"It is very kind of you to say that. You are very kind altogether. Had I known that you were so essentially a man of the world, in the best sense of that term, I shouldn't have so much dreaded seeing you just now and having to confess to you. But I'm not going to take advantage of your urbanity and your easy-going ways. I hope that some day we may meet somewhere when I haven't had influenza and am a not wholly undesirable acquaintance. As it is, I refuse to let you associate with me. I am an older man than you, and so I may without impertinence warn you against having anything to do with me." I deprecated this advice, of course; but for a man of weakened will he showed great firmness. "You," he said, "in your heart of hearts, don't want to have to walk and talk continually with a person who might at any moment try to bamboozle you with some ridiculous tale. And I, for my part, don't want to degrade myself by trying to bamboozle any one, especially one whom I have taught to see through me. Let the two talks we have had be as though they had not been. Let us bow to each other, as last year, but let that be all. Let us follow in all things the precedent of last year." With a smile that was almost gay he turned on his heel, and moved away with a step that was almost brisk. I was a little disconcerted. But I was also more than a little glad. The restfulness of silence, the charm of liberty--these things were not, after all, forfeit. My heart thanked Laider for that; and throughout the week I loyally seconded him in the system he had laid down for us. All was as it had been last year. We did not smile to each other, we merely bowed, when we entered or left the dining-room or smoking-room, and when we met on the wide-spread sands or in that shop which had a small and faded but circulating library. Once or twice in the course of the week it did occur to me that perhaps Laider had told the simple truth at our first interview and an ingenious lie at our second. I frowned at this possibility. The idea of any one wishing to be quit of ME was most distasteful. However, I was to find reassurance. On the last evening of my stay I suggested, in the small smoking-room, that he and I should, as sticklers for precedent, converse. We did so very pleasantly. And after a while I happened to say that I had seen this afternoon a great number of sea-gulls flying close to the shore. "Sea-gulls?" said Laider, turning in his chair. "Yes. And I don't think I had ever realized how extraordinarily beautiful they are when their wings catch the light." Laider threw a quick glance at me and away from me. "You think them beautiful?" "Surely." "Well, perhaps they are, yes; I suppose they are. But--I don't like seeing them. They always remind me of something--rather an awful thing--that once happened to me." IT was a very awful thing indeed.