It is all one to me," he added with a shrug of the shoulders; "I have only until midnight at any event, and it makes small difference where I spend the intervening hours.

Perhaps you would like to sleep a little?
Why not?
Sleep, and I will keep watch." But, badly though I needed sleep, that sort of death-watch did not quite appeal.

Besides, gentle, and honest and plausible though the Gray Mahatma now seemed, there was still something within me that rebelled at trusting him entirely.

He had been all along too mysterious, and mystery is what irritates most of us more than anything else.

It needs a man like Athelstan King to recognize the stark honesty of such a man as that Gray Mahatma; and Athelstan King was not there to set the example.