d, though, that my artistic perceptions are not so keen as some
men's."

Mr. Fentolin looked at him thoughtfully.

"It is the physical life in your veins--too splendid to permit you
abstract pleasures. Compensations again, you see--compensations. I
wonder what the law is that governs these things. I have forgotten
sometimes," he went on, "forgotten my own infirmities in the soft
intoxication of a wonderful seascape. Only," he went on, his face a
little grey, "it is the physical in life which triumphs. There are the
hungry hours which nothing will satisfy."

His head sank, his chin rested upon his chest. He had all the appearance
now of a man who talks in bitter earnest. Yet Hamel wondered. He looked
towards the Tower; there was no sign of Meekins. The sea-gulls went
screaming above their heads. Mr. Fentolin never moved. His eyes seemed
half closed. It was only when Hamel rose to his feet that he looked
swiftly up.

"Stay with me, I beg you, Mr. Hamel," he said. "I am in one of the moods
when solitude, even for a moment, is dangerous. Do you know what I have
sometimes thought to myself?"

He pointed to the planked way which led down the steep, pebbly beach to
the sea.

"I have sometimes thought," he went on, "that it would be glorious to
find a friend to stand by my side at the top of the planks, just there,
when the tide was high, and to bid him loose my chair and to steer it
myself, to steer it down the narrow path into the arms of the sea. The
first touch of the salt waves, the last touch of life. Why not? One
sleeps without fear."

He lifted his head suddenly. Meekins had appeared, coming round from the
back of the Tower. Instantly Mr. Fentolin's whole manner changed. He sat
up in his chair.

"It is arranged, then," he said. "You dine with us to-night. For the
other matters of which you have spoken, well, let them rest in the hands
of the gods. You are not very kind to me. I am not sure whether you
would make Esther a good husband. I am not sure, even, that I like you.
You take no pains to make yourself agreeable. Considering that your
father was an artist, you seem to me rather a dull and uninspired young
man. But who can tell? There may be things stirring beneath that torpid
brain of yours of which no other person knows save yourself."

The concentrated gaze of Mr. Fentolin's keen eyes was hard to meet, but
Hamel came out of the ordeal without flinching.

"At eight o'clock, Mr. Fentolin," he answered.