For a moment there was silence between them; then Edestone, as if attempting to shake off his gloomy reflections, struck a lighter note. “How do you like being a pirate, Lawrence?” he smiled. “Great! The dream of my life, with you for a captain!” So they sat down to dinner. The men attending to their wants moved about unheard and almost unseen in the shadow outside the circle of soft light which fell only on the table. The room was filled with an indescribable aroma of comfort and good cheer. A newly-lighted fire crackled on the hearth, for it had suddenly become quite cold. Indeed, it was with difficulty Lawrence could realize that but a few hours before they had been in the midst of battle and sudden death, and that, as they sat, down there five times the height of the Eiffel Tower below them was the Embassy from which they were still removing the dead, or aiding the dying. As he looked at Edestone with his sad, brooding eyes, he felt all at once as if his friend had been taken away from him, and had been lifted to a place so exalted, that for the life of him, he could not have taken the liberty of speaking until he was first addressed. The dinner went on, and though the food was delightful and the wines perfect, both men merely toyed with what was on their plates, while Lawrence gulped his champagne as if he were trying to get its effect quickly in order to throw off this strange new diffidence and restraint which he now felt in the presence of his oldest and dearest friend. He tried to imagine that they two were cruising alone on the _Storm Queen_, as they had so often done, and that this was just one of many evenings that they had spent in this way together; but Where was the lap of the water at her side, Or the pounding of the launch as she rode at her boom? The groan of the anchor as she swung with the tide, Or the blowing off steam, which demanded more room? All was perfectly quiet. If there were storage batteries on board, they had been charged. There was no shovelling of coal; no shrieking and banging of doors in the boiler room, nor banking of fires. The only thing that remained true to tradition was the ship’s bell. It had just sounded out five bells. The silence was at last broken by Edestone; but, although he spoke, it was more as if he were merely letting his pensive thoughts run on. “How different this has been from the way I had planned it. How different, too, has been your home-coming, old man--for the _Storm Queen_ was like home to you in the old days.” But Lawrence by this time was beginning to feel the effects of champagne, and was certain that unless he very soon did something to lift the pall that had fallen on them, he himself would be dissolved in tears.