"Yes; I have been. I'm ill, all right.... Will you have a seat for a few minutes--unless you are going somewhere in particular--or don't care to talk to me----" "Thank you." Quarren seated himself. It was his instinct to be gentle--even with such a man. "I haven't seen much of you, for a couple of years--I haven't seen much of anybody," said Ledwith, turning the pages of his book without looking at them. Then, furtively, his sunken eyes rested a moment on Quarren: "You are stopping with----" "The Wycherlys." "Oh, yes.... I haven't seen them lately.... They are neighbours"--he waved his sickly coloured hand--"but I'm rather quiet--I read a good deal--as you see."--He moistened his bluish lips every few moments, and his nose seemed to annoy him, too, for he rubbed it continually. "It's a pretty country," said Quarren. "Yes--I thought so once. I built that house.... There's no use in my keeping up social duties," he said with another slinking glance at Quarren. "So I'm giving up the house." "Really." "Hasn't--you have heard so, haven't you?" He kept twitching his shoulders and shifting his place continually, and his fingers were never still, always at the leaves of his book or rubbing his face which seemed to itch; or he snapped them nervously and continuously as he jerked about in his seat. "I suppose," he said slyly, "people talk about me, Quarren." "Do you know anybody immune to gossip?" inquired Quarren, smiling. "No; that's true. But I don't care anything for people.... I read, I have my horses and dogs--but I'm going to move away. I told you that, didn't I?" "I believe you did." Ledwith stared at his book with lack-lustre eyes, then, almost imperceptibly shifted his gaze craftily askance: "There's no use pretending to _you_, Quarren; is there?" Quarren said nothing. "You know all the gossip--all the dirty little faits divers of your world. And you're a sort of doctor and confidential----" "You're mistaken, Ledwith," he said pleasantly. "I'm done with it." "How do you mean?" "Why, that I've gone into a better business and I'm too busy to be useful and amusing any longer." Ledwith's dead eyes stared: "I heard you had dropped out--were never seen about. Is that true?" "Yes." "Found the game too rotten?" "Oh, no. It's no different from any other game--a mixture of the same old good and bad, with good predominating. But there's more to be had out of life in other games." "Yours is slipping phony pictures to the public, with Dankmere working as side partner, isn't it?" Quarren said pleasantly: "If you're serious, Ledwith, you're a liar." After a silence Ledwith said: "Do you think there's enough left of me to care what anybody calls me?" Quarren turned: "I beg your pardon, Ledwith; I had no business to make you such an answer." "Never mind.... In that last year--when I still knew people--and when they still knew me--you were very kind to me, Quarren." "Why not? You were always decent to me."