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166 scious that his companion was watching him closely, and he affected to be deeply interested in the selection of a cigarette.

"No!" he said at last; "it is no concern of ours, of course. And yet one cannot help feeling a little interested. I noticed myself that the lodge gates of the château were rather strictly guarded."

"Very likely," the other answered. "Women of fashion who suffer from nerves take strange fancies nowadays. This Madame de Melbain is probably one of these."

Wrayson nodded.

"Very likely," he admitted. "What are you going to do with yourself all day?"

"Loaf! I am going to lie down in the fields there amongst the wild flowers, in the shade of the woods," Duncan answered; "that is, if one may take so great a liberty with the woods of madame! This sort of country rather fascinates me," he added thoughtfully. "I have lived so long in a land where the vegetation is a jungle and the flowers are exotics. There is a species of exaggeration about it all. I find this restful."

"Africa?" Wrayson asked.

The other nodded silently. He did not seem inclined to continue the conversation.

"You are the second man I have met lately who has come home from Africa," Wrayson remarked, "and you represent the opposite poles of life."

"It is very possible," Duncan admitted. "We are a polyglot lot who come from there."

"You were in the war, of course?" Wrayson asked.

"I was in the war," Duncan answered, "almost to the finish. Afterwards I went into Rhodesia, and in-