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myself to the opening. I meant to watch for his entry, but he was already inside, at the table nearest my vantage. He had only a flagon before him, and seemed to be waiting for someone.
    He was a tall, blond man. His wide shoulders recalled an active youth, but his belly and hips now matched the shoulders' girth. His face still had the habit of handsomeness, though soft living had already blurred its lines. But after all, the habit of beauty is the essential thing. He would still be a favorite among the women in his world. His world was that of the no-longer-young, would-be rich. His father-in-law was middling wealthy, but we knew he kept Defalk on a short leash. Our quarry was a man who could expect to be comfortably off eventually, after his youth was well past, and he had served a decade or so as a go-between and adjutant in the world of finance. And you could see at a glance that Defalk was a simple man who wanted no more than to be brilliantly rich, admired, and unencumbered with work. His face said it so plainly: "I'm an excellent fellow. Isn't such a life no more than my proper portion?" I assure you, I half agreed with him, his conviction was so uncomplicated and sincere. At one point in our observation of him, Haldar had turned to me and said with strange bitterness: "By the Crack, even the best women love just such men in their inexperience. A brainless complacency must be one of the great secrets of winning women's hearts!"
    A burly man, black-bearded and doubleted in burgundy silk, came into the inn, and Defalk signaled to him. The man was Defalk's age, but his movement had verve and his eyes flashed a swinish vitality. Both men wore the insignia of wealth—most notably the fur-trimmed short-capes then in vogue—but when you looked at Defalk's lax shoulders and slightly vague blue eyes, and then at the other's energy, you knew at once that the bearded man was born to the world which the other was still scrambling to enter.
    The man strode to Defalk's table and dealt him a hearty shoulder-clap whose familiarity bordered on offense in that relatively staid little tavern. He stood for quite a while, bantering boisterously, drawing lots of eyes, which he enjoyed and Defalk obviously didn't. At last he sat down, still gusty and hail-fellow in all he said. There was some small talk. Defalk kept his voice pointedly low and at the same time tried to return a toned-down version of his guest's conviviality. His awkward insincerity was painful to watch. Kramlod, his friend, drank it in greedily.
    At length Defalk set his flagon aside and leaned toward Kramlod. "We've known each other long enough for me to be blunt," he said. "Bespeak what you'll have, and I'll come out with what's on my mind." He signaled the keep. Kramlod smiled.
    "Ah, Defalk, you're just the man to speak out what's on your mind! I remember you as a young man, chasing temple skirts, no less, for your pleasure. We all thought you such a daring romantic then, and so outspoken about all us more conventional souls! Remember what you used to say about the world of business? All toadying and chicanery, lean purses fawning on fat ones for favors? Were those not the days? How far we wander from our youthful views!"
    He made only the thinnest pretense of speaking at large. He sat grinning in Defalk's face as the latter chuckled—a sickly and unpleasant little cackle, I judged it, but obviously music to Kramlod. The keep appeared and Kramlod made a stridently jovial affair out of ordering—prodding recommendations from Defalk, echoing them, rallying the keep for his reactions. At last he ordered a small glass of punch. Defalk ordered a double firewater and I didn't blame him.
    "Favor-seeking you mentioned," Defalk said when the keep was gone. "By coincidence, Kramlod, that's precisely my own role now! Perhaps you guessed it! There's no dimming your eyes, old buck! In a word then, noble fellow, you must ask us to this evening of yours! It would help us greatly and