He smiled, talked, laughed and, in his chest, there was a sharp acute pain like a knife. He had still with him that feeling that nothing in life now was worth while and there followed on that a wild impulse to let go, to fling off the restraints that he had retained now for so long and with such bitter determination.

He wanted to cast aside this absurd party, to hurry home alone with Clare, to sit alone with her in the little house and to reach the divine moment when reconciliation came and they were closer to one another than ever before--and then there was the horrible suggestion that there would be no reconciliation, that Clare would make of this absurd quarrel an eternal breach, that things would never be right again.

He looked back and saw Clare smiling gaily, happily, at some friend. He saw her as she had faced him, furiously, an hour earlier ... oh God! If she should never care for him again!

He recognised many friends. There were the two young Galleons, Millicent and Percival, looking as important and mysterious as possible, taxing their brains for something clever to say....

"Ah, that's Life!" Peter heard Percival say to some one. Young fools, he thought to himself, let them have my trouble and then they may talk.

But they were nice to him when he came up to them. The author of "Reuben Hallard," even though he did look like a sailor on leave, was worth respecting--moreover, father liked him and believed in him--nevertheless he was just a tiny bit "last year's sensation." "Have you read," said Percival eagerly, "'The Violet's Redemption'? It really is the most tremendous thing--all about a violet. There's the fellow who wrote it over there--young chap standing with his back to the wall...."

There was also with them young Tony Gale who was a friend of Alice Galleon. He was nice-looking, eager and enthusiastic. Rather too enthusiastic, Peter, who did not like him, considered. Full of the joy of life; everything was "topping" and "ripping." "I can't understand,"

he would say, "why people find life dull. I never find it dull. It's the most wonderful glorious thing--"

"Ah, but then you're so young," he always expected his companions to say; and the thing that pleased him most of all was to hear some one declare--"Tony Gale's such a puzzle--sometimes he seems only eighteen and then suddenly he's fifty."

It was rumoured that he had once been in love with Alice Galleon when she had been Alice du Cane--and that they had nearly made a match of it; but he was certainly now married to a charming girl whom he had seen in Cornwall and the two young things were considered delightful by the whole of Chelsea.

Tony Gale had with him a man called James Maradick whom Peter had met before and liked. Maradick was forty-two or three, large, rather heavy in build and expression and very taciturn. He was in business in the city, but had been drawn, Peter knew not how, into the literary world of London. He was often to be found at dinner parties and evening "squashes" silent, observant and generally alone. Many people thought him dull, but Peter liked him partly because of his reserve and partly because of his enthusiasm for Cornwall. Cornwall seemed to be the only subject that could stir Maradick into excitement, and when Cornwall was under discussion the whole man woke into sudden stir and emotion.

To-night, with his almost cynical observance of the emotions and excitement that surged about him, he seemed to Peter the one man possible in the whole gathering.

"Look here, Maradick, let's get somewhere out of this crush and have a cigarette."

People were all pouring into supper now and Peter saw his wife in the distance, on Bobby Galleon's arm. They found a little conservatory deserted now and strangely quiet after the din of the other rooms: here they sat down.

Maradick was capable of sitting, quite happily for hours, without saying anything at all. For some time they were both silent.

At last Peter said: "By jove, Maradick, yours is a fortunate sort of life--just going into the city every day, coming back to your wife in the evening--no stupid troubles that come from imagining things that aren't there--"

"How do you know I don't?" answered Maradick quietly. "Imagination hasn't anything to do with one's profession. I expect there's as much imagination amongst the Stock Exchange men as there is with you literary people--only it's expressed differently."

"What do you do," said Peter, "if it ever gets too much for you?"

"Do? How do you mean?"

"Well suppose you're feeling all the time that one little thing more, one little word or some one coming in or a window breaking--anything will upset the equilibrium of everything? Supposing you're out with all your might to keep things sane and to prevent your life from swinging back into all the storm and uncertainty that it was in once before, and supposing you feel that there are a whole lot of things trying to get you to swing back, what's the best thing to do?"

"Why, hold on, hold on--"

"How do you mean?"

"Fortitude--Courage. Clinging on with your nails, setting your teeth."

Peter was surprised at the man's earnestness. The two of them sitting there in that lonely deserted little conservatory were instantly aware of some common experience.

Maradick put his hand on Peter's knee.

"Westcott, you're young, but I know the kind of thing you mean. Believe me that it's no silly nonsense to talk of the Devil--the Devil is as real and personal as you and I, and he's got his agents in every sort and kind of place. If he once gets his net out for you then you'll want all your courage. I know," he went on sinking his voice, "there was a time I had once in Cornwall when I was brought pretty close to things of that sort--it doesn't leave you the same afterwards. There's a place down in Cornwall called Treliss...."

"Treliss!" Peter almost shouted. "Why that's where I come from. I was born there--that's my town--"

Before Maradick could reply Bobby Galleon burst into the conservatory.

"Oh, there you are--I've been looking for you everywhere. How are you, Maradick? Look here, Peter, you've got to come down to supper with us.

We've got a table--Alice, Clare, Millicent, Percival, Tony Gale and his wife and you and I--and--one other--an old friend of yours, Peter."

"An old friend?" said Peter, getting up from his chair and trying to look as though he were not furious with Bobby for the interruption.

"Yes--you'll never guess, if I give you a hundred guesses--it's most exciting--come along--"

Peter was led away. As he moved through the dazzling, noisy rooms he was conscious that there, in the quiet, dark little conservatory, Maradick was sitting, motionless, seeing Treliss.

IV

On his way down to the supper room he was filled with annoyance at the thought of his interrupted conversation. He might never have his opportunity again. Maradick was so reserved a fellow and took so few into his confidence--also he would, in all probability, be ashamed to-morrow of having spoken at all.

But to Peter at that moment the world about him was fantastic and unreal. It seemed to him that at certain periods in his life he was suddenly confronted with a fellow creature who perceived life as he perceived it. There were certain persons who could not leave life alone--they must always be seeing it as a key to something wider, bigger altogether. This was nothing to do with Christianity or any creed whatever, because Creeds implied Certainty and Definition of Knowledge, whereas Peter and the others like him did not know for what they were searching. Again, they were not Mystics because Mysticism needed a definite removal from this world before any other world were possible.

No, they were simply Explorers and one traced a member of the order on the instant. There had been already in Peter's life, Frosted Moses, Stephen, Mr. Zanti, Noah Monogue, and now suddenly there was Maradick.

These were people who would not laugh at his terror of Scaw House, at his odd belief that his father was always trying to draw him back to Treliss....

As he entered the supper-room and saw Clare sitting at a distant table, he knew that his wife would never be an Explorer. For her Fires and Walls, for her no questions, no untidiness moral or physical--the Explorer travelled ever with his life in his hands--Clare believed in the Stay-at-homes.

The great dining-room was filled with Stay-at-homes. One saw it in their eyes, in the flutter of useless and tired words that rose and fell; all the souls in that room were cushioned and were happy that it was so. The Rider on the Lion was beyond the Electric Lights--on the dark hill, over the darker river, under the stars. Somebody pulled a cracker and put on a paper cap. He was a stout man with a bald head and the back of his neck rippled with fat. He had tiny eyes.

"Look at Mr. Horset," cried the woman next to him--"Isn't he absurd?"

Peter found at the table in the corner Alice, Clare, Millicent and Percival Galleon, Tony Gale and his wife, waiting. There was also a man standing by Alice's chair and he watched Peter with amused eyes.

He held out his hand and smiled. "How do you do, Westcott?" he said.

Then, with the sound of his voice, the soft almost caressing tilt of it, Peter knew who it was. His mind flew back to a day, years ago, when he had flung himself on the ground and cried his soul out because some one had gone away....

"Cards!" he cried. "Of all wonderful things!"

Cards of Dawson's--Cards, the magnetic, the brilliant, Cards with his World and his Society and now slim and dark and romantic as ever, making every one else in the room shabby beside him, so that Bobby's white waistcoat was instantly seen to be hanging loosely above his shirt and Peter's trousers were short, and even the elegant Percival had scarcely covered with perfect equality the ends of his white tie.

Instantly as though the intervening years had never been, Bobby took his second place beside Cards' glory--even Percival's intention of securing the wonderful Mr. Rondel, author of "The Violet's Redemption," for their table, failed of its effect.

They were enough. They didn't want anybody else--Room for Mr. Cardillac!

And he seized it. Just as he would have seized it years ago at school so he seized it now. Their table was caught into the most dazzling series of adventures. Cards had been everywhere, seen everybody and everything--seen it all, moreover, with the right kind of gaiety, with an appreciation that was intelligent and also humorous. There was humour one moment and pathos the next--deep feeling and the wittiest cynicism.

They were all swung about Europe and with Cards at their head pranced through the cities of the world. Meanwhile Peter fancied that once or twice Clare flung him a little glance of appeal to ask for forgiveness--and once they looked up and smiled at one another. A tiny smile but it meant everything.

"Oh! won't we have a reconciliation afterwards? How could I have said those things? Don't we just love one another?"

When they went upstairs again Peter and Cards exchanged a word:

"You'll come and see us?"