to the staircase in the narrow passage.
Beaumaroy appeared to consider himself absolved from any preparation, for
he returned to the big chair and, sinking into it, lit another cigarette.
Meanwhile Mrs. Wiles laid the table, and presently Sergeant Hooper
appeared with a bottle of golden-tinted wine.

"That, at least, is the real stuff," thought Beaumaroy as he eyed it in
pleasurable anticipation. "Where the dear old man got it, I don't know;
but in itself it's almost worth all the racket."

And really, in its present stages, so far as its present developments
went, the "racket" pleased him. It amused his active brain, besides (as
he had said to Mr. Saffron) exercising his active body, though certainly
in a rather grotesque and bizarre fashion. The attraction of it went
deeper than that. It appealed to some of those tendencies and impulses of
his character which had earned such heavy censure from Major-General
Punnit and had produced so grave an expression on Captain Alec's handsome
face without, however, being, even in that officer's exacting judgment,
disgraceful. And, finally, there was the lure of unexplored
possibilities, not only material and external, but psychological not only
touching what others might do or what might happen to them, but raising
also speculation as to what he might do, or what might happen to him at
his own hands; for example, how far he would flout authority, defy the
usual, and deny the accepted. The love of rebellion, of making foolish
the wisdom of the wise, of hampering the orderly and inexorable treatment
of people just as, according to the best modern lights, they ought to be
treated, this lawless love was strong in Beaumaroy. Not as a principle;
it was the stronger for being an instinct, a wayward instinct that might
carry him, he scarce knew where.

Mr. Saffron came back, greeted again by Beaumaroy's courtly bow and
Hooper's vaguely reminiscent but slovenly military salute. The pair sat
down to a homely beefsteak; but the golden tinted wine gurgled into their
glasses. But, before they fell to, there was a little incident. A sudden,
but fierce, anger seized old Mr. Saffron. In his harshest tones he rapped
out at the Sergeant, "My knife! You careless scoundrel, you haven't given
me my knife!"

Beaumaroy sprang to his feet with a muttered exclamation: "It's all my
fault, sir. I forgot to give it to Hooper. I always lock it up when I go
out." He went to a little oak sideboard and unloc