"Excuse me while I bathe and change.

We will dine a little earlier.

So far I have not eaten to-day." "A long trek ?" Dominey asked curiously.
"I have trekked far," was the quiet reply.
At dinner time, Von Ragastein was one more himself, immaculate in white duck, with clean linen, shaved, and with little left of his fatigue.
There was something different in his manner, however, some change which puzzled Dominey.

He was at once more attentive to his guest, yet further removed from him in spirit and sympathy.

He kept the conversation with curious insistence upon incidents of their school and college days, upon the subject of Dominey's friends and relations, and the later episodes of his life.