The two brothers were drenched as they cantered silently home.

Good friends always, they had never much to say to one another.

For Miltoun was conscious that he thought on a different plane from Bertie; and Bertie grudged even to his brother any inkling of what was passing in his spirit, just as he grudged parting with diplomatic knowledge, or stable secrets, or indeed anything that might leave him less in command of life.

He grudged it, because in a private sort of way it lowered his estimation of his own stoical self-sufficiency; it hurt something proud in the withdrawing-room of his soul.

But though he talked little, he had the power of contemplation--often found in men of decided character, with a tendency to liver.