Julian Orden, with an exterior more promising in many respects than that of his friend, could boast of no similar distinctions.  He was the youngest son of a particularly fatuous peer resident in the neighbourhood, had started life as a barrister, in which profession he had attained a moderate success, had enjoyed a brief but not inglorious spell of soldiering, from which he had retired slightly lamed for life, and had filled up the intervening period in the harmless occupation of censoring.  His friendship with Furley appeared on the surface too singular to be anything else but accidental.  Probably no one save the two men themselves understood it, and they both possessed the gift of silence.

“What’s all this peace talk mean?” Julian Orden asked, fingering the stem of his wineglass.

“Who knows?” Furley grunted.  “The newspapers must have their daily sensation.”

“I have a theory that it is being engineered.”

“Bolo business, eh?”

Julian Orden moved in his place a little uneasily.  His long, nervous fingers played with the stick which stood always by the side of his chair.

“You don’t believe in it, do you?” he asked quietly.

Furley looked straight ahead of him.  His eyes seemed caught by the glitter of the lamplight upon the cut-glass decanter.

“You know my opinion of war, Julian,” he said.  “It’s a filthy, intolerable heritage from generations of autocratic government.  No democracy ever wanted war.  Every democracy needs and desires peace.”

“One moment,” Julian interrupted.  “You must remember that a democracy seldom possesses the imperialistic spirit, and a great empire can scarcely survive without it.”

“Arrant nonsense!” was the vigorous reply.  “A great empire, from hemisphere to hemisphere, can be kept together a good deal better by democratic control.  Force is always the arriere pensee of the individual and the autocrat.”

“These are generalities,” Julian declared.  “I want to know your opinion about a peace at the present moment.”

“Not having any, thanks.  You’re a dilettante journalist by your own confession, Julian, and I am not going to be drawn.”

“There is something in it, then?”

“Maybe,” was the careless admission.  “You’re a visitor worth having, Julian. ’70 port and homegrown walnuts!  A nice little addition to my simple fare!  Must you go back to-morrow?”

Julian nodded.

“We’ve another batch of visitors coming,—­Stenson amongst them, by the bye.”

Furley nodded.  His eyes narrowed, and little lines appeared at their corners.

“I can’t imagine,” he confessed.  “What brings Stenson down to Maltenby.  I should have thought that your governor and he could scarcely spend ten minutes together without quarrelling!”

“They never do spend ten minutes together alone,” Julian replied drily.  “I see to that.  Then my mother, you know, has the knack of getting interesting people together.  The Bishop is coming, amongst others.  And, Furley, I wanted to ask you—­do you know anything of a young woman—­she is half Russian, I believe—­who calls herself Miss Catherine Abbeway?”