Durrance's imagination was kindled by this simple sequence of events, and he straightway made up a little picture in his mind.

In one chair himself smoking his cigar, a round table holding a match-stand on his left hand, and on the other side of the table Captain Willoughby in another chair.

But Captain Willoughby lighting his pipe and suddenly arrested in the act by a sentence spoken without significance, Captain Willoughby staring suspiciously in his slow-witted way at the blind man's face, until the lighted match, which he had forgotten, burnt down to his fingers, and he swore and dropped it and stamped it out upon the floor.

Durrance had never given a thought to that dinner till this moment.

It was possible it might deserve much thought.
"There were you and I and Feversham present," he went on.