“Oh,” said Geoffrey, and there was a slight pause.  Then he added:  “Why should I tell her what she must know.”

“I tell you she knows nothing about my—­profession.”

“Your profession!”

“Hasn’t a notion of it.”

“What, with my sister’s coat on her back, and the Innes’ bag in her hand"?”

“No!” McVay drew a step nearer.  “You see I told her that I had found a second-hand store where I could get things for nothing.”  He chuckled, and Geoffrey withdrew with a look of repulsion that evidently disappointed the other.

“That was a good idea, wasn’t it?” he asked with a faint appeal in his voice.  “She thought it was likely, anyhow.”

“She must be very gullable,” said Geoffrey brutally.

“Or else,” said McVay with a conscious smile, “I must be a pretty good dissembler.”

At this acute instance of fatuity Geoffrey, if he had followed his impulse, would have flung McVay back in the closet and locked the door.  Instead, he said: 

“Come down stairs.  I want to look up something to eat.”

“Thank you,” said the burglar, “it would be a good idea.”

“You need not thank me,” said Geoffrey.  “I don’t take you with me for the pleasure of your company, but because I don’t dare let you out of my sight.”

McVay, as was his habit when anything unpleasant was said, chose to ignore this speech.

“You know,” he said, as they went down stairs, “I suppose that most men shut up in a closet for all those hours would take it as a hardship, but, to me it was a positive rest.  I really in a way enjoyed it.  It is one of my theories that every one ought to have resources within.  Now I dare say you were quite anxious about me.”

“I never thought of you at all,” said Geoffrey.  “After I got in I went to sleep for three hours.”

McVay looked at him once or twice, in surprise.  Then he said with dignity:  “Asleep?  Well, really, Holland, I don’t think that was very considerate.”

“Don’t talk so loud,” said Geoffrey, “you’ll wake your sister.”

Geoffrey had always been in the habit of going on shooting trips at short notice, and so it was his rule to keep a supply of canned eatables in the house to be ready whenever the whim took him.  On these he now depended, and was not a little annoyed to find the kitchen store room where they were kept securely locked.

This difficulty, however, McVay made light of.  He asked for his tools and on being given them set to work on the door.

“Have you ever noticed,” he said, “the heavy handed way in which some men use tools?  Look at my touch,—­so light, yet so accurate.  I take no credit to myself.  I was born so.  It’s a very fortunate thing to be naturally dexterous.”

“It would have been more fortunate for you if you had been a little less so.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Holland.  I might have starved to death years ago.”