"You are kindness itself," said Maas. "By the way, since we have come to this arrangement, why should we not have a little dinner to-night at my rooms as a send off? I'll find Foote and get him to come, and we'll drink a toast to the Land of the Rising Sun."
"Many thanks," said Browne, "but I'm very much afraid it's quite out of the question. I leave for Paris this afternoon, and shall not be back until Saturday at earliest."
"What a pity!" said Maas. "Never mind; if we can't celebrate the occasion on this side of the world, we will do so on the other. You are turning off here? Well, good-bye, and many, many thanks to you. You cannot imagine how grateful I feel to you, and what a weight you have taken off my mind."
"I am glad to hear it," said Browne; and then, shaking him by the hand, he crossed the road and made his way down St. James's Street. "Confound it all!" he said to himself, as he walked along, "this is just the sort of scrape my absurd mania for issuing invitations gets me into. I like Maas well enough as an acquaintance, but I don't know that he is altogether the sort of fellow I should have chosen to accompany me on an expedition like this. However, what's done cannot be undone; and it is just possible, as his health is giving way, that he will decide to leave us in Japan; then we shall be all right. If he doesn't, and elects to go on with us--well, I suppose we must make the best of it."
As he came to this philosophical conclusion, he turned the corner from St. James's Street into Pall Mall, and ran into the arms of the very man for whom he was in search. Foote was evidently in as great a hurry as himself, and, such was the violence of the shock, that it was a wonderful thing that they did not both fall to the ground.
"Hang it, man, why don't you look where you're going?" Foote cried angrily, as he put his hand to his head to hold on his hat. As he did so he recognised Browne.
"Hullo, old chap, it's you, is it?" he cried. "By Jove! do you know you nearly knocked me down?"
"It's your own fault," Browne answered snappishly. "What do you mean by charging round the corner like that? You might have known what would happen."
They stood and looked at one another for a moment, and then Foote burst out laughing. "My dear old fellow," he said, "what on earth's wrong with you? You don't seem to be yourself this morning."