in the very early morning.
He was a slim yet satisfied figure, clad in a suit of pale-grey
tweed, so subdued that the pattern was imperceptible--a costume
that was casual but not by any means careless. His face, which
was reflective and somewhat over-refined, was the face of a quite
elderly man, though his stringy hair and moustache were still
quite yellow. A double eye-glass, with a broad, black ribbon,
drooped from his aquiline nose, and he smiled, as he communed
with himself, with a self-content which was rare and almost
irritating. The straw panama on his head was many shades shabbier
than his clothes, as if he had caught it up by accident.

It needed the full shock of the huge shadow of MacIan, falling
across his sunlit path, to rouse him from his smiling reverie.
When this had fallen on him he lifted his head a little and
blinked at the intruders with short-sighted benevolence, but with
far less surprise than might have been expected. He was a
gentleman; that is, he had social presence of mind, whether for
kindness or for insolence.

"Can I do anything for you?" he said, at last.

MacIan bowed. "You can extend to us your pardon," he said, for he
also came of a whole race of gentlemen--of gentlemen without
shirts to their backs. "I am afraid we are trespassing. We have
just come over the wall."