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slippers and no wig, and he extended his hand to his friend with the kind of easy, unconscious confidence that was born of good breeding and a happy life.
    â€œMy dear Pope!” he exclaimed. “How was your journey? I’ve been marching about the house all morning, warming it until it feels like the Indies, imagining that you would scarcely be alive when you arrived.”
    â€œMy health was never better, Jervas,” Alexander replied, untruthfully. He felt that Jervas had a tendency to lay the hostly performance on a bit thick. He and his friends conducted themselves with a seductive charm, which had the simultaneous effect of making their guests understand how very much less charming they were themselves.
    â€œCome, you were a dead man not two weeks ago,” Jervas insisted.
    Alexander was about to reply scornfully that Jervas was exaggerating, but he checked himself. His host spoke with such a pleasant manner, and yet with the polish of a person unmistakably from town. It made Alexander determined to prove his own sophistication. “In that case, my dear Jervas, I must be the Messiah,” he said. “For I am perfectly resurrected in body and spirit.”
    â€œI cannot believe you, Pope—but I will indulge you,” Charles conceded at last, with a smile of goodwill toward his friend.
    Alexander removed the silk cushion against which Charles had propped him on his little chaise.
    â€œYou keep a mighty fire, Jervas,” he said.
    â€œWell, why not?” his friend replied, settling his own cushion more comfortably. “I am not bred for country pleasures. My idea of life is to have as much to do with English men, and as little to do with English weather, as the present age can afford. A fine table, capital wine, first-rate plays, and the best conversation: that is all I have to ask. Rusticity is the worst of affectations. If one can spend the week in silk stockings and dancing shoes, eating asparagus, who would ever wish for the foot of mud and frost that cakes our country in misery—or think of the wretched sods who tramp about in it?”
    â€œSitting as a guest in your house, Jervas, I should say that you have more sense than any man alive,” Alexander answered.
    Jervas noted Alexander’s studied manner with a smile, realizing that his young friend must have been told that elegant phrasing was the fashion in London conversation. He decided not to tease Alexander about it, guessing that he would soon learn to modify his speech. “You flatter me, and you know it,” Jervas said instead. “But you must admit, Pope, that modern luxury deserves its good reputation. I have, for example, recently acquired a tap. I now have running water inside the house, guaranteed except in the worst of frosts! What say you to that?”
    â€œI say that your habits of luxury will be checked by the expense of a houseguest who will never leave,” Alexander replied with a smile.
    â€œCome, you must have a glass of my wine,” Jervas was saying. “I had my man bring it up especially for your arrival. Your being here has given me a chance to open it, but I will not drink alone.”
    Without waiting for his footman, Jervas picked two glasses up from the sideboard in one hand, and splashed the burgundy into each. The wine folded against the side of the crystal, catching the light from the fire as it was poured. Jervas handed one of the glasses to Alexander, and raised his own.
    â€œTo the pleasures of the season,” he said, and they drank together.
    Their dinner consisted of a fish, plenty of good beef, and an excellent cheese. Alexander asked Jervas if he would show him his paintings in the studio after they had dined.
    The servants were preparing to take away the plates, and Jervas was rising to lead Alexander to the top of the house, when they heard a visitor in the hallway. Jervas rushed forward at the prospect of offering his services as a host once