He eyed Lovegood cynically until he halted; and, seeing that he would have to speak, he said: “You asked to see me, Mr. Lovegood.” Lovegood put his heels together and bowed. Pangbutt had to speak again. “Can I do anything for you?” he asked. Eustace Lovegood strode up to him, put his strong hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the face: “Nothing,” he said in his deep bass--“nothing ... except to remember that we were once friends.” Pangbutt, in spite of a biting desire to play the swaggering lord, at once took the defensive. This man made him feel diffident even on his own elaborate carpet. “Why do you choose to remind me of that to-night?” he asked sullenly, trying to assert himself. Eustace took his hand from his shoulder, and fixed his gloomy eyes upon him: “As I stood in the shadows of your hall just now,” said he slowly, “Anthony Baddlesmere passed out.” Pangbutt uttered a light cynical laugh: “What?” said he--“without nodding to you?” Lovegood’s great brows met in a black frown: “His eyes were on a broken career.... But I saw that he had not yet become a good beggar.” A sneer curled the bearded lips of the other: “And you?” he asked flippantly. “I am better practised.... I have come to beg for him.” Pangbutt’s lips curled into a deeper contempt: “Yes,” said he--“you were always a good borrower, Eustace Lovegood.” “I have not grown rich upon it.” “So I see.” Lovegood smiled grimly: “Do I owe you anything?” he asked. Pangbutt hesitated: “N-no,” he said; “I am bound to confess--not for yourself.” “Perhaps your confession involves by implication that there may be virtue even in borrowing--for those in need!” “I cannot deny it.” “Then I have grown virtuous--I have come to borrow.... Nay, man--to ask you to pay back.... Anthony Baddlesmere--did he want help?” “He did not ask for help,” said the painter lamely. The eyes of the great tragic man before him saw into the nakedness of his very conceit; and Paul Pangbutt realized that his chief weapon, his cold pride of egoism, was useless against the truth-seeking eyes of Eustace Lovegood--was without awe to him. He recoiled under the calm eyes of this big gentle fellow as he spoke: “Paul--you never could see the soul in a man.... You could only value what part of him could be bought in shops, or whittled into shapes in the academies. The man who was here to-night is almost destitute. Anthony and Caroline Baddlesmere--who were the Bountifuls to all of us in Paris--destitute!” “I am not the cause of it,” Pangbutt answered sullenly. An ugly frown came over the big man’s eyes: “No, but he helped you to this.” He swept his hand round the room slowly. “He gave you a footing at the Embassy in Paris.... I need not go into details.... The rest is here. And you could let him leave your house ashamed to ask for help!” Pangbutt made an effort to take the domineering careless attitude; but he realized that his play-acting was worse than lost on this man’s grim regard.