“Mr. Kirk has been very kind. I not only have the run of this charming bungalow, but he has also installed me in the offices below.” He looked at Kirk. “Which reminds me - I’m afraid I quite forgot to close the safe downstairs.”

“Paradise can attend to it,” suggested Kirk.

“Oh, no,” said Sir Frederic. “Please don’t trouble. It doesn’t matter - as far as I am concerned.”

Carrick Enderby spoke in a loud, booming voice. “I say, Colonel Beetham. I’ve just read your book you know.”

“Ah, yes - er - which one?” inquired Beetham blandly.

“Don’t be a fool, Carry,” said Eileen Enderby rather warmly. “Colonel Beetham has written many books. And he’s not going to be impressed by the fact that, knowing you were to meet him here tonight, you hastily ran through one of them.”

“But it wasn’t hastily,” protested Enderby. “I gave it my best attention. The Life, I mean, you know. All your adventures - and by jove, they were thrilling. Of course, I can’t understand you, sir. For me, the cheery old whisky and soda in the comfortable chair by the warm fire. But you - how you do yearn for the desolate places, my word.”

Beetham smiled. “It’s the white spots - the white spots on the map. They call to me. I - I long to walk there, where no man has walked before. It is an odd idea, isn’t it?”

“Well, of course, getting home must be exciting,” Enderby admitted. “The Kings and the Presidents pinning decorations on you, and the great dinners, and the eulogies -“

“Quite the most terrible part of it, I assure you,” said Beetham.

“Nevertheless, I’d take it in preference to your jolly old deserts,” continued Enderby. “That time you were lost on the - er - the -“

“The desert of Takla-makan,” finished Beetham. “I was in a bit of a jam, wasn’t I? But I wasn’t lost, my dear fellow. I had simply embarked on the crossing with insufficient water and supplies.”

Mrs. Kirk spoke. “I was enthralled by that entry you quoted from your diary. What you thought was the last entry you would ever make. I know it by heart. ‘Halted on a high dune, where the camels fell exhausted. We examined the East through the field-glasses; mountains of sand in all directions; not a straw, no life.