his own to meet it.

"And if you find--as you probably soon will--that I make but a poor sort
of host," he said, "just remember, will you, that I like my guests to
please themselves, and secure your own comfort?"

For a second, West's grim mouth seemed to hesitate on the edge of a
smile--a smile that never developed.

"I wonder how soon you will tell me to go to the devil?" he said
cynically.

"Oh, I am a better host than that," said Babbacombe, with quiet humour.
"If you ever prefer the devil's hospitality to mine, it won't be my
fault."

West turned from him with a slight shrug of the shoulders, as if he
deemed himself to be dealing with a harmless lunatic, and dropped back
into silence.

III

Silence had become habitual to him, as Babbacombe soon discovered. He
could remain silent for hours. Probably he had never been of a very
expansive nature, and prison discipline had strengthened an inborn
reticence to a reserve of iron. He was not a disconcerting companion,
because he was absolutely unobtrusive, but with all the good-will in the
world Babbacombe found it well-nigh impossible to treat him with that
ease of manner which came to him so spontaneously in his dealings with
other men.

Grim, taciturn, cynical, West baffled his every effort to reach the
inner man. His silence clothed him like armour, and he never really
emerged from it save when a fiendish sense of humour tempted him. This,
and this alone, so it seemed to Babbacombe, had any power to draw him
out. And the instant he had flung his gibe at the object thereof, he
would retreat again into that impenetrable shell of silence. He never
once spoke of his past life, never once referred to the future.

He merely accepted Babbacombe's hospitality in absolute silence, without
question, without gratitude, smoked his cigarettes eternally, drank his
wines without appreciation, rode his horses without comment.

The only point in his favour that Babbacombe, the kindliest of critics,
could discover after a fort-night's patient study, was that the animals
loved him. He conducted himself like a gentleman, but somehow Babbacombe
had expected this much from the moment of their meeting. He sometimes
told himself with a wry face that if the fellow had behaved like a beast
he would have found him easier to cultivate. At least, he would have had
something to work upon, a creature of flesh and blood, instead of this
inscrutable statue wrought in iron.

Wit