Surtout, Messieurs, pas de zele.

Such was the meeting of Victor Durnovo and Jack Meredith. Two men
with absolutely nothing in common--no taste, no past, no kinship--
nothing but the future. Such men as Fate loves to bring together
for her own strange purposes. What these purposes are none of us
can tell. Some hold that Fate is wise. She is not so yet, but she
cannot fail to acquire wisdom some day, because she experiments so
industriously. She is ever bringing about new combinations, and one
can only trust that she, the experimenter, is as keenly disappointed
in the result as are we, the experimented.

To Jack Meredith Victor Durnovo conveyed the impression of little
surprise and a slight local interest. He was a man who was not
quite a gentleman; but for himself Jack did not give great heed to
this. He had associated with many such; for, as has been previously
intimated, he had moved in London society, where there are many men
who are not quite gentlemen. The difference of a good coat and that
veiled insolence which passes in some circles for the ease of good
breeding had no weight with the keen son of Sir John Meredith, and
Victor Durnovo fared no worse in his companion's estimation because
he wore a rough coat and gave small attention to his manners. He
attracted and held Jack's attention by a certain open-air manliness
which was in keeping with the situation and with his life.
Sportsmen, explorers and wanderers were not new to Jack; for
nowadays one may never know what manner of man is inside a faultless
dress-suit. It is an age of disappearing, via Charing Cross station
in a first-class carriage, to a life of backwooding, living from
hand to mouth, starving in desert, prairie, pampas or Arctic wild,
with, all the while, a big balance at Cox's. And most of us come