He broke off and nodded to a little, lean man of ambiguous age, in a strained coat, who entered at this moment with a rapid lurching gait.  He sat down immediately opposite them, under Lightmark’s presentment, with which Rainham curiously compared him.  And it struck him that there was something in that oddly repulsive figure which Lightmark’s superficial crayon had missed.  The long, haggard face was there, with its ill-kempt hair and beard; and the lips, which, when they parted in a smile that was too full of irony, revealed the man’s uneven, discoloured teeth.  Rainham lost sight of his uncouthness in a sense of his extreme power.  His eyes, which were restless and extraordinarily brilliant, met Rainham’s presently; and the latter was conscious of a certain fascination in their sustained gaze.  In spite of the air of savagery which pervaded the man, it was a movement of sympathy which, on the whole, he experienced towards him.  And it seemed as if this sentiment were reciprocal, for when the German youth, who was the cupbearer of the establishment, had taken Oswyn’s order, and had brought him absinthe in a long glass, he motioned it abruptly to the opposite table.  Then he crossed over and accosted Lightmark, whom he had not hitherto appeared to recognise, with a word of greeting.  Lightmark murmured his name and Rainham’s, and the strange, little man nodded to him not unamiably.

“I must smoke, if you don’t mind,” he said, after a moment.

They nodded assent, and he produced tobacco in a screw of newspaper from the pocket of his coat, and began rapidly to make cigarettes.  Rainham watched the dexterous movements of his long nervous hands—­the colour of old ivory—­and found them noticeable.

“You are not an artist, I think,” he suggested after a moment, fixing his curiously intent eyes on Rainham.

“No,” admitted the other, smiling, “I am afraid I am not.  I am only here on sufferance.  I am a mender of ships.”

“He is a connoisseur,” put in Lightmark gaily.  “It’s an accident that he happens to be connected with shipping—­a fortunate one, though, for he owns a most picturesque old shanty in the far East.  But actually he does not know a rudder post from a jib-boom.”

“I suppose you have been painting it?” said Oswyn shortly.

Lightmark nodded.

“I have been painting the river from his wharf.  The picture is just finished, and on the whole I am pleased with it.  You should come in and give it a look, Oswyn, some time.  You haven’t seen my new studio.”

“I never go west of Regent Street,” said Oswyn brusquely.

Lightmark laughed a little nervously.

“Oswyn doesn’t believe in me, you know, Philip,” he explained lightly.  “It is a humiliating thing to have to say, but I may as well say it, to save him the trouble.  He is so infernally frank about it, you know.  He thinks that I am a humbug, that I don’t take my art seriously, and because, when I have painted my picture, I begin to think about the pieces of silver, he is not quite sure that I may not be a descendant of Judas.  And then, worst of all, I have committed the unpardonable sin:  I have been hung at Burlington House.  Isn’t that about it, Oswyn?”