And, parasite always, he is displayed here because of the part he is destined to take in the drama of Gilbert Lothian's life. "I've been seeing a good deal of Toftrees lately, Gilbert," Ingworth said with a side glance. Lothian looked up from his reverie. "What? Oh, yes!--the Toftrees. Nice chap, Toftrees, I thought, when I met him the other night. Awfully clever, don't you think, to get hold of such an enormous public? Mind you, Dicker, I wouldn't give one of his books to any one if I could help it. But that's because I want every one to care for real literature. That's my own personal standpoint. Apart from that, I do think that Mr. and Mrs. Toftrees deserve all they get in the way of money and popularity and so on. There must be such people under the modern conditions, and apart from their work they both seem most interesting." This took the wind from the young man's sails. He was sensitive enough to perceive--though not to appreciate--the largeness of such an attitude as this. He felt baffled and rather small. Then, something that had been instilled into him by his new and influential friends not only provided an antidote to his momentary discomfiture but became personal to himself. A sense of envy, almost of hate, towards this man who had been so consistently kind to him, bloomed like some poisonous and swift-growing fungus in his unstable mind. "I say," he said maliciously, though there was fear in his voice, too, "Herbert Toftrees has got his knife into you, Gilbert." Lothian looked at the young man in surprise. "Got his _knife into me_?" he said, genuinely perplexed. "Well, yes. He's going about town saying all sorts of unpleasant things about you." Lothian laughed. "Yes!" he said, "I remember! Miss Wallace told me so not long ago. How intensely amusing!" Ingworth hated him at the moment. There was a disgusting sense of impotence and smallness, in that he could not sting Lothian. "Toftrees is a very influential man in London," he said sententiously. At that moment all the humour in Lothian awoke. He leant back and laughed aloud. "Oh, Dicker!" he said, "what a babe you are!" Ingworth grew red. He was furious, but dared say nothing more. He felt as if he had been trying to bore a tunnel through the Alps with a boiled carrot and had wasted a franc in paying some one to hold his shadow while he made the attempt! Lothian's laughter was perfectly genuine. He cared absolutely nothing what Toftrees said or thought about him. But he did care about the young man at his side. . . . The other Self, the new Ego, suddenly became awake and dominant. Suspicion reared its head. For days and days now he had drunk hardly anything. The anti-alcoholic medicines that Morton Sims had administered were gradually strengthening the enfeebled will and bringing back the real tenant of his soul. But now . . . Here was one whom he had thought his friend. It was not so then! An enemy sat by his side?--he would soon discover.