"There are five thousand in this room," said Brown cheerfully. "But two
hundred will give me a very good selection of favourites, and I can
change them from time to time. I have sixty or seventy already with
me.... Hello! Who can that be? Has Brainard been giving me away right
and left?"

He answered the ring, and admitted Webb Atchison, rosy of cheek and
rather lordly of appearance, as always. The bachelor came in,
frowning even as he smiled, and bringing to Donald Brown a vivid
suggestion of old days.

"Caught!" he cried, shaking hands. "Thought you could sneak in and out
of town like a thief in the night, did you? It can't be done, old man."

He was in a hurry and could stay but ten minutes. Five of those he
devoted to telling Brown what he thought of the news he had heard, by
which he understood that St. Timothy's was to lose permanently the man
whom it had expected soon to have back. Brown listened with head a little
down-bent, arms folded again, lips set in lines of determination. He had
been fully prepared for the onslaughts of his friends, but that fact
hardly seemed to make it easier to meet them. When Atchison had delivered
himself uninterrupted, Brown lifted his head with a smile.

"Through, Webb?" he asked.

"No, I'm not through, by a long shot, but it's all I have time for now,
for I came on a different matter. Since I heard you were here I've been
telephoning around, and I've got together a little dinner-party for
to-night that you won't evade if you have a particle of real affection
for me. I'm not going to be cheated out of it. It'll be a hastily
arranged affair, but there may be something decent to eat and drink.
Brainard tells me you're not going to linger in town an hour after your
business is done, so I thought best to lose no time. You'll come, of
course? The way you're looking just now I don't know but you're equal to
refusing me even such a small favour as this one!"

Brown crossed the room, to lay his hands on Atchison's shoulders. His
eyes were dark with suppressed feeling.

"My dear old friend," said he affectionately, "I wish you wouldn't take
the thing this way. I'm not dealing blows at those I love; if I'm dealing
them at anybody it's at myself. I can't possibly tell you what it means
to me--this crisis. I can only ask you not to think hardly of me. As for
the dinner, if it will please you to have me agree to it I will, only--I
should a little rather have you stand me up against a wal