ere's only beef sandwiches and fruit and a little cake. Would you like
me to make you some coffee?"

Eben raised his hand with a gesture of refusal. "No, indeed, I am more
than satisfied--unless you want it yourself."

But she shook her head, "It would keep me awake. I haven't been sleeping
well of late." This announcement of insomnia--twin sister to a troubled
conscience, he thought--was a somewhat bold skirting of admission, but
his words were reassuring.

"The Madeira is well timed then. A glass before bedtime should be
soothing." Still standing, he bit into one of the beef sandwiches, and
observed with an approach to the whimsy of gayety: "I've never been
quite clear in my own mind as to what was meant by the stalled ox of
scriptural fame and I've always subscribed to the text 'better a dinner
of herbs where love is'--but I'm bound to say, it's very gratifying to
have the stalled ox and the love as well."

For Farquaharson his air of celebration held an irony which accentuated
his own exclusion and made participation difficult. He was the exile at
the feast.

Eben who, alone of the three, had not seated himself wandered about with
the restless volubility of a peripatetic philosopher, though his humor
was genial beyond its custom. At last with the air of one too engaged
with his own conversation to heed details of courtesy he took up his
glass and sipped from it thoughtfully.

"Even if this is my own wine," he commented, "I can't withhold
commendation. I sometimes think that only the very abstemious man can
truly appreciate a good vintage. For him it is an undulled pleasure of
the palate."

Stuart Farquaharson at last found it possible to laugh.

"I for one can't dispute the statement," he confessed. "I haven't tasted
it yet--though I understood that both Conscience and I were invited."

"A thousand pardons!" exclaimed the host, shamefacedly. "I am a poor
sort of Ganymede--drinking alone and leaving my guests unserved!"

He set down his own glass, and with tardy solicitude proffered to them
the remaining two.

"Here's to the homecoming," he proposed with a jauntiness which sat upon
him like foreign raiment as he took up his own wine again and Stuart,
with a dolorous smile, suggested: "Why not include me in the toast,
Eben? The arrival--and the departure."

"Ah," demurred the elder man easily. "But that's not to be celebrated,
my boy. For us that is a misfortune."

The two men emptied and put down thei