Noel Draycott was something to stare at. He seemed to have grown thinner since they had seen him last; he looked as if he had been ill. There was a recently healed scar on his forehead, another right across his left cheek. His hair had been cut very close to his head, a strip of plaster came from the back to the front. The fact was unmistakable that he must have been pretty considerably in the wars. He had on a dinner-jacket. In his right hand was an ebony cane with a crook handle, on which he seemed to lean as if in need of its support.
He stood looking round the room as if searching for individual faces. His eyes rested first on one and then on another with a glance as of pleased recognition. When they reached Dodwell they rested on him rather longer than on any of the others, with, this time, something in them which was hardly pleasure.
It was he who broke the silence which had followed his appearance with a question:
"Playing snooker? Don't let me interrupt you. Go on playing. You look as though you had got an easy one. How's the family--all all right?"
As he came farther into the room they broke into speech; they came crowding round him.
"Noel, old man!" exclaimed Clifford, "is this a little game which you've been playing? To spring a surprise on us like this when we were all thinking---- Why, on my word, I was very nearly on the point of going into mourning. I'd sooner see you--I don't know that there is anything I'd rather see."
A hearty chorus of welcome greeted him from all sides.
"Draycott," declared Major Reith, "you may laugh at me, but as I look at you I hardly know whether I am standing on my head or my heels. Do you know that when last I saw you I would have been willing to swear before a jury of medical men that you were dead? My dear, dear man, if you only knew how glad I am to see you--what a weight you are lifting off my mind. You're sure you're not a ghost?"
Draycott's smile was a little pale and wan, as if the major's suggestion was hardly as much of a joke as he would have liked it to be.
"I've always understood that ghosts are unsubstantial things. If you'll have a prod at me with your cue, you'll find that I'm solid enough; only go easy--I'm not yet as firm on my pins as I mean to be soon."