"By virtue of your office; yes." Mr. Pendarvon looked up at Mr. Townsend, only, as it were, by accident and for a moment; then his glance went back again. "It would be a fine night if it were not for the mist which is in the air. One now and then can get peeps at the stars beyond. But this mist gives me a chill." "It's warm enough in here." "Oh, yes, it's sufficiently warm in here." In each man's manner there was something which was distinctly out of the ordinary, and the strangest part of it was that, though each was, as a rule, as keen an observer as one might easily meet, neither seemed to realise that there was anything unusual in the bearing of the other. Mr. Pendarvon was restless, fidgety, fussy, continually on the watch for something to happen, not in the room, but out of it. He was like a person who has an appointment of the first importance, and who is devoured with anxiety lest the individual with whom he has the appointment should fail to keep it. Mr. Townsend's mood, on the other hand, seemed almost transcendental. His physical beauty, uncommon both in type and in degree, seemed to-night to have positively increased. It was almost startling. He seemed, too, to have increased in height. He bore himself with an unconscious grace which displayed his splendid figure to singular advantage. His head was thrown a little back from his shoulders, and in his eyes and in the whole expression of his face there was something which suggested rapturous calm. One felt that, whatever happened, this man's mind would be at ease. He recalled the soldier who, having volunteered for a forlorn hope, advances to meet death, and worse than death, with a smile. It is probably when our soldiers have been in just that mood that they have done the deeds which have seemed to the world to be miracles of valour. It is when one cares for nothing that, sometimes, one can do anything. Each of these men, however, seemed to be so preoccupied in his affairs that he noticed nothing uncommon in the other. Mr. Pendarvon fidgeted about the room. He set the chairs straight, the decanters on the table. He occupied himself with a dozen trifling things which scarcely seemed to stand in need of his attention. Mr. Townsend stood in front of the huge, old-fashioned fireplace paying no sort of heed to the other's fussiness, seeming indeed to be in a condition of mind which, psychologically, approximated to a waking dream. Although he took no notice of the fit of fidgets with which Mr. Pendarvon seemed to be afflicted, his very calmness caused that gentleman to seem still more ill at ease. More than once he seemed to be on the point of saying something and then to stop short as if for want of being able to find something appropriate to say. At last he did hit upon a sufficiently apposite remark. "They're late to-night." The sound of his voice seemed to rouse Mr. Townsend to the fact of Mr. Pendarvon's presence.