"My dear fellow, I expect I talked a good deal of trash last year,
after all"--a statement which the other did not find it worth while
to deny.

They had resumed their places at the table, and Lightmark, with a
half-sheet of note-paper before him, was dashing off profiles. They
were all the same--the head of a girl: a childish face with a
straight, small nose, and rough hair gathered up high above her head
in a plain knot. Rainham, leaning over, watched him with an amused
smile.

"The current infatuation, Dick, or the last but one?"

"No," he said; "only a girl I know. Awfully pretty, isn't she?"

Rainham, who was a little short-sighted, took up the paper
carelessly. He dropped it after a minute with a slight start.

"I think I know her," he said. "You have a knack of catching faces.
Is it Miss Sylvester?"

"Yes; it is Eve Sylvester," said Lightmark. "Do you know them? I see
a good deal of them now."

"I have known them a good many years," said Rainham.

"They have never spoken of you to me," said Lightmark.

"No? I dare say not. Why should they?" He was silent for a moment,
looking thoughtfully at his ring. Then he said abruptly: "I think I
know now who your friend the barrister is, Dick. I recognise the
style. It is Charles Sylvester, is it not?"

"You are a wizard," answered the other, laughing. "Yes, it is." Then
he asked: "Don't you think she is awfully pretty?"

"Miss Sylvester?... Very likely; she was a very pretty child. You
know, she had not come out last year. Are you going?"

Lightmark had pulled out his watch absently, and he leapt up as he
discovered the lateness of the hour.

"Heavens, yes! I am dining out, and I shall barely have time to
dress. I will fetch my traps to-morrow; then we might dine together
afterwards."

"As you like," said the elder man. "I have no engagements yet."

Lightmark left him with a genial nod, and a moment later Rainham saw
him through the window passing with long impetuous strides across
the bridge. Then he returned to his desk, and wrote a letter or two
until the light failed, when he pushed his chair back, and sat, pen
in hand, looking meditatively, vaguely, at the antiquated maps upon
the walls.

Presently his eye fell on Lightmark's derelict paper, with its
scribble of a girl's head. He considered it thoughtfully for some
time, starting a little, and covering it with his blotting-paper,
when Mrs. Bullen, his housekeeper, entered with a cup of tea--a