It was a night of glorious stars, the sea one vast stretch of silver ripples, through which the yacht ran smoothly, leaving a wide white trail behind her.  Saltash lay in a deck-chair with his face to the sky, but his attitude was utterly lacking in the solid repose that characterized his companion.  He smoked his cigar badly, with impatient pulls.  When it was half gone, he suddenly swore and flung it overboard.

“Larpent,” he said, breaking a silence, “if you were a damned rotter—­like me—­what should you do with yourself?”

Larpent turned his head and quietly surveyed him.  “I shouldn’t run a home for waifs and strays,” he said deliberately.

Saltash made a sharp movement.  “Then I suppose you’d leave ’em in the gutter to starve,” he said, with suppressed vehemence.

“No, I shouldn’t.  I’d pay someone else—­someone who wasn’t what you called yourself just now—­to look after ’em.”  Larpent’s voice was eminently practical if somewhat devoid of sympathy.  “Gutter-snipes are damned quick to pick up—­things they ought not,” he observed dryly.

Saltash stirred uncomfortably in his chair as though something pricked him.  “Think I’m a contaminating influence?” he said.

Larpent shrugged his shoulders.  “It’s not for me to say.  All diseases are not catching—­any more than they are incurable.”

“Ho!” Saltash laughed suddenly and rather bitterly.  “Are you suggesting—­a cure?”

Larpent turned his head back again and puffed a cloud of smoke upwards.  “There’s a cure for most things,” he observed.

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin?” gibed Saltash.

Larpent was silent for a space.  Then:  “A painful process no doubt!” he said.  “But more wonderful things have happened.”

“Pshaw!” said Saltash.

Nevertheless when Larpent rose a little later and bade him good-night, he reached up a couple of fingers in careless comradeship.

“Good-night, old fellow!  Thanks for putting up with me!  Sure you don’t want to kick me?”

“Not when you’re kicking yourself,” said Larpent with a grim hint of humour.

He took the extended fingers and received a wiry handclasp that caused him faint surprise.  But then, he reflected as he went away, he had always known Saltash to be a queer devil, oddly balanced, curiously impulsive, strangely irresponsible, possessing through all a charm which seldom failed to hold its own.  He realized by instinct that Saltash was wrestling with himself that night, but, though he knew him better than did many, he would not have staked anything on the result.  There were two selves in Saltash and, in Larpent’s opinion, one was as strong as the other.

It was nearly an hour later that Saltash, prowling to and fro in the starlight, became suddenly aware of a figure, small and slight, with gleaming brass buttons, standing behind his vacant chair.  He turned sharply to look at it, some inexplicable emotion twitching his dark face.  Then abruptly he moved towards it, stood for a second as one in doubt, then turned and sat down in silence.