“Well met, my dear fellow, glad to see you. I said it would not be long before we ran across each other again. My sister and Gloria are with me. Are you alone? Good, you must join our table. Well, as soon as you have settled about your room, let us celebrate the occasion with a cocktail. Good old _Metropole_, you can’t beat it. I’m not very busy just now, so we’re here for a week. My sister is a bit run down, and the sea breezes will set her up.” What a good-hearted fellow he was, Lydon thought. Gloria had said of him he was one of the kindest and most generous of men. Over their cocktails the young man told him of the tragic happenings at the Villa des Cyclamens. But Stormont had read it in the papers. Of course it was impossible that anything could be kept quiet in the case of a man of Hugh Craig’s position. “A very mysterious affair, and I suppose nobody will ever know the rights of it,” he remarked when Leonard had communicated all the details he knew, which, as we know, were somewhat meagre. “Well, I cannot say I ever took very kindly to your poor friend, for the reason probably that he took very little pains to conceal his dislike of me. But it is a terrible ending to a promising career. I suppose, in the course of time, he would have ended up as an ambassador. The Clandon family have a knack of falling into soft jobs. Now, you won’t see the womenfolk before dinner, as they are in their rooms, and I shan’t mention I have met you. When you walk up to our table it will be a pleasant surprise for them. We all took a great fancy to you at Nice.” The young man had no reason to complain of his welcome at the hands of the two ladies when he met them at dinner. Mrs. Barnard told him it was a most agreeable surprise, and although Gloria did not make flattering speeches, she flushed prettily and her eyes looked very bright when she shook hands with him. They spent a very delightful evening together. Early the next morning Stormont expressed his intention of taking his sister a long motor drive, with a view of getting as much fresh air as possible; they would be back to luncheon. “You two young people can do what you like with yourselves,” he said gaily. Certainly, he was a most complaisant person. Lydon was rather surprised that he should throw them into each other’s society like this. Surely he must have ambitious views for his niece’s future. And he could not help wondering what it was his friend Hugh had seen in the man which made him dislike him so intensely. Little vulgarisms in speech and manner peeped out now and again, but surely those were not enough to account for such a fierce aversion, more especially as Craig, in spite of his aristocratic lineage, was rather a democratic sort of fellow at heart, and a thorough cosmopolitan.