"Be not surprised, it is I," he said. "Not in the spirit alone but in the
flesh." Equally without warning he smiled. "Needless to say I'm glad to
see you again, Elice," as he took the girl's offered hand. Then
deliberately releasing it: "and you too, Armstrong," extending his own.

Precisely as, with his companion of the shady porch, he had risen upon
the newcomer's advent, the other man stood there. If possible his face,
already unnaturally pale for a torrid afternoon, shaded whiter as an
instant passed without his making a motion in response.

"And you too, Armstrong," Roberts repeated, the smile still on his face,
the hand still extended; then, when there still came no response, the
voice lowered until it was just audible, but nevertheless significant in
its curt brevity: "Shake whether you want to or not. There are seven
pairs of eyes watching from behind that trellis across the street."

Armstrong obeyed as though moved by a wire.

"Speak loud, so they can all hear. They're listening too," directed the
low-voiced mentor.

Armstrong, red in the face now, formulated the conventional.

"Thanks." Roberts sat down on the top step, his big-boned body at ease,
his great bushy head, in which the gray was beginning to sprinkle thick,
a contrast to the dark pillar of the porch. "I just returned an hour
ago," he added as casually as though food for gossip had not been avoided
by a hair's breadth and was not still imminent. "It's good,
unqualifiedly, to be back."

Armstrong returned to his seat, a bit uncertainly. His hands were
trembling uncontrollably; in self-defence he thrust them deep into his
pockets.

"Have you been out of town?" he asked.

"Yes, for over a month." No affectation in that even friendliness. He
laughed suddenly in tolerant, all but impersonal, self-analysis. "And I'm
tired--tired until the marrow of my bones aches." He laughed again. "It
seems as though I never was so tired in my life."

Armstrong looked at him, in a sudden flash of the old confidence and
admiration.

"I beg your pardon, then," he said hurriedly. "I didn't know that you had
been away, of course, and rather fancied, from your coming so
unexpected--And that again after two years almost--You can understand how
it was possible, can't you? I'm ashamed."

"Certainly I can understand," easily. "Let's all forget it. I have
already." He smiled an instant comprehensively fair into the blue eyes,
then characteristically abruptly he di