an
I expect the leopard to change his saucy spots."

Hay laughed, and, during the meal, explained his position. "On leaving
school I was adopted by a rich uncle," he said. "When he went the way of
all flesh he left me a thousand a year, which is enough to live on with
strict economy. I have rooms in Alexander Street, Camden Hill, a circle
of friends, and a good appetite, as you will perceive. With these I get
through life very comfortably."

"Ha!" said Paul, darting a keen glance at his visitor, "you have the
strong digestion necessary to happiness. Have you the hard heart also?
If I remember at school--"

"Oh, hang school!" said Grexon, flushing all over his cold face. "I
never think of school. I was glad when I got away from it. But we were
great friends at school, Paul."

"Something after the style of Steerforth and David Copperfield," was
Paul's reply as he pushed back his plate; "you were my hero, and I was
your slave. But the other boys--" He looked again.

"They hated me, because they did not understand me, as you did."

"If that is so, Grexon, why did you let me slip out of your life? It is
ten years since we parted. I was fifteen and you twenty."

"Which now makes us twenty-five and thirty respectively," said Hay,
dryly; "you left school before I did."

"Yes; I had scarlet fever, and was taken home to be nursed. I never went
back, and since then I have never met an old Torrington boy--"

"Have you not?" asked Hay, eagerly.

"No. My parents took me abroad, and I sampled a German university. I
returned to idle about my father's place, till I grew sick of doing
nothing, and, having ambitions, I came to try my luck in town." He
looked round and laughed. "You see my luck."

"Well," said Hay, lighting a dainty cigarette produced from a gold case,
"my uncle, who died, sent me to Oxford and then I travelled. I am now on
my own, as I told you, and haven't a relative in the world."

"Why don't you marry?" asked Paul, with a flush.

Hay, wary man-about-town as he was, noted the flush, and guessed its
cause. He could put two and two together as well as most people.

"I might ask you the same question," said he.

The two friends looked at one another, and each thought of the
difference in his companion since the old school-days. Hay was
clean-shaven, fair-haired, and calm, almost icy, in manner. His eyes
were blue and cold. No one could tell what was passing in his mind from
the expression of his face. As