“It was so good of you to come!” cried Miss Wallingford.

“So very kind,” murmured Miss Minchell.

“I knew you wouldn’t think it too unorthodox!” added Julia.

“I’m afraid orthodoxy is a crime I shall never swing for,” said the Count, with his most charming smile.

“I am sure my father wouldn’t really mind,” said Julia.

“Not if Sir Justin shared your enthusiasm, dear,” added Miss Minchell.

“I must teach him to!”

“Good Lord!” thought the Count.  “This is friendly indeed.”

A few minutes passed in the exchange of these preliminaries, and then his hostess said, with a pretty little air of discipleship that both charmed and slightly puzzled him

“You do still think that nobody should dine later than six, don’t you?  I have ordered dinner for six to-night.”

“Six!” exclaimed the Count, but recovering himself, added, “An ideal hour—­and it is half-past five now.  Perhaps I had better think of dressing.”

“What you call dressing!” smiled Julia, to his justifiable amazement.  “Let me show you to your room.”

She led him upstairs, and finally stopped before an open door.

“There!” she said, with an air of pride.  “It is really my father’s bedroom when he is at home, but I’ve had it specially prepared for you!  Is it just as you would like?”

Bunker was incapable of observing anything very particularly beyond the fact that the floor was uncarpeted, and as nearly free from furniture as a bedroom floor could well be.

“It is ravishing!” he murmured, and dismissed her with a well-feigned smile.

Bereft even of expletives, he gazed round the apartment prepared for him.  It was a few moments before he could bring himself to make a tour of its vast bleakness.

“I suppose that’s what they call a truckle-bed,” he mused.  “Oh, there is one chair—­nothing but cold water-towels made of vegetable fibre apparently.  The devil take me, is this a reformatory for bogus noblemen!”

He next gazed at the bare whitewashed wall.  On it hung one picture—­the portrait of a strangely attired man.

“What n shocking-looking fellow!” he exclaimed, and went up to examine it more closely.

Then, with a stupefying shock, he read this legend beneath it

“Count Bunker.  Philosopher, teacher, and martyr.”

For a minute he stared in rapt amazement, and then sharply rang the bell.

“Hang it,” he said to himself, “I must throw a little light on this somehow!”

Presently the elderly man-servant appeared, this time in a state of still more obvious confusion.  For a moment he stared at the Count—­who was too discomposed by his manner to open his lips—­and then, once more stretching out his hand, exclaimed in a choked voice and a strong Scotch accent—­

“How are ye, Bunker!”

“What the deuce!” shouted the Count, evading the proffered hand-shake with an agile leap.