“Yes, I know her,” was the brief rejoinder.

“She lived in Russia for some years, it seems,” Julian continued.  “Her mother was Russian—­a great writer on social subjects.”

Furley nodded.

“Miss Abbeway is rather that way herself,” he remarked.  “I’ve heard her lecture in the East End.  She has got hold of the woman’s side of the Labour question as well as any one I ever came across.”

“She is a most remarkably attractive young person,” Julian declared pensively.

“Yes, she’s good-looking.  A countess in her own right, they tell me, but she keeps her title secret for fear of losing influence with the working classes.  She did a lot of good down Poplar way.  Shouldn’t have thought she’d have been your sort, Julian.”

“Why?”

“Too serious.”

Julian smiled—­rather a peculiar, introspective smile.

“I, too, can, be serious sometimes,” he said.

His friend thrust his hands into his trousers pocket and, leaning back in his chair, looked steadfastly at his guest.

“I believe you can, Julian,” he admitted.  “Sometimes I am not quite sure that I understand you.  That’s the worst of a man with the gift for silence.”

“You’re not a great talker yourself,” the younger man reminded his host.

“When you get me going on my own subject,” Furley remarked, “I find it hard to stop, and you are a wonderful listener.  Have you got any views of your own?  I never hear them.”

Julian drew the box of cigarettes towards him.

“Oh, yes, I’ve views of my own,” he confessed.  “Some day, perhaps, you shall know what they are.”

“A man of mystery!” his friend jeered good-naturedly.

Julian lit his cigarette and watched the smoke curl upward.

“Let’s talk about the duck,” he suggested.

The two men sat in silence for some minutes.  Outside, the storm seemed to have increased in violence.  Furley rose, threw a log on to the fire and resumed his place.

“Geese flew high,” he remarked.

“Too high for me,” Julian confessed.

“You got one more than I did.”

“Sheer luck.  The outside bird dipped down to me.”

Furley filled his guest’s glass and then his own.

“What on earth have you kept your shooting kit on for?” the latter asked, with lazy curiosity.

Furley glanced down at his incongruous attire and seemed for a moment ill at ease.

“I’ve got to go out presently,” he announced.

Julian raised his eyebrows.

“Got to go out?” he repeated.  “On a night like this?  Why, my dear fellow—­”

He paused abruptly.  He was a man of quick perceptions, and he realised his host’s embarrassment.  Nevertheless, there was an awkward pause in the conversation.  Furley rose to his feet and frowned.  He fetched a jar of tobacco from a shelf and filled his pouch deliberately: