The woman loosened herself from his grasp with a smile of amusement, and, native fashion, bowed low with her hands to her forehead.
"My husband's friends are welcome," she said simply. Her voice was soft and musical. She spoke English perfectly, with an intonation of which the most cultured woman might be proud, but with a foreign accent much more noticeable than that of her son.
"A very long time we have been waiting for you," she added; and then, as an afterthought, she impulsively offered them her hand in their own manner.
The Chemist kissed his wife quietly. In spite of the presence of strangers, for a moment she dropped her reserve, her arms went up around his neck, and she clung to him an instant. Gently putting her down, the Chemist turned to his friends.
"I think Lylda has supper waiting," he said. Then as he looked at their torn, woolen suits that once were white, and the ragged shoes upon their feet, he added with a smile, "But I think I can make you much more comfortable first."
He led them up a broad, curving flight of stone steps to a room above, where they found a shallow pool of water, sunk below the level of the floor. Here he left them to bathe, getting them meanwhile robes similar to his own, with which to replace their own soiled garments. In a little while, much refreshed, they descended to the room below, where Lylda had supper ready upon the table waiting for them.
"Only a little while ago my father and Aura left," said Lylda, as they sat down to eat.
"Lylda's younger sister," the Chemist explained. "She lives with her father here in Arite."
The Very Young Man parted his lips to speak. Then, with heightened color in his cheeks, he closed them again.
They were deftly served at supper by a little native girl who was dressed in a short tunic reaching from waist to knees, with circular discs of gold covering her breasts. There was cooked meat for the meal, a white starchy form of vegetable somewhat resembling a potato, a number of delicious fruits of unfamiliar variety, and for drink the juice of a fruit that tasted more like cider than anything they could name.