lared.

"It has been an effort to me to come," Stephen admitted. "But I had it
in my mind, John, that we parted bad friends. I have come to see how
things are with you."

"Well enough," John answered evasively. "Sit down."

Stephen held his brother away from him, gripping his shoulders with both
hands. He looked steadily into his face.

"Well enough you may be, John," he said, "but your looks tell a
different story. There's a look in your eyes already that they all get
here, sooner or later."

"Nonsense!" John protested cheerfully. "No one pretends that the life
here is quite as healthy as ours, physically, but that isn't everything.
I am a little tired to-day, perhaps. One spends one's time differently
up here, you know, and there's a little more call upon the brain, a
little less upon the muscles."

"Give me an example," Stephen suggested. "What were you doing last
night, for instance?"

John rang the bell for some tea, took his brother's hat and stick from
his hand, and installed him in an easy chair.

"I went to a political meeting down in the East End," he replied. "One
of the things I am trying to take a little more interest in up here is
politics."

"No harm in that, anyway," Stephen admitted. "That all?"

"The meeting was over about eleven," John continued. "After that I came
up here, changed my clothes, and went to a dance."

"At that time of night?"

John laughed.

"Why, nothing of that sort ever begins until eleven o'clock," he
explained. "I stayed there for about an hour or so, and afterward I
went round to a club I belong to, with the Prince of Seyre and some
other men. They played bridge, and I watched."

"So that's one of your evenings, is it?" Stephen remarked. "No great
harm in such doings--nor much good, that I can see. With the Prince of
Seyre, eh?"

"I see him occasionally."

"He is one of your friends now?"

"I suppose so," John admitted, frowning. "Sometimes I think he is,
sometimes I am not so sure. At any rate, he has been very kind to me."

"He is by way of being a friend of the young woman herself, isn't he?"
Stephen asked bluntly.

"He has been a friend of Miss Maurel since she first went on the stage,"
John replied. "It is no doubt for her sake that he has been so kind to
me."

"And how's the courting getting on?" Stephen demanded, his steely eyes
suddenly intent.

"None too well," John confessed.

"Are you still in earnest about it?"

"Absolutely! More than e