Haydock was at home when Rice knocked at his door in Claverly later in the evening. It was always with a feeling of satisfaction that one went into Haydock’s study. Haydock himself had none of the disconcerting habits of most people. He never came to the door with an open book in one hand and a green shade over his eyes, protesting, with a worried expression, that you hadn’t stopped his work and spoiled his evening generally. He never shook you by the hand and seemed unnecessarily glad to see you. He never began the conversation by asking, after a stupid pause, the stupider question, “Well, how are you getting along?” It was impossible to feel that your arrival interrupted him in the least, as his door was usually unlatched, and he rarely seemed to be engaged in anything more urgent than filling his pipe, putting a fresh log on the fire, or perhaps strolling about looking at things,--occupations suggesting somehow, that Haydock had been trying to kill time until you should drop in. To-night he was improving the angle at which his various pictures hung. “Do you suppose there ever was anything more maddening than a really conscientious ‘goody’?” he said, as John came in,--“the kind who has a passion for dusting, a positive lust for it? Just look at these pictures!” He straightened the photograph of a Florentine saint, whose asceticism, at a rakish deflection from the perpendicular, had ceased to impress. “I don’t think we’re bothered very much by conscientious ‘goodies’ over in Matthews,” answered John; “one of them broke Billy’s pipe this morning.” “Has William taken up smoking?” laughed Haydock. “Well, rather.” “Surprising, isn’t it,” mused the other. He really wasn’t surprised a bit. He and Billy had been born and brought up next door to each other; he knew the type and the temperament. He also was aware that Billy was an enthusiastic member of the Polo Club. Haydock had tried to see something of the child during his first month or two in college. “An older boy can do so much for a younger one, Philip,” Mrs. Ware had said to him, with her hazy maternal trustfulness, just before college opened. “William is fond of you, I know; and it’s a great comfort to feel that you will be there, and that he’s going to room with John.” If the good woman derived tranquillity of mind from the fact that her son and Haydock chanced to inhabit the same town, Haydock did not consider it worth while to explain that the coincidence, regarded in the light of its moral significance, was unimportant. He had called on Billy and John as soon as they were settled; but Billy had never returned the compliment, although John did frequently. Once he had asked the room-mates to dinner; Billy, he learned later, had been too drunk that evening to recall the engagement for the moment. Since then, the helpful influence, in the belief of which Mrs. Ware existed placidly, had perforce exerted itself across a theatre, or from the platform of a passing electric car.