evidently enjoying his companion's
befuddlement, talked of the changes that had taken place in the upper
city in his memory. His reminiscences did not interest Archie greatly.
He thought it likely the Governor was uttering commonplaces for the
benefit of the men on the box, who could easily hear their passengers'
conversation through the partition windows. The car passed two clubs in
which Archie was a member in good standing and he caught a fleeting
glimpse down an intersecting thoroughfare of the apartment house in
which he was a tenant with a recurrence of the disagreeable questionings
he had experienced so frequently as to whether he was himself or some
other and very different person.

The Governor had not warned him to avoid marking the route, which was as
familiar to Archie as the palm of his hand, but somewhere in the
Seventies he did for a moment lose track of the streets, and the car,
swinging east, stopped midway of a block of handsome residences. There
was still the chance that this was all by-play, a trick for concealing
their arrival in town; but the footman was already ringing the bell of a
house whose facade was the most distinguished in sight. The door was
opened by a manservant, whose face expressed pleasure as the Governor
passed him with all the airs of incontestable proprietorship.

"I think we may as well go at once to our rooms," he said. "You
understand, Baring, that we dine at seven-thirty--places for three?"

"Very good, sir: I received your telegram."

Amid the various phases of surprise through which he had passed since
reaching the station Archie had kept his ears open, thinking the
servants would address their employer by a name, but no such clue was
forthcoming. The house exhaled an atmosphere of luxury and taste, and
the furnishings were rich and consistently chosen. Archie recalled
twenty houses in which he was frequently a guest that in nowise
approached the Governor's establishment for comfort and charm. If he had
been puzzled before he was stupefied now. The enormous effrontery of the
thing overwhelmed him. He knew the general neighborhood too well not to
be sure that it was not a region where a housebreaker of even the most
exalted rank could live unchallenged. To be sure this was summer, and
most of the houses along the street were boarded up; but the Governor
would certainly not be invading in broad daylight premises to which he
had no claim, and the retinue of trained and deco