ad exhausted him, and he was glad to hurry through his
letters and get into bed. Once there he found himself too tired even for
the routine of reading the evening paper; and, while he tried to make up
his mind to stretch up a hand to the switch, he dropped asleep,
clutching the _Westminster Gazette_ and with the light blazing on to his
face.

So he found himself five minutes later when the telephone-bell rang. The
voice of a child, eager for praise, said:

"I'm in bed, Eric. And the light's out. And I'm going to sleep in one
moment."

"I was actually asleep," he answered.

"My _dear_! And I woke you up? I _am_ sorry. Go to sleep again at
_once_! Good-night!"

But the sudden shock of the bell had made his nerves restless. He had,
after all, to read the evening paper and two chapters of a novel before
he felt sleepy enough to turn out the light and compose himself.

Contrition, whim or pressure of other business kept Barbara out of his
life the next morning. He read his letters unmolested, dictated to his
secretary undisturbed and worked until mid-day uninterrupted. Then, as
it was his practice to walk for half-an-hour before luncheon, he
abandoned his own pretence that he was away from London and strolled
along Piccadilly into the Green Park before making for the Thespian Club
in Grosvenor Place. At Devonshire House he caught himself pausing to
glance down Berkeley Street. . . .

At the club, Manders was lunching with a square-faced law lord and a
doctor with humorous, shrewd eyes, who called upon Eric to join them.

"We never see anything of you nowadays," complained Dr. Gaisford.

"I don't have time to get as far away as this for lunch every day,"
Eric answered, as he pulled a chair in to the table. "You're cutting
your vacation short, aren't you, Lord Ettrick?"

"Oh, I had three weeks' fishing in Scotland," the law lord answered.
"Ever since I came back, I've been thinking that, if I had my life over
again and could choose my own career, on my soul! I'd be a gillie.
They're a great breed, and it's a great life."

Manders looked reflectively at the powerful, lined face, tanned yellow
over a normally unwholesome white.

"I'd 'a gone into the Navy," he said. "My idea of a holiday is to get
into old clothes and moon about the Docks or Portsmouth--anywhere with
salt and tar about, you know."

"And what would our young friend do?" asked Dr. Gaisford.

Eric blushed to find three pairs of eyes on him. He thou