Without a word Lygon took down another coat and put it on. Doing so he
concealed a weapon quickly as Dupont stooped to pick a coal for his pipe
from the blaze. Lygon had no fixed purpose in taking a weapon with him;
it was only a vague instinct of caution that moved him.

In the canoe on the river, in an almost speechless apathy, he heard
Dupont's voice giving him instructions.

.......................

Henderley, the financier, had just finished his game of whist and
dismissed his friends--it was equivalent to dismissal, rough yet genial
as he seemed to be, so did immense wealth and its accompanying power
affect his relations with those about him. In everything he was
"considered." He was in good humour, for he had won all the evening, and
with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes--three thousand dollars
it was. It was like a man with a pocket full of money, chuckling over a
coin he has found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the
inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from the reedy
lake.

Instinctively he glanced round for a weapon, mechanically his hands
firmly grasped the chair in front of him.

He had been in danger of his life many times, and he had no fear. He had
been threatened with assassination more than once, and he had got used to
the idea of danger; life to him was only a game.

He kept his nerve; he did not call out; he looked his visitor in the
eyes.