die a lieutenant—on half pay. That's how heroic people end when the heroic times are over." 

 "I am glad," said Cosmo steadily, "that you recognize at least their heroism." 

 The other opened his mouth for some time before he laughed, and that gave his face an expression of somewhat hard jollity. But the laugh when it came was by no means loud and had a sort of ingratiating softness. 

 "No, no. Don't think I am disparaging our sea service. I had the privilege to know the greatest hero of them all. Yes, I had two talks with Lord Nelson. Well, he was certainly not . . ." 

 He interrupted himself and raising his eyes saw the perfectly still gaze of Cosmo fastened on his face. Then peevishly: 

 "What I meant to say was that he at least was indubitably a hero. I remember that I was very careful about what I said to him. I had to be mighty careful then about what I said to anybody. Someone might have put it into his head to hang me at some yard-arm or other." 

 "I envy your experience all the same," said Cosmo amiably. "I suppose your conscience was clear?" 

 "I have always been most careful not to give my conscience any license to trouble me," retorted the other with a certain curtness of tone which was not offensive; "and I have lived now for some considerable time. I am really much older than I look," he concluded, giving Cosmo such a keen glance that the young man could not I help a smile. 

 The other went on looking at him steadily for a while, then let his eyes wander to a door in a distant part of the long room as if impatient for the coming of the dinner. Then giving it up: 

 "A man who has lived actively, actively I say, the last twenty years may well feel as old as Methuselah. Lord Nelson was but a circumstance in my life. I wonder, had he lived, how he would have taken all this." 

 A slight movement of his hand seemed to carry this allusion outside the confines of the vaulted noisy room, to indicate all the out-of-doors of the world. Cosmo remarked that the hand was muscular, shapely, and extremely well cared for. 

 "I think there can be no doubt about the nature of his feelings if he were living." Cosmo's voice was exactly non-committal. His interlocutor grunted slightly. 

 "H'm. He 

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