and musical comedy.

On the present occasion the remark was especially unpleasant because
Craven had made it in so odd a manner. During the last few weeks it
had been very generally noticed that Craven had not been himself--so
pleasant and healthy a fellow he had always been, but now this Carfax
business was too much for him. "Look out for young Craven" had been the
general warning, implied if not expressed. Persons who threatened to be
unusual were always marked down in Cambridge.

And now Craven _had_ been unusual--"Where's Carfax?" . . . What a
dreadful thing to say and how tactless! The note, moreover, in Craven's
voice sounded a danger. There was something in the air as though the
fellow might, at any moment, burst into tears, fire a pistol into the
air, or jump out of the window! So unpleasant, and Carfax was much more
real, even now, than an abstract rabbit.

"Dear boy," said Cardillac, easily, "Carfax is dead. We all miss him--it
was a beastly, horrible affair, but there's no point in dwelling on
things; one only gets morbid, and morbidity isn't what we're here for."

"It's all very well," Craven was angrily muttering, "but it's scandalous
the way you forget a man. Here he was, amongst the whole lot of you,
only a month or so ago and he was a friend of every one's. And then some
brute kills him--he's done for--and you don't care a damn . . . it's
beastly--it makes one sick."

"Where do _you_ think he is, Craven?" Olva asked quietly from his
shadowy corner.

Craven flung up his head. "Perhaps _you_ can tell us," he cried. There
was such hostility in his voice that the whole room was startled. Poor
Craven! He really was very unwell. The sight of his tired eyes and white
cheeks, the shadow of his hand quivering on his knee--here were
signs that all was not as it should be. Gone, now, at any rate, any
possibility of a comfortable evening. Craven said no more but still sat
there with his head banging, his only movement the shaking of his hand.

Cardillac tried to bring ease back again, Williamson once more started
his rabbits, but now there was danger in that direction. Conversation
fell, heavily, helplessly, to the ground. Some man got up to go and some
one else followed him. It was the wrong moment for departure for they
had drunk enough to make it desirable to drink more, but to escape from
that white face of Craven's was the thing--out into the air.

At last Craven himself got up. "I must be off," he sai