There was no silence while they exchanged clothes.  Loder talked continuously, sometimes in short, curt sentences, sometimes with ironic touches of humor; he talked until Chilcote, strangely affected by contact with another personality after his weeks of solitude, fell under his influence—­his excitement rising, his imagination stirring at the novelty of change.  At last, garbed once more in the clothes of his own world, he passed from the bedroom back into the sitting-room, and there halted, waiting for his companion.

Almost directly Loder followed.  He came into the room quietly, and, moving at once to the table, picked up the note-book.

“I’m not going to preach,” he began, “so you needn’t shut me up.  But I’ll say just one thing—­a thing that will get said.  Try and keep your hold!  Remember your responsibilities—­and keep your hold!” He spoke energetically, looking earnestly into Chilcote’s eyes.  He did not realize it, but he was pleading for his own career.

Chilcote paled a little, as he always did in face of a reality.  Then he extended his hand.

“My dear fellow,” he said, with a touch of hauteur, “a man can generally be trusted to look after his own life.”

Extricating his hand almost immediately, he turned towards the door and without a word of farewell passed into the little hall, leaving Loder alone in the sitting-room.

XII

On the night of Chilcote’s return to his own, Loder tasted the lees of life poignantly for the first time.  Before their curious compact had been entered upon he had been, if not content, at least apathetic; but with action the apathy had been dispersed, never again to regain its old position.

He realized with bitter certainty that his was no real home-coming.  On entering Chilcote’s house he had experienced none of the unfamiliarity, none of the unsettled awkwardness, that assailed him now.  There he had almost seemed the exile returning after many hardships; here, in the atmosphere made common by years, he felt an alien.  It was illustrative of the man’s character that sentimentalities found no place in his nature.  Sentiments were not lacking, though they lay out of sight, but sentimentalities he altogether denied.

Left alone in the sitting-room after Chilcote’s departure, his first sensation was one of physical discomfort and unfamiliarity.  His own clothes, with their worn looseness, brought no sense of friendliness such as some men find in an old garment.  Lounging, and the clothes that suggested lounging, had no appeal for him.  In his eyes the garb that implies responsibility was symbolic and even inspiring.