Chilcote moved restlessly in his seat.  “You talk bitterly,” he said.

The other looked up.  “I think bitterly, which is worse.  I am one of the unlucky beggars who, in the expectation of money, has been denied a profession—­even a trade, to which to cling in time of shipwreck; and who, when disaster comes, drift out to sea.  I warned you the other night to steer clear of me.  I come under the head of flotsam!”

Chilcote’s face lighted.  “You came a cropper?” he asked.

“No.  It was some one else who came the cropper—­I only dealt in results.”

“Big results?”

“A drop from a probable eighty thousand pounds to a certain eight hundred.”

Chilcote glanced up.  “How did you take it?” he asked.

“I?  Oh, I was twenty-five then.  I had a good many hopes and a lot of pride; but there is no place for either in a working world.”

“But your people?”

“My last relation died with the fortune.”

“Your friends?”

Loder laid down his pipe.  “I told you I was twenty-five,” he said, with the tinge of humor that sometimes crossed his manner.  “Doesn’t that explain things?  I had never taken favors in prosperity; a change of fortune was not likely to alter my ways.  As I have said, I was twenty-five.”  He smiled.  “When I realized my position I sold all my belongings with the exception of a table and a few books—­which I stored.  I put on a walking-suit and let my beard grow; then, with my entire capital in my pocket, I left England without saying good-bye to any one.”

“For how long?”

“Oh, for six years.  I wandered half over Europe and through a good part of Asia in the time.”

“And then?”

“Then?  Oh, I shaved off the beard and came back to London!” He looked at Chilcote, partly contemptuous, partly amused at his curiosity.

But Chilcote sat staring in silence.  The domination of the other’s personality and the futility of his achievements baffled him.

Loder saw his bewilderment.  “You wonder what the devil I came into the world for,” he said.  “I sometimes wonder the same myself.”

At his words a change passed over Chilcote.  He half rose, then dropped back into his seat.

“You have no friends?” he said.  “Your life is worth nothing to you?”

Loder raised his head.  “I thought I had conveyed that impression.”

“You are an absolutely free man.”

“No man is free who works for his bread.  If things had been different I might have been in such shoes as yours, sauntering in legislative byways; my hopes turned that way once.  But hopes, like more substantial things, belong to the past—­” He stopped abruptly and looked at his companion.

The change in Chilcote had become more acute; he sat fingering his cigarette, his brows drawn down, his lips set nervously in a conflict of emotions.  For a space he stayed very still, avoiding Loder’s eyes; then, as if decision had suddenly come to him, he turned and met his gaze.