"Perfectly well," Jocelyn Thew acknowledged. "I was present at the production of your last play in New York. I have since read with much regret," he went on courteously, "of the losses you have sustained."
The old man's wonderful eyes flashed for a moment.
"They are losses I am proud to endure, sir," he said. "But I did not come to speak of myself. I came to speak to Sir Denis Cathley."
Jocelyn Thew shook his head.
"It is a likeness which deceives you," he declared.
"A likeness!" the other repeated. "Nine weeks ago I stood in a ruined mansion—so dilapidated, in fact, that one corner of it is open to the skies. I listened to the roar of the Atlantic as I heard it in the same place fifty years ago. A herdsman and his wife, perhaps a girl or two, live somewhere in the back quarters. The only apartment in any sort of preservation is the one sometimes called the picture gallery and sometimes the banqueting hall. You should visit this ruined mansion, sir. You should visit it before you give me the lie when I call you Sir Denis Cathley."
Jocelyn Thew's hand for a moment shielded part of his face, as though he found the electric light a little strong. From behind the shelter of his palm his eyes met the eyes of his visitor. The latter suddenly turned and bowed to Katharine.
"You will forgive an old man," he begged courteously, "who has seen much trouble lately, for his ill manners. Perhaps your friend here, your friend whose name is not Sir Denis Cathley, can explain to you why I felt some emotion at the sight of so wonderful a likeness."
He bowed, murmured some broken words in reply to Katharine's kindly little speech, and moved away. Jocelyn Thew's eyes watched him with a curious softness.
"Yes," he acknowledged, "I can tell you why, if he really saw a likeness in me to the person he spoke of, it might remind him of strange things. You know him by name, of course—Michael Dilwyn?"