That didn't seem to console him especially, but just then Mrs. Severn began to sing. It was an old French ballad (I remember that the chorus consisted of the word "Rataplan" repeated many times), and it was exactly what suited her voice and style. I gathered, more from the way she sang it than from the words, that it was about a court intrigue, a wicked lord chamberlain, poisoned goblets, and so on--"divinely medieval," as I heard Mildred Gorton whispering to somebody. When it was over I looked at my companion. "Not bad, eh?" I said, and he shrugged his shoulders with a gesture that might have meant anything. A few moments later, having apparently analysed himself, he remarked that it was the sort of thing that made him feel uncomfortable. Those were the last words he spoke to anybody until he stood in the hall conventionally assuring Mr. and Mrs. Severn that he had had a most delightful time. We left the End House together about half-past ten, and walked back along the edge of the Heath. There was a frost glistening on the roadway, and a pale haze hung over the valley towards London. He was anything but talkative. I don't think we spoke a dozen words all the way down to the Tube Station. We both had return tickets, and it wasn't till we reached Mornington Crescent (my own station) that I said, feeling curiously reluctant to bid him good-bye: "Look here, I live just round the corner. Why not come in and have a drink with me before you go home? It isn't late at all, you know." "If--if you like," he answered doubtfully. He thawed a little when I lit the gas-fire in my room and made him sit in front of it. He said he didn't care for whisky, so I made strong coffee. Then I offered him cigarettes, but he said he didn't smoke. At last, by the simple method of not seeming to care what he did or didn't do, I got him to talk. He began abruptly: "I made a fool of myself to-night." I replied: "I don't think you did. It's by talking a lot rather than by not talking enough, that people most often make fools of themselves." "Severn must have thought me a complete ass." "Nonsense. I know Severn. He'd make sure you weren't a complete ass before he invited you." "Why _did_ he invite me, anyway?" "Probably because he liked you when he first met you, and because he had heard good things about you. He likes young men with no money and heaps of brains--like you and me, that's to say. (I presume you haven't any money--_I_ haven't, anyway.) He takes us up just as he might buy a low-priced share that he fancied might treble in value if he waited long enough.... Please don't think I'm being _really_ cynical about him. He's a damned good fellow, and there isn't a trace of offensive patronage in his attitude. He's too young to be a snob." "Young, is he?" "Well, thirty-five. That's young for a man in his line. I suppose you know what he is--K.C., and so on?" "I don't know anything about him at all."