But Darnley Otter rose at once to greet him, leading him to an aperture in the wall, where drinks were served. Standing there by Darnley’s side, he made polite, hurried bows to the different members of the company, as his friend mentioned their names, and while his glass was filled and refilled with brandy, he found his eyes turning inevitably to the place where Jason sat⁠—sat as if he had been doing nothing else since he came into that room but wait for Wolf’s arrival. The man was watching him intently now, and without a trace of that whimsical humour with which he had departed from him to walk round the edge of Lenty Pond.

Wolf began at once summoning up from the recesses of his own nature all the psychic power he could bring to bear, to cope with this new situation. As he chatted at that little counter with Darnley, in the midst of a rambling, incoherent flow of talk from all parts of the room, he deliberately drank glass after glass of brandy, amused at the nervousness with which Darnley observed this proceeding, and growing more and more determined to fathom the mystery of that self-lacerated being on the other side of the room.