The expression Reuben S. Vanderpoel wore made it an agreeable thing to talk--to go on. He evidently cared to hear. So Selden did his best, and enjoyed himself in doing it. His style made for realism and brought things clearly before one. The big-built man in the rough and shabby shooting clothes, his way when he dropped into the grass to sit beside the stranger and talk, certain meanings in his words which conveyed to Vanderpoel what had not been conveyed to G. Selden. Yes, the man carried a heaviness about with him and hated the burden. Selden quite unconsciously brought him out strongly. “I don't know whether I'm the kind of fellow who is always making breaks,” he said, with his boy's laugh again, “but if I am, I never made a worse one than when I asked him straight if he was out of a job, and on the tramp. It showed what a nice fellow he was that he didn't get hot about it. Some fellows would. He only laughed--sort of short--and said his job had been more than he could handle, and he was afraid he was down and out.” Mr. Vanderpoel was conscious that so far he was somewhat attracted by this central figure. G. Selden was also proving satisfactory in the matter of revealing his excellently simple views of persons and things. “The only time he got mad was when I wouldn't believe him when he told me who he was. I was a bit hot in the collar myself. I'd felt sorry for him, because I thought he was a chap like myself, and he was up against it. I know what that is, and I'd wanted to jolly him along a bit. When he said his name was Mount Dunstan, and the place belonged to him, I guessed he thought he was making a joke. So I got on my wheel and started off, and then he got mad for keeps. He said he wasn't such a damned fool as he looked, and what he'd said was true, and I could go and be hanged.” Reuben S. Vanderpoel laughed. He liked that. It sounded like decent British hot temper, which he had often found accompanied honest British decencies. He liked other things, as the story proceeded. The picture of the huge house with the shut windows, made him slightly restless. The concealed imagination, combined with the financier's resentment of dormant interests, disturbed him. That which had attracted Selden in the Reverend Lewis Penzance strongly attracted himself. Also, a man was a good deal to be judged by his friends. The man who lived alone in the midst of stately desolateness and held as his chief intimate a high-bred and gentle-minded scholar of ripe years, gave, in doing this, certain evidence which did not tell against him. The whole situation meant something a splendid, vivid-minded young creature might be moved by--might be allured by, even despite herself. There was something fantastic in the odd linking of incidents--Selden's chance view of Betty as she rode by, his next day's sudden resolve to turn back and go to Stornham, his accident, all that followed seemed, if one were fanciful--part of a scheme prearranged