Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody's suspicions by hurrying, so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway--and probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a coincidence utterly unfathomable. Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his attention. And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang and he had to go up and open. At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it; and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting nervously the next second. "Come in," said Quarren, pleasantly. "It's very nice of you to think of me, Ledwith." The man's hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them. Inside his loose summer clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of the gallery. For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases, meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things; then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct, the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring into space and twitching his scarred fingers. "You're busy, I suppose," he said. "Yes, I am," said Quarren, frankly. "But that needn't make any difference if you'd care to come to the basement and talk to me while I'm at work." Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly: "You're _always_ kind to me, Quarren." "Get over that idea," laughed the younger man. "Strange as it may seem my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs." In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work, explaining it as it progressed: "Here's an old picture by some Italian gink--impossible to tell by whom it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and school.... See what I'm doing, Ledwith? "That's what we call 'rabbit glue' because it's made out of rabbits' bones--or that's the belief, anyway. It's gilder's glue.