er difficult situation;
whereupon Durnford, as though eager to conceal his surprise, said with a
forced laugh, "Oh! probably not," and reseated himself at table. Then
the Major quickly changed the topic of conversation, and afterwards he
and his friend passed along to their table and sat down to eat.

I could not help noticing that Jack Durnford was upset at what he had
learnt, yet I hesitated just then to put any question to him. I resolved
to approach the subject later, so as to allow him time to question me
if he wished to do so.

After smoking an hour we went across to the Empire, where we spent the
evening in the grand circle, meeting many men we knew and having a
rather pleasant time among old acquaintances. If a man who had lived the
club life of London returns from abroad, he can always run across
someone he knows in the circle of the Empire about ten o'clock at night.
Jack was, however, not his old self that he had been before dinner. His
brow was now heavy and thoughtful, and he appeared deeply immersed in
some intricate problem, for his eyes were fixed vacantly when
opportunity was afforded him to think, and he appeared to desire to
avoid his friends rather than to greet them.

After the theater I induced him to come round to the Cecil, and in the
wicker chair in the big portico before the entrance we sat to smoke our
final cigars. It is a favorite spot of mine when in London, for at
afternoon, when the string band plays and the Americans and other
cosmopolitans drink tea, there is a continual coming and going, a little
panorama of life that to a student of men like myself is intensely
interesting. And at night it is just as amusing to sit there in the
shadow and watch the people returning from the theaters or dances and to
speculate as to whom and what they are. At that one little corner of
London just off the Strand you see more variety of men and women than
perhaps at any other spot. All grades pass before you, from the pushful
American commercial man interested in a patent medicine, to the proud
Indian Rajah with his turbaned suite; from the variety actress to the
daughter of a peer, or the wife of a millionaire pork-butcher doing
Europe.

"You've been a bit down in the mouth to-night, Jack," I said presently,
after we had been watching the cabs coming up, depositing the
home-coming revelers from the Savoy or the Carlton.

"Yes," he sighed. "And surely I have enough to cause me--after what I've
hear