e
compliment was intended for him.

'Or your friends,' went on the heavy resonant voice, 'one has the face
of a dreamer. Come, sir, tell me of these dreams that are keeping you
awake of nights. I am descended from Joseph by the line of
Charlemagne, and I have it in my power to interpret them. Are you a
writer?'

'I am,' said Selwyn calmly.

'You are not English. You haven't the leathery composure of our race.'

'I am an American.'

'I thought as much. You show the smug complacency of your nation. How
dare you write, sir? What do you know of life?'

'We have learned something on that subject,' said Selwyn with a slight
smile, 'even over there. You see, we have the mistakes of your older
countries by which we can profit.'

'Bah!' said the other contemptuously. 'Cant--platitudes--words! Since
when have either nations or individuals learned from the mistakes of
others? Take you three. Which of you lies closest to life? Which of
you has drunk experience to the dregs? The dauber?--You,
author-dreamer, fired by the passion of a robin for a cherry?--No,
neither of you. . . . That boy there--that youngster with the blue
eyes of a girl; he is the one to teach--not you. He has the stamp of
failure on him. Welcome, sir--the Prince of Failures welcomes you to
Archibald's.'

He lurched forward and extended an unsteady hand to Dick Durwent, who
rose slowly from his chair to take it. As Selwyn watched the two men
standing with clasped hands over the table, he felt his heart-strings
contract with pain.

Although separated by more than thirty years, there was a cruel
similarity in the pair--in the half-bravado, half-timorous poise of the
head; in the droop of sensuous lips; in the dark hair of each, matted
over pallid foreheads. It was as if De Foe had summoned some black art
to show the future held in the lap of the gods for the youngest Durwent.

'My boy,' said De Foe drunkenly, but with a moving tenderness, 'life
has refused me much, but it has left me the power to read a man's soul
in his eyes. The world brands you as a beaten man--and by men's
standards it is right. But Laurence De Foe can read beyond those
sea-blue eyes of yours; he it is who knows that behind them lies the
gallant soul of a gallant gentleman. End your days in a gutter or on
the gibbet--what matters it where the actor sleeps when the drama is
done?--but to-night you have done great honour to the Prince of
Failures by letting him