lity which embarrassed the beholder. All
men had liked him, and spoken well of him throughout his long and
hard-worked career. Thorpe was very fond of him indeed, and put a
respectful cordiality into his grasp of the proffered hand. Then he
looked, with a certain thinly-veiled bluntness of enquiry, past the
Marquis to his companion.

"You were very kind to give me the appointment," said Lord Chaldon, with
a little purring gloss of affability upon the earnestness of his tone.
"I wish very much to introduce to you my friend, my old friend I may
say, Monsieur Alexandre Fromentin. We slept together under the same
tent, in the Persian country beyond Bagdad--oh, it must have been quite
forty years ago. We were youngsters looking to win our first spurs
then--I in my line, he in his. And often since we have renewed that old
friendship--at many different places--India, and Constantinople, and
Egypt. I wish heartily to commend him to your--your kindness."

Thorpe had perfunctorily shaken hands with the stranger--a tall,
slender, sharp-faced, clean-shaven, narrow-shouldered man, who by these
accounts of his years ought not to have such excessively black hair. He
bowed in a foreign fashion, and uttered some words which Thorpe, though
he recognized them as English in intent, failed to follow. The voice
was that of an elderly man, and at a second glance there were plenty
of proofs that he might have been older than the Marquis, out there in
Persia, forty years ago. But Thorpe did not like old men who dyed their
hair, and he offered his visitors chairs, drawn up from the table toward
his desk, with a certain reserve of manner. Seating himself in the
revolving chair at the desk itself, he put the tips of his fingers
together, and looked this gentleman with the Continental name and
experience in the face.

"Is there something you wish me to do?" he asked, passively facilitating
the opening of conversation.

"Ah, my God! 'Something'!"--repeated the other, with a fluttering
gesture of his hands over his thin, pointed knees--"everything, Mr.
Thorpe!"

"That's a tolerably large order, isn't it?" Thorpe asked, calmly, moving
a slow, inscrutable glance from one to the other of his callers.

"I could ask for nothing that would be a greater personal favour--and
kindness"--Lord Chaldon interposed. His tone bore the stress of
sincerity.

"That means a great deal to me, as you know, my Lord," replied Thorpe,
"but I don't in the least unde