“I’ve had it by me for years,” he said, “just in case the Fates should have one more trick in store for me.  But apparently they haven’t, though it’s never safe to assume anything.”

“Oh, don’t talk like an idiot!” broke in Palliser heatedly.  “I’ve no patience with that sort of thing.  Do you expect me to believe that a fellow like you—­a fellow who knows how to wait for his luck—­would give way to a cowardly impulse and destroy himself all in a moment because things didn’t go quite straight?  Man alive!  I know you better than that; or if I don’t, I’ve never known you at all.”

“Ah!  Perhaps not!” said Conyers.

Once more he turned the key and withdrew it.  He pushed back his chair so that his face was in shadow.

“You don’t know everything, you know, Hugh,” he said.

“Have a smoke,” said Palliser, “and tell me what you are driving at.”

He threw himself into a bamboo chair by the open door, the light streaming full upon him, revealing in every line of him the arrogant splendour of his youth.  He looked like a young Greek god with the world at his feet.

Conyers surveyed him with his faint, cynical smile.  “No,” he said, “you certainly don’t know everything, my son.  You never have come a cropper in your life.”

“Haven’t I, though?” Hugh sat up, eager to refute this criticism.  “That’s all you know about it.  I suppose you think you have had the monopoly of hard knocks.  Most people do.”

“I am not like most people,” Conyers asserted deliberately.  “But you needn’t tell me that you have ever been right under, my boy.  For you never have.”

“Depends what you call going under,” protested Palliser.  “I’ve been down a good many times, Heaven knows.  And I’ve had to wait—­as you have—­all the best years of my life.”

“Your best years are to come,” rejoined Conyers.  “Mine are over.”

“Oh, rot, man!  Rot—­rot—­rot!  Why, you are just coming into your own!  Have another drink and give me the toast of your heart!” Hugh Palliser sprang impulsively to his feet.  “Let me mix it!  You can’t—­you shan’t be melancholy to-night of all nights.”

But Conyers stayed his hand.

“Only one more drink to-night, boy!” he said.  “And that not yet.  Sit down and smoke.  I’m not melancholy, but I can’t rejoice prematurely.  It’s not my way.”

“Prematurely!” echoed Hugh, pointing to the official envelope.

“Yes, prematurely,” Conyers repeated.  “I may be as rich as Croesus, and yet not win my heart’s desire.”

“Oh, I know that,” said Hugh quickly.  “I’ve been through it myself.  It’s infernal to have everything else under the sun and yet to lack the one thing—­the one essential—­the one woman.”

He sat down again, abruptly thoughtful.  Conyers smoked silently, with his face in the shadow.

Suddenly Hugh looked across at him.

“You think I’m too much of an infant to understand,” he said.  “I’m nearly thirty, but that’s a detail.”