The other man stopped at once. He held out his hand. "Yes, of course I
know you--knew you the moment I set eyes on you. But I wasn't sure that
you would care to be recognized by me."

"What on earth do you take me for?" said Piers bluntly.

He gripped the hand hard, looking straight into the calm eyes with a
curious sense of being sustained thereby. "I believe," he said, with an
odd impulse of impetuosity, "that you are the one man in the world that I
couldn't be other than pleased to see."

The elder man smiled. "That's very kind of you," he said.

He had the slow speech of one accustomed to solitude. He kept Piers' hand
in his in a warm, firm grip. "I have often thought about you," he said.
"You know, I never heard your name."

"My name is Evesham," said Piers, with the quick, gracious manner
habitual to him. "Piers Evesham."

"Thank you. Mine is Edmund Crowther. Odd that we should meet like this!"

"A piece of luck I didn't expect!" said Piers boyishly. "Have you only
just arrived?"

"I came here last night from Marseilles." Crowther's eyes rested on the
smiling face with its proud, patrician features with the look of a man
examining a perfect bronze. "It's very kind of you to welcome me like
this," he said. "I was feeling a stranger in a strange land as I came up
that path."

"I've been watching you," said Piers. "I liked the business-like way you
tackled it. It was British."

Crowther smiled. "I suppose it has become second nature with me to put
business first," he said.

"Wish I could say the same," said Piers; and then, with his hand on
the other man's arm: "Come and have a drink! You are staying for some
time, I hope?"

"No, not for long," said Crowther. "It was yielding to temptation to come
here at all."

"Are you alone?" asked Piers.

"Quite alone."

"Then there's no occasion to hurry," said Piers. "You stay here for a
bit, and kill time with me."

"I never kill time," said Crowther deliberately. "It's too scarce a
commodity."

"It is when you're happy," said Piers.

Crowther looked at him with a question in his eyes that he did not put
into words, and in answer to which Piers laughed a reckless laugh.

They were walking side by side up the hotel-garden, and each successive
group of visitors that they passed turned to stare. For both men were in
a fashion remarkable. The massive strength of the elder with his square,
dogged face and purposeful stride; the lithe, muscular power of t