“His face reminds one of a sunny graveyard,” a witty Frenchwoman had once said of a man named Paul Deulin. And it is probable that Deulin alone could have understood what she meant. Those who think in French have a trick of putting great thoughts into a little compass, and, as the hollow ball of talk is tossing to and fro, it sometimes rings for a moment in a deeper note than many ears are tuned to catch. The careless word seized the attention of one man who happened to hear it--Reginald Cartoner, a listener, not a talker--and made that man Paul Deulin's friend for the rest of his life. As there is _point de culte sans mystere_, so also there can be no lasting friendship without reserve. And although these two men had met in many parts of the world--although they had in common more languages than may be counted on the fingers--they knew but little of each other. If one thinks of it, a sunny graveyard, bright with flowers and the gay green of spring foliage, is the shallowest fraud on earth, endeavoring to conceal beneath a specious exterior a thousand tragedies, a whole harvest of lost illusions, a host of grim human comedies. On the other hand, this is a pious fraud; for half the world is young, and will discover the roots of the flowers soon enough. Cartoner had met Deulin in many strange places. Together they had witnessed queer events. Accredited to a new president of a new republic, they once had made their bow, clad in court dress, and official dignity, to the man whom they were destined to see a month later hanging on his own flagstaff, out over the plaza, from the spare-bedroom window of the new presidency. They had acted in concert; they had acted in direct opposition. Cartoner had once had to tell Deulin that if he persisted in his present course of action the government which he (Cartoner) represented would not be able to look upon it with indifference, which is the language of diplomacy, and means war. For these men were the vultures of their respective Foreign Offices, and it was their business to be found where the carcass is. “The chief difference between the gods and men is that man can only be in one place at a time,” Deulin had once said to Cartoner, twenty years his junior, in his light, philosophic way, when a turn of the wheel had rendered a long journey futile, and they found themselves far from that place where their services were urgently needed. “If men could be in two places at the same moment, say once only during a lifetime, their lives would be very different from what they are.” Cartoner had glanced quickly at him when he spoke, but only saw a ready, imperturbable smile.