"That's enough, Shelton," interrupted the first gentleman. "I didn't
come here to hear you talk. I've heard you do that often enough in
the old days. You can talk a woman off her feet, but by God, you
can't talk me."

My father waved his hand negligently, as though disavowing some
compliment.

"The same forceful character," he observed gently, "the same blunt
candor. How refreshing it is, Lawton, after years of intrigue and
dissimulation. My son, this is Mr. Lawton, an old, but he will pardon me
if I do not add--a valued acquaintance."

For a moment Mr. Lawton's pale eyes looked sharply into mine, and I bowed
to him ironically. I saw a high, thin face, resolute and impulsive, a
grim ascetic face, with a long, straight nose that seemed pulled too
close to his upper lip, and a mouth stamped roughly on a narrow, bony
jaw, a mouth, as I looked at it, that seemed ready to utter an
imprecation.

"Mr. Lawton and I have met before," I said.

"Indeed? And our friend in the background," my father continued. "Perhaps
it is my bad memory that permits his identity still to be a revelation?"

The stranger nervously arranged a fold in his sea cloak, while his
little black eyes darted restlessly about the room.

"It's Sims, Captain Shelton," he volunteered, in a gentle, unassuming
voice, "and very much at your service."