"Then, you would not, perhaps, describe yourself as absolutely fearless?" The man flushed darkly, hesitated for an instant, and then touched the scar on his face deliberately. "That marks a moment of absolute terror," he said quietly. "Thank God! the fear of being a coward made me receive it in the face instead of the back. Courage is only a matter of control. The hero differs from the coward by the smallest accident of temperament. If self-control were appreciated rightly and made a particular part of the education of the race, the term coward would be seldom applied, and then only to the person it fitted." The Colonel leant forward suddenly, resting his arms on the table, his glance still searching the thin, inscrutable face that puzzled and yet attracted him. "It is men like you we want... Why did you leave the Service?" he asked abruptly. His hearer stiffened visibly. "Need we go into that?" he said. "Not if you prefer to keep your own counsel." There was a barely perceptible pause. The younger man broke it. "My objection to speak has probably led you to a fairly correct inference," he said. "I was cashiered from the Army. But for which stroke of fortune I should not now be offering my services to you." He lifted his glass, put it to his lips, and draining the contents, set it down again empty. The Colonel remained silent, regarding him with freshly awakened distrust. By his own showing the man was an adventurer. Despite his first prejudice in his favour he began to wonder whether after all it were wise to place confidence in him. He knew nothing of him. There was to his credit merely a few garnished tales of daring which, either from modesty or a knowledge of their exaggeration, he had himself practically disclaimed,--and to his discredit the ugly truth he had just heard from his own lips. He sat up suddenly. In the piercing eyes that met his own steadily he perceived the flicker of a smile. "You haven't committed yourself, sir. There is time to draw back." But at the half-mocking speech, the almost insolent challenge of the tone, the doubt in the Colonel's mind suddenly vanished. What if the man were an adventurer? Were not his services required for an adventurous undertaking? The balance sheet of his past life was no concern of his. He wanted courage, daring, and intelligence; he was prepared to pay for them; and he believed that the man before him possessed these qualifications. "You are not the first man who has gone under who in happier circumstances would have been a credit to the Service," he said gravely, and having said it dismissed the subject almost it seemed with relief. It did not do to be over particular in regard to a man's past with great odds at stake.