tless opinions of men and things, the simplest,
most innocent of characters.

"Time to light up," said Olva. The room had grown very dark.

"I must be going."

Olva noticed at once that there was a new note in Craven's voice. The
boy moved, restlessly, about the room.

"I say," he brought out at last, laughing nervously, "don't go asleep
when I'm in the room again. It gives one fits."

Both men were conscious of some subtle, vague impression moving in the
darkness between them.

Olva answered gravely, "I've been sticking in at an old paper I've been
working on--no use to anybody, and I've been neglecting my proper work
for it, but it's absorbed me. That's what's given me such bad nights, I
expect."

"I shouldn't have thought," Craven answered slowly, "that anything ever
upset you; I shouldn't have thought you had any nerves. And, in any
case, I didn't know you had thought twice about the Carfax business."

Olva turned on the electric light. At the same moment there was a loud
knock on the door.

Craven opened it, showing in the doorway a pale and flustered Bunning.
Craven looked at him with a surprised stare, and then, calling out
good-bye to Olva, walked off.

Bunning stood hesitating, his great spectacles shining owl-like in the
light.

Dune didn't want him. He was, he reflected as he looked at him, the
very last person whom he did want. And then Bunning had most irritating
habits. There was that trick of his of pushing up his spectacles
nervously higher on to his nose. He bad a silly shrill laugh, and he
had that lack of tact that made him, when you had given him a shilling's
worth of conversation and confidence, suppose that you had given him
half-a-crown's worth and expect that you would very shortly give him
five shillings' worth. He presumed on nothing at all, was confidential
when he ought to have been silent, and gushing when he should simply
have thanked you with a smile. Nothing, moreover, to look at. He had the
kind of complexion that looks as though it would break into spots at the
earliest opportunity. His clothes fitted him badly and were dusty at the
knees; his hair was of no colour nor strength whatever, and he bit his
nails. His eyes behind his spectacles were watery and restless, and
his linen always looked as though it had been quite clean yesterday and
would be quite filthy to-morrow.

And yet Olva, as he looked at him seated awkwardly in a chair, was
surprisingly, unexpectedly touch