treet, that quarter, had been bound up in his life. He had
not, forty years ago, been the famous painter, honoured, decorated, taken
by the arm by monarchs; he had been a student, wild and raw as any, with
that tranquil and urbane philosophy that had made his success still in
abeyance within him. As his eyes had rested on the doorknocker next to
the restaurant a smile had crossed his face. How had _that_ door-knocker
come to be left by the old crowd that had wrenched off so many others? By
what accident had _that_ survived, to bring back all the old life now so
oddly? He stood, again smiling, his hands folded on his stick. A Crown
Prince had given him that stick, and had had it engraved, "To my Friend,
Romarin."

"You oughtn't to be here, you know," he said to the door-knocker. "If I
didn't get you, Marsden ought to have done so...."

It was Marsden whom Romarin had come to meet--Marsden, of whom he had
thought with such odd persistency lately. Marsden was the only man in the
world between whom and himself lay as much as the shadow of an enmity;
and even that faint shadow was now passing. One does not guard, for forty
years, animosities that take their rise in quick outbreaks of the young
blood; and, now that Romarin came to think of it, he hadn't really hated
Marsden for more than a few months. It had been within those very doors
(Romarin was passing the restaurant again) that there had been that quick
blow, about a girl, and the tables had been pushed hastily back, and he
and Marsden had fought, while the other fellows had kept the waiters
away.... And Romarin was now sixty-four, and Marsden must be a year
older, and the girl--who knew?--probably dead long ago ... Yes, time
heals these things, thank God; and Romarin had felt a genuine flush of
pleasure when Marsden had accepted his invitation to dinner.

But--Romarin looked at his watch again--it was rather like Marsden to be
late. Marsden had always been like that--had come and gone pretty much as
he had pleased, regardless of inconvenience to others. But, doubtless, he
had had to walk. If all reports were true, Marsden had not made very much
of his life in the way of worldly success, and Romarin, sorry to hear it,
had wished he could give him a leg-up. Even a good man cannot do much
when the current of his life sets against him in a tide of persistent
ill-luck, and Romarin, honoured and successful, yet knew that he had been
one of the lucky ones....

But it was j