"Why," said my friend humbly, "very well then, let us mention these cigars as the completion of our little feast."
"Little _feast_, indeed!" said his host, "why it is but a most humble meal. Anyhow, I am glad to have had from you a proper schedule of your pleasures of the table. In time to come when we know each other better, we will arrange other large and really satisfactory meals; but this will do very well for our initiatory lunch as it were." And he laughed merrily.
"But have I not given you great trouble?" said my friend.
"How little you will easily perceive," said his companion, "for in this town we have but to order and all is at once promptly and intelligently done." With that he turned into a small office where a commissary at once took down his order. "And now," said he emerging, "let us be home."
They went together down the turnings of a couple of broad streets lined with great private palaces and public temples until they came to a garden which had no boundaries to it but which was open, and apparently the property of the city. But the people who wandered here were at once so few, so discreet and so courteous, my friend could not discover whether they were (as their salutes seemed to indicate) the dependents of his host, or merely acquaintances who recognized him upon their way.
This garden, as they proceeded, became more private and more domestic; it led by narrowing paths through high, diversified trees, until, beyond the screen of a great beech hedge, he saw the house ... and it was all that a house should be!
Its clear, well set stone walls were in such perfect harmony with the climate and with the sky, its roof garden from which a child was greeting them upon their approach, so unexpected and so suitable, its arched open gallery was of so august a sort, and yet the domestic ornaments of its colonnade so familiar, that nothing could be conceived more appropriate for the residence of man.
The mere passage into this Home out of the warm morning daylight into the inner domestic cool, was a benediction, and in the courtyard which they thus entered a lazy fountain leaped and babbled to itself in a manner that filled the heart with ease.
"I do not know," said his host in a gentle whisper as they crossed the courtyard, "whether it is your custom to bathe before the morning meal or in the middle of the afternoon?"