He rose when Pippa and his guest entered the drawing room. Tristan noticed Pippa's deep blush, which required little interpretation, and he felt rather annoyed. Glad that she ran off, he closed the door behind her. "How are you today?" he turned to the artist, holding out his hand.

The drawing room was relatively dark, with thick dark green curtains draped around the windows. There were two velvet green armchairs and a sofa stationed around a glass saloon table. The room was rather devoid of the clutter so often found in drawing rooms, a sign both of his recent arrival and of his bachelor state. There was a globe on a table in the corner that served as storage for liquor. In another corner stood a small foldable writing desk an chair. The fireplace was already out of use, but Tristan hadn't taken the trouble to fill it with flowers, Chinese vases, Japanese fans and other popular decorations like in so many more welcoming drawing rooms.

The walls up to the dado were mint colored. Above there was busy flowery wallpaper, but the slight discoloration proved that it had belonged to the previous owner and Tristan had not bothered redecorate, safe for a few pictures on the wall: A graduation class of university students; a schoolboy Tristan with his arm around the neck of a redheaded schoolboy; a family picture of himself with his parents and three siblings; and another picture of his father.

One wall had a rather large book case, but there were not enough books to fill it up, and it held only few other decorations: one being a foot high statue of a naked young man with his arm around the neck of an eagle, whom Douglas if he had any knowledge of art history, would probably recognize as Ganymede.