personality," said Edward, smiling good-naturedly.
"Perhaps you'll see what I mean to-night."

"I'm not going to dine with him if that's what you mean. Nothing would
induce me to set foot within that man's house."

"Come to oblige me, Bateman. We've been friends for so many years, you
won't refuse me a favour when I ask it."

Edward's tone had in it a quality new to Bateman. Its gentleness was
singularly persuasive.

"If you put it like that, Edward, I'm bound to come," he smiled.

Bateman reflected, moreover, that it would be as well to learn what he
could about Arnold Jackson. It was plain that he had a great ascendency
over Edward, and if it was to be combated it was necessary to discover
in what exactly it consisted. The more he talked with Edward the more
conscious he became that a change had taken place in him. He had an
instinct that it behooved him to walk warily, and he made up his mind
not to broach the real purport of his visit till he saw his way more
clearly. He began to talk of one thing and another, of his journey and
what he had achieved by it, of politics in Chicago, of this common
friend and that, of their days together at college.

At last Edward said he must get back to his work and proposed that he
should fetch Bateman at five so that they could drive out together to
Arnold Jackson's house.

"By the way, I rather thought you'd be living at this hotel," said
Bateman, as he strolled out of the garden with Edward. "I understand
it's the only decent one here."

"Not I," laughed Edward. "It's a deal too grand for me. I rent a room
just outside the town. It's cheap and clean."

"If I remember right those weren't the points that seemed most important
to you when you lived in Chicago."

"Chicago!"

"I don't know what you mean by that, Edward. It's the greatest city in
the world."

"I know," said Edward.

Bateman glanced at him quickly, but his face was inscrutable.

"When are you coming back to it?"

"I often wonder," smiled Edward.

This answer, and the manner of it, staggered Bateman, but before he
could ask for an explanation Edward waved to a half-caste who was
driving a passing motor.

"Give us a ride down, Charlie," he said.

He nodded to Bateman, and ran after the machine that had pulled up a few
yards in front. Bateman was left to piece together a mass of perplexing
impressions.

Edward called for him in a rickety trap drawn by an old mare, and they
drove along a road that