“Costin fetched you, of course.  Interfering old idiot!  He thinks I’m ill, but it’s all bally rot!  I’ve got a chill, that’s all.  What the deuce do you want?”

Sangster answered good-temperedly that he didn’t want anything in particular; privately he agreed with Costin that it was more than an ordinary chill that had drawn Jimmy’s face and made such hollows beneath his eyes.  He stood with his back to the fire looking down at him dubiously.

“What have you been up to?” he asked.

“Up to!” Jimmy echoed the phrase pettishly.  “I haven’t been up to anything.  You talk as if I were a blessed brat.  One must do something to amuse oneself.  I’m fed-up—­sick to death of this infernal life.  It’s just a question of killing time from hour to hour.  I loathe getting up in the morning, I hate going to bed at night, I’m sick to death of the club and the fools you meet there.  I wish to God I could end it once and for all.”

“Humph!  Sounds as if you want a tonic,” said Sangster in his most matter-of-fact way.  He recognised a touch of hysteria in Jimmy’s voice, and in spite of everything he felt sorry for him.

“Give me a drink,” said Jimmy presently.  “That idiot, Costin, has kept everything locked up all day.  I’m as dry as blazes.  Give me a drink, there’s a good chap.”

Sangster filled a glass with soda water and brought it over to where Jimmy sat huddled up in the big chair.  He looked a pitiable enough object—­he wanted shaving, and he had not troubled to put on his collar; his feet were thrust into an old pair of bedroom slippers.  He sipped the soda and pushed it away angrily.

“I don’t want that damned muck,” he said savagely.

“I know you don’t, but it’s all you’re going to have.  Look here, Jimmy, don’t be an ass!  You’re ill, old chap, or you will be if you go on like this.  Take my advice and hop off to bed, you’ll feel a heap better between the sheets.  Can I do anything for you—­anything——­”

“Yes,” said Jimmy sullenly.  “You can—­leave me to myself.”

He held his hands to the fire and shivered; Sangster looked at him silently for a moment, then he shrugged his shoulders and turned towards the door.  He was out on the landing when Jimmy called his name.

“Well?”

“Where the deuce are you going?” Jimmy demanded irritably.  “Nice sort of pal, you are, to go off and leave a chap when he’s sick.”

Sangster did not make the obvious reply; he came back, shutting the door behind him.  Jimmy was leaning back in his chair now; his face was nearly as red as the dressing-gown he wore, but he shivered violently from time to time.  There was a little silence, then he opened his eyes and smiled rather apologetically.

“Sorry to be so dull.  I haven’t slept for a week.”

It would have been nearer the truth to say that he had hardly closed his eyes since the night of Cynthia Farrow’s death, but he knew that if he said that Sangster would at once bark up the wrong tree, and conclude that he was fretting for her—­breaking his heart for her, whereas he was doing nothing of the kind.