The night was well advanced when Charteris stepped noiselessly into the room. The colonel was then sedately writing amid a host of motionless mute watchers, for at Matocton most of the portraits hang in the East Drawing-room.
 
Thus, above the great marble mantel,—carved with thyrsi, and supported by proud deep-bosomed caryatides,—you will find burly Sebastian Musgrave, "the Speaker," an all-overbearing man even on canvas. "Paint me among dukes and earls with my hat on, to show I am in all things a Republican, and the finest diamond in the Colony shall be yours," he had directed the painter, and this was done. Then there is frail Wilhelmina Musgrave—that famed beauty whose two-hundred-year-old story all Lichfield knows, and no genealogist has ever cared to detail—eternally weaving flowers about her shepherd hat. There, too, is Evelyn Ramsay, before whose roguish loveliness, as you may remember, the colonel had snapped his fingers in those roseate days when he so joyously considered his profound unworthiness to be Patricia's husband. There is also the colonial governor of Albemarle—a Van Dyck this—two Knellers, and Lely's portrait of Thomas Musgrave, "the poet," with serious blue eyes and flaxen hair. The painting of Captain George Musgrave, who distinguished himself at the siege of Cartagena, is admittedly an inferior piece of work, but it has vigor, none the less; and below it hangs the sword which was presented to him by the Lord High Admiral.
 
So quietly did Charteris come that the colonel was not aware of his entrance until the novelist had coughed gently. He was in a dressing-gown, and looked unusually wizened.
 
"I saw your light," he said. "I don't seem to be able to sleep, somehow. It is so infernally hot and still. I suppose there is going to be a thunderstorm. I hate thunderstorms. They frighten me." The little man was speaking like a peevish child.
 
"Oh, well—! it will at least clear the air," said Rudolph Musgrave.
"Sit down and have a smoke, won't you?"
 
"No, thanks." Charteris had gone to the bookshelves and was gently pushing and pulling at the books so as to arrange their backs in a mathematically straight line. "I thought I would borrow something to read—Why, this is the Tennyson you had at college, isn't it? Yes, I remember it perfectly."
 
These two had roomed together through their college days.
 
"Yes; it is the old Tennyson. And yonder is the identical Swinburne you used to spout from, too. Lord, Jack, it seems a century since I used to listen by the hour to The Triumph of Time and Dolores!"
 
"Ah, but you didn't really care for them—not even then." Charteris reached up, his back still turned, and moved a candlestick the fraction of an inch. "There is something so disgustingly wholesome about you, Rudolph. And it appears to be ineradicable. I can't imagine how I ever came to be fond of you."
 
The colonel was twirling his pen, his eyes intent upon it. "And yet—we were fond of each other, weren't we, Jack?"
 
"Why, I positively adored you. You were such a strong and healthy animal. Upon my word, I don't believe I ever missed a single football game you played in. In fact, I almost learned to understand the game on your account. You see—it was so good to watch you raging about with touzled hair, like the only original bull of Bashan, and the others tumbling like ninepins. It used to make me quite inordinately proud."
 
The colonel smoked. "But, Lord! how proud I was when you got medals!"
 
"Yes—I remember."
 
"Even if I did bully you sometimes. Remember how I used to twist your arm to make you write my Latin exercises, Jack?"
 
"I liked to have you do that," Charteris said, simply. "It hurt a great deal, but I liked it."
 
He had come up behind the colonel, who was still seated. "Yes, that was a long while ago," said Charteris. "It is rather terrible—isn't it?—to reflect precisely how long ago it was. Why, I shall be bald in a year or two from now. But you have kept almost all your beautiful hair, Rudolph."
 
Charteris touched the colonel's head, stroking his hair ever so lightly once or twice. It was in effect a caress.
 
The colonel was aware of the odor of myrrh which always accompanied
Charteris and felt that the little man was trembling.
 
"Isn't there—anything you want to tell me, Jack?" the colonel said. He sat quite still.
 
There was the tiniest pause. The caressing finger-tips lifted from Musgrave's head, but presently gave it one more brief and half-timid touch.
 
"Why, only au revoir, I believe. I am leaving at a rather ungodly hour to-morrow and won't see you, but I hope to return within the week."
 
"I hope so, Jack."
 
"And, after all, it is too late to be reading. I shall go back to bed and take more trional. And then, I dare say, I shall sleep. So good-by, Rudolph."
 
"Good-night, Jack."
 
"Oh, yes—! I meant good-night, of course."
 
The colonel sighed; then he spoke abruptly:
 
"No, just a moment, Jack. I didn't ask you to come here to-night; but since you hav............