neath it and gave to a mouth
and chin, which would otherwise have aroused no criticism, an appearance
of irresolution. The one noticeable difference in Mallinson was the
addition of an air of constraint. It was due partly to a question which
had troubled him since he had received the invitation. Had Drake read _A
Man of Influence_ and recognised himself?

'I got your telegram,' he said at length.

'Naturally, or you wouldn't be here.'

The answer was intended to be jocular; it sounded only _gauche_, as Drake
recognised, and the laugh which accompanied it positively rude.

'Shall I put my coat in the cloak-room?' suggested Mallinson.

'Oh yes, do!' replied Drake. He was inclined to look upon the proposal as
an inspiration, and his tone unfortunately betrayed his thought.

When Mallinson returned, he saw Conway entering the hotel. The latter
looked younger by some years than either of his companions, so that, as
the three men stood together at this moment, they might have been held to
represent three separate decades.

'Twenty minutes late, I'm afraid,' said Conway, and he shook Drake's hand
with a genuine cordiality.

'Five,' said Drake, looking at his watch.

'Twenty,' replied Conway. 'A quarter to, was the time Mallinson
wired me.'

'Was it?' asked Mallinson, with a show of surprise. 'I must have made
a mistake.'

It occurred, however, to Drake that the mistake might have been
purposely made from a prevision of the awkwardness of the meeting. The
dinner, prefaced inauspiciously, failed to remove the awkwardness, since
the reticence under which Drake and Mallinson laboured, gradually spread
and enveloped Conway. A forced conversation of a curiously impersonal
sort dragged from course to course. Absolute strangers would have
exhibited less restraint; for the ghost of an old comradeship made the
fourth at the feast and prated to them in exiguous voice of paths that
had diverged. Drake noticed, besides, an undercurrent of antagonism
between Conway and Mallinson. He inquired what each had been doing
during his absence.

'Mallinson,' interposed Conway, 'has been absorbed in the interesting
study of his own personality.'

'I am not certain that pursuit is not preferable to revolving
unsuccessfully through a cycle of professions,' said Mallinson in
slow sarcasm.

The flush was upon Conway's cheek now. He set his wine glass deliberately
upon the table and leaned forward on an elbow.

'My dear good Sidney,' h