The garden-room at Harby was one of its many glories. Its panelled walls, its portraits of old-time Harbys, its painted ceiling, were exquisite parts of its exquisite harmony. On the side towards the park the wall was little more than a colonnade--to which doors could be fitted in winter-time, and here, as from a loggia, the indweller could feast on one of the fairest prospects in Oxfordshire. Across the moat the gardens stretched, in summer-time a riot of color, flowers glowing like jewels set in green enamel. In the waning autumn the scene was still fair, even though the day was overcast as this day was, from which the weather-wise and even the weather-unwise could freely and confidently prophesy rain. Brilliana dearly loved her garden-room for many things, most, perhaps, because of its full-length portrait of her King, an honest copy from an adorable Vandyke, to which, as to a shrined image, Brilliana paid honest adoration. She knew more about the picture than anyone else in Harby, and used sometimes to wonder if the knowledge would ever avail her. In the mean time, ever since the troubles began, she always bent a knee whenever she passed the portrait. She had never seen her King, yet she felt as if she saw him daily, visible in the living flesh, so keenly did her loyalty seem to quicken color and canvas. Brilliana was not the only soul in England whose loyalty gave the King a kind of godhead, but if she had many peers she had none, nor could have, who overpassed her.
On the morning of the third day of Evander's stay at Harby, Halfman sat on the edge of the table in the garden-room and stared through the open doorway into the green beyond. He was alone, and he had flung off the stoic robe and was very frankly an angry man and very frankly a dangerous man. What he saw in the garden maddened him; his eyes glittered like a cat's that stalks its prey. He had no room in his thoughts for the cottage of his earlier dreams, with its pleasant garden and its lazy hours over ale and tobacco. He thought only of a woman quite beyond his reach, and his heart lusted for the lawless days when your lucky buccaneer might take his pick of a score of women by right of fire and sword and tame his choice as he pleased.