Besides, I knew you would expect me." Conyers' grim face softened a little.

He could scarcely have said how he had ever come to be the chosen friend of young Hugh Palliser.

The intimacy had been none of his seeking.
They had met at the club on the occasion of one of his rare appearances there, and the younger man, whose sociable habit it was to know everyone, had scraped acquaintance with him.
No one knew much about Conyers.

He was not fond of society, and, as a natural consequence, society was not fond of him.

He occupied the humble position of a subordinate clerk in an engineer's office.