Presently there entered a tall, thin, and rather weedy-looking young man. His scanty hair was of that colourless fairness which is almost peculiar to a certain type of Scotchman. He would not have been bad-looking, in spite of his being slightly freckled, if it had not been for three things: first, he had obviously at least his share of the pride for which his countrymen are proverbial; second, he was obviously more than sufficiently weak; and third, he was equally obviously bad tempered. On this occasion he did not seem to be by any means in the most agreeable frame of mind. Taking no sort of notice of Mr. Townsend's nodded greeting, he marched straight to an easy-chair, and, sitting down on it, he rested his hands on the handle of his stick, and his chin on his hands. He looked straight in front of him with about as sour a visage as he could well have worn. Mr. Townsend continued his breakfast as if there was nothing at all peculiar in his visitor's demeanour, and as he ate he smiled. After a while he leaned back on his chair. "Well, Archie, any news?" "News be damned!" Mr. Townsend still smiled. "By all means if you wish it. It is the same to me." "You know very well what I have come for." "I take it that you have come to bestow on me for a short period the charm of your society." The visitor scowled. His host but smiled the more. "Have anything to eat?" "I'll have something to drink." "You'll find all the ingredients on the sideboard. Help yourself, dear boy." The visitor helped himself. As he stood at the sideboard pouring the liquor out into a glass his host sat watching him with amusement which was wholly unconcealed. The contrast between the two men was striking. It would have forced itself on to the attention of the most casual spectator. The one weak, irritable almost to the point of peevishness; the other strong, unruffled, self-contained. The one with, in his whole bearing, that suggestion of self-assertion which is often but the child of shyness, but which none the less repels; the other with that easy, graceful, seemingly unconscious, personal magnetism which, in spite of oneself, attracts. One could understand how the one might be forgiven till seventy times seven, while the other would be condemned, without benefit of clergy, for his first offence. Lord Archibald Beaupré returned to the easy-chair, armed with a tumbler of whisky and soda. He took a considerable drink. And then he spoke--morosely. "It's the meeting of that cursed club to-night." Mr. Townsend had watched his every movement, particularly seeming to note the quantity he had drunk--and still he smiled. "So it is." The other burst into a torrent of words. "I wish I had never heard of it! I wish I had never had anything to do with it! I wish I had never had anything to do with any one of you! I wish----" His emotions proved too much for him; he prematurely stopped.