ollege gates.

'Gentlemen.' The chairman had risen to his feet. Cigars were lit; and
he was greeted with the usual applause. 'Gentlemen, we have gathered
here at short notice to welcome an old boy of Harvard--Douglas Watson.
He has a message which he wants to deliver to us, and not only because he
is one with us in tradition would we listen, but his empty sleeve is a
mute testimony that he has fought in a cause which--though not our
own--is one which I know has the sympathy of every man in this room. I
shall not detain you, gentlemen, but ask your most attentive hearing for
Mr. Watson.'

As the guest of the evening rose to speak he was greeted with prolonged
applause, which broke into 'For he's a jolly good fellow,' and ended in a
college football yell. During it Selwyn sat motionless, his alert mind
trying to decipher the difference between Watson's face and the others.
It was not only that they were, almost without exception, clean-shaven,
and that Watson wore a small military moustache; the dissimilarity went
beyond that. Although he was obviously nervous, Watson's eyes looked
steadily ahead as those of a man who has faced death and looked on things
that never were intended for human vision. It had left him aged--not
aged as with years, but by an experience which made all the keen-faced
men about him seem clever precocities whose mentalities had outstripped
the growth of their souls.

And studying this phenomenon, Selwyn became conscious of the American
business face.

Although differing in colouring and shape, practically every face showed
lips thin and straight, eyes narrowing and restlessly on the _qui vive_,
the nervous, muscular tension from the battle for supremacy in feverish
competition, the dull, leaden complexion of those who disregard the
sunshine--these combined in a clear impression of extraordinary abilities
and capacities with which to meet the affairs of the day. What one
missed in all their faces was a sense of the centuries.

No--not in all. At the table opposite to Selwyn was Gerard Van Derwater,
whose self-composure and air of formal courtliness made him, as always, a
man of distinctive, almost lonely, personality.

'Thank you very much,' said Watson, as the applause and singing died
away. His fingers pressed nervously on the table, and his first words
were uneven and jerky. 'I needn't tell you I am not a speaker. I have a
great message for you chaps, but I may not be able to exp