"It's just a backwater. There's the broad stream of London flowing on to success and prosperity a few yards up the hill. If you listen for a moment you can hear it. These little streets are just parasitical branches, still alive and still struggling, but fit for nothing but to be snapped off. All the furtive businesses in the world might be conducted behind these silent, unwashed windows and blank doorways--shabby theatrical agencies, doubtful publications, betting offices of poor reputation. People come here to hide or to escape notice. There was a murder committed down by the railings at the end of the street, only a year or so ago." "Obviously," Harvey Grimm remarked cheerfully, "the region of melancholia and tragedies. We must see how things go, Aaron. Perhaps, later on, it would be as well for you to move to a better-known part. Just at present, however, it is well enough." The tall young man looked down at his companion half derisively, half eagerly. He knew him too well to ask many questions, knew him too well to hope unduly, knew, too, the danger into which this simple luncheon might lead him. Yet only a few nights ago he had thought of the river! It was better to take luncheon with Harvey Grimm at the Milan than to feel the black waters sucking his breath away! * * * * * "Feeling better, Aaron?" Harvey Grimm enquired of his friend, about an hour and a half later. Aaron Rodd was both feeling and looking better and acknowledged the fact. His manner towards his host, too, showed signs of a subtle change. The latter was obviously _persona grata_ in the restaurant. Their table, although a little retired, was in a coveted corner, and attentions of every sort had been respectfully offered them. Nevertheless, his guest felt some sense of relief when he saw the bill signed with a little flourish and accepted with a low bow by their waiter. Harvey Grimm leaned back in his chair and removed the cigar for a moment from his lips. "You've no faith in me, Aaron," he declared, with an encouraging smile. "That's what you always lacked, even in the old days--faith. You're losing touch with the world, you know, cooped up in that musty office of yours. You don't expect anything to happen to you so long as you grub away there, do you?" "Nothing has happened, at any rate," Aaron Rodd admitted. "I will not say that it is your fault," his companion continued tolerantly. "You are by nature of a meditative and retiring temperament. It is a piece of extraordinarily good fortune for you that I never forget old friends." "Have you anything to propose to me?" Aaron Rodd asked bluntly. His host leaned across the table.