Following instinct, therefore, he took no steps towards acquaintance, and for several days, owing to the fact that he dined frequently with his hosts, he saw nothing more of Richard Vance, the business man from Birmingham.  Then, one night, coming home late from his friend’s house, he had passed along the great corridor, and was actually a step or so into his bedroom, when a drawling voice sounded close behind him.  It was an unpleasant sound.  It was very near him too—­

“I beg your pardon, but have you, by any chance, such a thing as a compass you could lend me?”

The voice was so close that he started.  Vance stood within touching distance of his body.  He had stolen up like a ghostly Arab, must have followed him, too, some little distance, for further down the passage the light of an open door—­he had passed it on his way—­showed where he came from.

“Eh?  I beg your pardon?  A—­compass, did you say?” He felt disconcerted for a moment.  How short the man was, now that he saw him standing.  Broad and powerful too.  Henriot looked down upon his thick head of hair.  The personality and voice repelled him.  Possibly his face, caught unawares, betrayed this.

“Forgive my startling you,” said the other apologetically, while the softer expression danced in for a moment and disorganised the rigid set of the face.  “The soft carpet, you know.  I’m afraid you didn’t hear my tread.  I wondered”—­he smiled again slightly at the nature of the request—­“if—­by any chance—­you had a pocket compass you could lend me?”

“Ah, a compass, yes!  Please don’t apologise.  I believe I have one—­if you’ll wait a moment.  Come in, won’t you?  I’ll have a look.”

The other thanked him but waited in the passage.  Henriot, it so happened, had a compass, and produced it after a moment’s search.

“I am greatly indebted to you—­if I may return it in the morning.  You will forgive my disturbing you at such an hour.  My own is broken, and I wanted—­er—­to find the true north.”

Henriot stammered some reply, and the man was gone.  It was all over in a minute.  He locked his door and sat down in his chair to think.  The little incident had upset him, though for the life of him he could not imagine why.  It ought by rights to have been almost ludicrous, yet instead it was the exact reverse—­half threatening.  Why should not a man want a compass?  But, again, why should he?  And at midnight?  The voice, the eyes, the near presence—­what did they bring that set his nerves thus asking unusual questions?  This strange impression that something grave was happening, something unearthly—­how was it born exactly?  The man’s proximity came like a shock.  It had made him start.  He brought—­thus the idea came unbidden to his mind—­something with him that galvanised him quite absurdly, as fear does, or delight, or great wonder.  There was a music in his voice too—­a certain—­well, he could only call it lilt, that reminded him of plainsong, intoning, chanting.  Drawling was not the word at all.