Vane Charteris, entering the cool, breezy white room, with its wide windows opening upon the sea, encounters the half-indignant gaze of his old friend, who is lying on a low couch in a silken dressing-gown and tasseled cap, his wrinkled old hands grasping the knob of his gold-headed cane, which he proceeds to thump viciously on the floor at the young man's entrance, thereby expressing the war-like state of his mind.
"I hope I see you well, Mr. Langton," airily observes the handsome young "reprobate," as Mr. Langton mentally dubs him.
"Then you'll be disappointed," snaps the old millionaire, irefully. "Never was so mortally used up before in my life. Soul and body will scarcely hold together. And all on your account, you disobedient young rascal."
"Disobedient?" Mr. Charteris queries, in a mild tone, slightly arching his eyebrows.
"Disobedient, yes;" with an emphatic thump of the cane. "Didn't you receive my telegram ordering you to remain in New York until I came?"
"Ye-es, I did," admits the culprit, with no great show of repentance, "but being, according to the old law, free, white, and twenty-one, I didn't seem to see that I was under any man's orders."
"Nor any woman's either?" testily.
"Nor any woman's either," Vane repeats, undauntedly.
"At least I expected a show of courtesy from a young fellow whom I had tried hard to benefit," Mr. Langton retorts, with his stiffest air.
Whereat Mr. Charteris, after a little ambiguous cough, puts on a show of meekness.