“I never expected to see you in England so soon,” he said to Vernon. “I thought you usually spent part of the summer in Rome.” “I often do. But this year something has called me to London.” “Oh. Well, all the better. We shall see something of you. I hope we shall bring off our dinner together in town. Only you must let me be the host.” “Thank you. I shall be delighted.” The note of cordiality was, I thought, forced by both men. Few more words were spoken, for it was getting late, and the hour of dinner was approaching. As we went upstairs I said to Vernon— “Deeming does certainly want medicine of one sort or another. Don’t you think he looks horribly ill?” “He has a strung-up expression. I should say he’s overworking. Did you notice how he started when he saw us?” “Did he?” I answered, disingenuously I confess. “Naturally he was surprised. He had no idea we were in England.” “Exactly. Here are our rooms. _Au revoir_ at dinner.” The dinner I need not chronicle at length. It took place downstairs, although we had engaged the sitting-room to appease a management shocked at our lack of evening clothes. The talk ran easily enough, helped by Lord Elyn’s unconsciousness of the obsession of the black spaniel, which sometimes seemed to me to be hovering about our table, creeping beneath our chairs, a shadow importunate, servile, yet menacing. I felt that the thoughts of Deeming and Vernon, interlacing and inimical, were on this whining, whimpering, uneasy shadow, that had called the latter from his home in Italy, that had stopped him here by the grey sea. I knew it as if those thoughts were spread before me by my plate. And all the time we chatted, glancing from subject to subject without great earnestness, laughing lightly at the last London absurdity, or discussing with apparent animation the chances of politics and the trend of art, I felt that our conversation was but a thin veil spread over a depth in which were other voices than ours, murmuring, in which the pale forms of future events glided, like spectres, to and fro. Directly after dinner Lord Elyn excused himself. “The eyes of the nurse are upon me,” he said, jocosely. “I see them saying: ‘Master Elyn, it’s time for you to go to bed!’ Eh, Deeming?” “Quite right, Lord Elyn,” answered Deeming, smiling. “Well, good-night. You’d much better come too, Deeming.” “Oh, I couldn’t sleep yet. I haven’t been on the sea. I think I shall go out and take a breath of air on the front.” “Perhaps it may do you good. I feel full of sleep.” And he went off, leaving us in the hall. “Will you come out?” asked Deeming. The invitation seemed addressed to both of us. I expected Vernon to accept it with alacrity, but, to my surprise, he took up the _Westminster Gazette_. “I’m a bit tired,” he answered. “I think I’ll stay here.” “I’ll come with you,” I said. “Right. I want a turn or two to summon slumber.”