Cosgrave gave his little toneless laugh.

“I wish to God you’d frighten me.  You know, when I felt how rotten I was I thought of you.  You always bucked me up—­I believe I had a fool idea that I’d find you in some scrubby suburban practice.  Shows the bugs must have got into my brain too, doesn’t it?  Now I suppose I’ll have to ask you to reduce your fees.”

“I’ll let you down easy.  Say, a guinea a consultation!”

“I could manage that—­if you don’t want to consult too often.  I’ve got my bit saved.  Not much to squander on out there, except whisky, and I never took to that.  Besides—­my father’s dead.  He didn’t mean to leave me his money—­you know how he loathed me—­but there was a mix-up over the will that was to cut me out—­not properly witnessed or something.  Anyhow, I came out into a few thousand.  Rather a joke on the old man, wasn’t it?”

“One might almost hope for another life if one were sure he were grinding his teeth over it.”

A faint perplexity flickered across the sallow face.

“Oh, I don’t know.  I don’t seem to bear him any particular grudge now.  Perhaps it would be better if I could.  When one’s young one judges very harshly.  Parents and kids don’t understand each other—­not really—­and don’t always love each other either, if the truth were known.  Why should they?  The old man and I were like strangers tied to one another by the leg.  I used to think if I could pay him back for all the beastly times he gave me I’d die happy.  But I don’t feel like that now.  I expect he was pretty miserable himself.  There’s too much of that sort of thing for us to wish it on to one another.”

“You’re very tolerant,” Stonehouse said.  “I’m not.  But then I haven’t inherited anything.”  He stopped abruptly and his manner hardened.  But Cosgrave did not pursue the subject.  His interest had suddenly slumped into what was evidently an habitual apathy, and only when they had paid their bill and drifted out into the street did he revert for a moment to the past.

“And the Gang—­and Frances Wilmot?” he asked.  He looked shyly at his companion’s profile, which showed up for a moment in a bold, tranquil outline against the lamplight.  It betrayed nothing.

“We might walk back to my rooms and talk in peace.  Oh—­Francey Wilmot?  I don’t know much.  She went abroad—­finished her course very late—­she was always a bit of a dilettante.  People with money usually are.”

Cosgrave said no more.  He knew all he wanted to know.  It saddened him.  Somehow he had counted on that half-divined romance, had played with it in his fancy as with a kind of vicarious happiness.

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