to renew themselves
again and again. You meet a man whom you have never seen before, see
him just long enough to take a passing interest in him, and to know
generally who and what he is, and you run against him on the morrow, and
again on the morrow, and so on, until in a week he has grown as familiar
to your thoughts as any other mere acquaintance of whose identity you
may have been aware for years. This happened in the case of Philip
Bommaney and younger Mr. Barter. They entered the Inn together, or left
it together, or Philip ran upstairs or downstairs as Barter was in the
very act of leaving or entering his chambers. Putting together a certain
family resemblance which he thought he noticed, the identity of a rather
uncommon name, and the curious frequency of these chance encounters,
Barter found it hard to avoid the belief that his new-made acquaintance
had a rather careful eye upon him. His nerve was a good deal shaken, and
he was by no means the man he had been. To the unobservant stranger the
frank gaiety of his laugh was as spontaneous as ever, but then that had
never had much to do with Barter's inward sensations. Perhaps he got the
laugh in some remote fashion from an ancestor who really ought to have
had it, and who may have been as dull and as little laughter-loving to
look at as his successor was within. Philip rather took to the fellow
at first sight, and was slow to suspect him, even when James Hornett
had told his story. But the young Barter was not satisfied, as he
should have been, with playing the part of one insect at a time. It
was unwholesome enough, one might have thought, for him to play fly to
Steinberg's spider, and yet he must needs take to playing moth to Philip
Bommaney's candle, a light of danger to him, as he recognised almost
from the first He was always polite to Phil, and always stopped him for
a moment's conversation at their chance encounters. Phil, having been
inspired at least with a suspicion that this engaging young man was
responsible for the actual disgrace which had fallen upon Bommaney
senior, always bent a grave scrutiny upon him. Barter sometimes wondered
whether his new-found acquaintance's way of looking at him were habitual
or particular, but he could never solve that problem. To Barter's nerves
the glance of dispassionate analysis always seemed to ask--Did you steal
those notes? and whether his mind and nerves were at accord or no made
but little difference to him. His min