able from anybody else. At this moment, however, he had a very unusual kind of appearance.
"The dinner," said Derry, "is on me. Thoms dines with us."
I did not want to dine with Thoms, but I could not say so; not, at least, while I was in the very act of shaking Thoms by the hand. I wished to dine with Derry on food carefully chosen by myself, and sit far into the night discoursing with Derry of our past lives, where they had touched, and of the people that we knew. The presence of Thoms must make all this impossible. It must impose a strictly impersonal tone upon our conversation. Well, I can enjoy impersonal talk as much as anyone. Thoms had an intelligent face. And the poor devil was alone, save for us, on this his first night in London, after an age of exile. Resolved to get Derry to myself at an early date, I accepted the situation.
We passed to a gilded, blatant place where they serve a table d'hôte dinner and have a band. Such was Derry's choice. As he named it to the cabman I thought of the peaceful, silent isolation-ward in which my club dines its guests, and I sighed.
In the cab Derry and Thoms continued the conversation which I had interrupted. They continued it further in the restaurant.
