A faint interest appeared in the other’s eyes.
“That sounds to me good sense. But, hang it all, it’s utterly unpractical. I can’t go looking for scrapes. I should feel like play-acting if in cold blood I got myself into difficulties, and I take it that the essence of your prescription is that I must feel desperately in earnest.”
“I’m not prescribing. Heaven forbid that I should advise a friend to look for trouble. I’m merely stating how in the abstract I regard your case.”
The patient rose to go. “Miserable comforters are ye all,” he groaned. “Well, it appears you can do nothing for me except to suggest the advisability of crime. I suppose it’s no good trying to make you take a fee?”
The doctor shook his head. “I wasn’t altogether chaffing. Honestly, you would be the better of dropping for a month or two into another world— a harder one. A hand on a cattle-boat, for instance.”
Sir Edward Leithen sighed deeply as he turned from the doorstep down the long hot street. He did not look behind him, or he would have seen another gentleman approach cautiously round the corner of a side-street, and, when the coast was clear, ring the doctor’s bell. He was so completely fatigued with life that he neglected to be cautious at crossings, as was his habit, and was all but slain by a motor-omnibus. Everything seemed weary and over-familiar—the summer smell of town, the din of traffic, the panorama of faces, pretty women shopping, the occasional sight of a friend. Long ago, he reflected with disgust, there had been a time when he had enjoyed it all.
He found sanctuary at last in the shade and coolness of his club. He remembered that he was dining out, and bade the porter telephone that he could not come, giving no reason. He remembered, too, that there was a division in the House that night, an important division advertised by a three-line whip. He declined to go near the place. At any rate, he would have the dim consolation of behaving badly. His clerk was probably at the moment hunting feverishly for him, for he had missed a consultation in the great Argentine bank case which was in the paper next morning. That could also slide. He wanted, nay, he was determined, to make a mess of it.
Then he discovered that he was hungry, and that it was nearly the hour when a man may dine. “I’ve only one positive feeling left,” he told himself, “the satisfaction of my brute needs. Nice position for a gentleman and a Christian!”
There was one other man in the dining-room, sitting at the little table in the window. At first sight he had the look of an undergraduate, a Rugby Blue, perhaps, who had just come down from the University, for he had the broad, slightly stooped shoulders of the football-player. He had a ruddy face, untidy sandy hair, and large reflective grey eyes. It was those eyes which declared his age, for round them were the many fine wrinkles which come only from the passage of time.
“Hullo, John,” said Leithen. “May I sit at your table?”
The other, whose name was Palliser-Yeates, nodded.
“You may certainly eat in my company, but I’ve got nothing to say to you, Ned. I’m feeling as dried-up as a dead starfish.”
They ate their meal in silence, and so preoccupied was Sir Edward Leithen with his own affairs that it did not seem to him strange that Mr Palliser-Yeates, who was commonly a person of robust spirits and plentiful conversation, should have the air of a deaf-mute. When they had reached the fish, two other diners took their seats and waved them a greeting. One of them was a youth with lean, high-coloured cheeks, who limped slightly; the other a tallish older man with a long dark face, a small dark moustache, and a neat pointed chin which gave him something of the air of a hidalgo. He looked weary and glum, but his companion seemed to be in the best of tempers, for his laugh rang out in that empty place with a startling boyishness. Mr Palliser-Yeates looked up angrily, with a shiver.
“Noisy brute, Archie Roylance!” he observed. “I suppose he’s above himself since Ascot. His horse won some beastly race, didn’t it? It’s a good thing to be young and an ass.”
There was that in his tone which roused Leithen from his apathy. He cast a sharp glance at the other’s face.
“You’re off-colour.”
“No,” said the other brusquely. “I’m perfectly fit. Only I’m getting old.”
This was food for wonder, inasmuch as Mr Palliser-Yeates had a reputation for a more than youthful energy and, although forty-five years of age, was still accustomed to do startling things on the Chamonix Aiguilles. He was head of an eminent banking firm and something of an authority on the aberrations of post-war finance.
A gleam of sympathy came into Leithen’s eyes.
“How does it take you?” he asked.
“I’ve lost zest. Everything seems more or less dust and ashes. When you suddenly wake up and find that you’ve come to regard your respectable colleagues as so many fidgety old women and the job you’ve given your life to as an infernal squabble about trifles—why, you begin to wonder what’s going to happen.”
“I suppose a holiday ought to happen.”
“The last thing I want. That’s my complaint. I have no desire to do anything, work or play, and yet I’m not tired—only bored.”
Leithen’s sympathy had become interest.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
The other hesitated. “Yes,” he said at length. “I saw old Acton Croke this afternoon. He was no earthly use. He advised me to go to Moscow and fix up a trade agreement. He thought that might make me content with my present lot.”
“He told me to steal a horse.”
Mr Palliser-Yeates stared in extreme surprise. “You! Do you feel the same way? Have you been to Croke?”
“Three hours ago. I thought he talked good sense. He said I must get into a rougher life so as to appreciate the blessings of the life that I’m fed up with. Probably he is right, but you can’t take that sort of step in cold blood.”
Mr. Palliser-Yeates assented. The fact of having found an associate in misfortune seemed to enliven slightly, very slightly, the spirits of both. From the adjoining table came, like an echo from a happier world, the ringing voice and hearty laughter of youth. Leithen jerked his head towards them.
“I would give a good deal for Archie’s gusto,” he said. “My sound right leg, for example. Or, if I couldn’t I’d like Charles Lamancha’s insatiable ambition. If you want as much as he wants, you don’t suffer from tedium.”
Palliser-Yeates looked at the gentleman in question, the tall dark one of the two diners. “I’m not so sure. Perhaps he had got too much too easily. He has come on uncommon quick, you know, and, if you do that, there’s apt to arrive a moment when you flag.”
Lord Lamancha—the title had no connection with Don Quixote and Spain, but was the name of a shieling in a Border glen which had been the home six centuries ago of the ancient house of Merkland—was an object of interest to many of his countrymen. The Marquis of Liddesdale, his father, was a hale old man who might reasonably be expected to live for another ten years and so prevent his son’s career being compromised by a premature removal to the House of Lords. He had a safe seat for a London division, was a member of the Cabinet, and had a high reputation for the matter-of-fact oratory which has replaced the pre-war grandiloquence. People trusted him, because, in spite of his hidalgo-ish appearance, he was believed to have that combination of candour and intelligence which England desires in her public men. Also he was popular, for his record in the war and the rumour of a youth spent in adventurous travel touched the imagination of the ordinary citizen. At the moment he was being talked of for a great Imperial post which was soon to become