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to renew themselves again and again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see him just long enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know generally who and what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and again on the morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar to your thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you may have been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip Bommaney and younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left it together, or Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the very act of leaving or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain family resemblance which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather uncommon name, and the curious frequency of these chance encounters, Barter found it hard to avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance had a rather careful eye upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and he was by no means the man he had been. To the unobservant stranger the frank gaiety of his laugh was as spontaneous as ever, but then that had never had much to do with Barter's inward sensations. Perhaps he got the laugh in some remote fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have had it, and who may have been as dull and as little laughter-loving to look at as his successor was within. Philip rather took to the fellow at first sight, and was slow to suspect him, even when James Hornett had told his story. But the young Barter was not satisfied, as he should have been, with playing the part of one insect at a time. It was unwholesome enough, one might have thought, for him to play fly to Steinberg's spider, and yet he must needs take to playing moth to Philip Bommaney's candle, a light of danger to him, as he recognised almost from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always stopped him for a moment's conversation at their chance encounters. Phil, having been inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young man was responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered whether his new-found acquaintance's way of looking at him were habitual or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter's nerves the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask--Did you steal those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no made but little difference to him. His min
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