"It's nearly daybreak," he said. "And I've a model coming at ten.
She's busy and I can't stall."

He left Kenny amazed and aggrieved at his desertion. Certainly in the
grip of untoward events, a man is entitled to someone with whom he can
talk it over.

Wakeful and nervous, Kenny smoked, raked his hair with his fingers and
brooded. Brian had been disinherited much too often to resent it all
at once to-night. As for the shotgun, that dispute or its equivalent
was certainly as normal a one as regularity could make it. And he had
related many a tale unhampered by fact that Brian had simply ignored.

"What on earth has got into the lad?" he wondered impatiently.

Ah, well, he was a good lad, clean-cut and fine, with Irish eyes and an
Irish temper like his father. Kenny forgot and forgave. Both were a
spontaneity of temperament. Brian and he would begin again. That was
always pleasant.

He strode remorsefully to Brian's door and knocked. There was no
answer. He knocked again. Ordinarily he would have flung back the
door with a show of temper. Penitential, he opened it with an air of
gentle forbearance. The room, which gave evidence of anger and hurried
packing, was empty, the door that opened into the corridor, ajar.

Brian was gone.

White and startled, Kenny unearthed the chafing dish and made himself