‘This is the short and long of it.’
The moon is streaming brilliantly over the silent streets as the two men
leaving Fitzwilliam Square turn presently into Stephen’s Green and then
down Dawson Street. Crosby’s footsteps are bound for the Gresham Hotel,
and Wyndham, who should have gone the other way, considering his rooms
are in Elgin Road, walks with him silently, and so mechanically that it
becomes at once plain to Crosby that he has lost himself a little in a
world of troublous thought.
Determining to let him find his way out of his mind’s labyrinth by
himself, Crosby maintains a discreet silence, refraining even from good
words and the whistle that has come to be part of him during his strange
wanderings by sea and land, and is difficult to discard when in the
midst of civilization.
It is not until they have reached the railings that run round Trinity
College, where the glorious light of the moon is lighting up the old and
splendid pile, that Wyndham speaks.
‘I’ve had the deuce of a time,’ says he.
‘Well, I could see that,’ says Crosby, turning his cigar in his fingers.
‘I’m rather disappointed in you, do you know, Paul. How you are to make
a fortune out of your profession is to me a mystery. Throw it up. You
are certainly not a liar born.’
‘I’m in a tight place,’ says Wyndham disgustedly, ‘but I dare say I’ll
get out of it. Well’—reluctantly—‘good-night.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ says Crosby, tucking his arm into his; ‘come and have
a pipe with me, and—if you can bring yourself to it—give voice to this
worry of yours, and get it off your mind.’
A pipe is a great help; soothed by it, and the influence of the society
of his old chum, Wyndham, seated comfortably in a huge armchair in
Crosby’s room, tells the latter the whole of his remarkable acquaintance
with his unknown guest at the Cottage.
It is, to confess the truth, a rather lame story, very lamely told; and
at the close of it Wyndham looks at his friend, at least at as much of
him as he can see, Crosby being now enclouded in smoke. He had been
smoking very vigorously, indeed, all through the recital, and there had
been moments when he had seemed to be choking, but whether altogether
from the smoke Wyndham felt uncertain.
‘Well, that’s the story,’ says he at last, flinging himself back in his
chair.
There is a short silence.
‘Then I suppose you could not think of a better one?’ says Crosby,
beginning to choke again.
‘Oh, I knew how you’d take it—how any fellow would take it,’ says
Wyndham wrathfully. ‘I can see that there isn’t a soul in the world who
would believe such an idiotic story as mine. But there it is, and you
can take it or leave it as you like. But for all that, Crosby, you ought
to know me well enough to understand that I should not trouble myself to
lie to you unless there was occasion for it.’
At this Crosby gives way to a roar.
‘Well, I honestly believe there’s no occasion now,’ says he; ‘and for
the rest, dear old chap! of course I believe every word you have said.
You must be thoroughly hipped, or you’d have seen how I was enjoying the
joke. Come, it seems we have both had adventures in Arcadia, and that we
have both come in rather sorry fashion out of them.’
‘Oh, you—you can afford to speak of adventures,’ says Wyndham ruefully.
‘You’re accustomed to them, but I—I confess this last and first has been
enough for me. You who have faced lions——’
‘Not so many, after all,’ interrupts Crosby, laughing. ‘Don’t magnify
them like that. I’ve shot a few, I confess, but I only seem to remember
seven. One does remember them when one’s face to face with them. But
there is not such a lot to remember, after all.’
‘It would serve, so far as I am concerned,’ says Wyndham frankly.
‘Indeed, I think I could do with one—always supposing he was dead. As
for how I feel now, it is as though I were in a den of them, and I doubt
if I’ll come as well out of it as Daniel did.’
Crosby regards him with an amused eye.
‘Apropos your tenant,’ says he, ‘when are you going to introduce your
aunt to your young man?’
‘Oh, get out!’ says Wyndham.
‘That’s a lion if you like,’ says Crosby.
‘Which—my aunt or my tenant?’
‘I haven’t seen the tenant. Still, it strikes me that she will be a
lion, too. I’d get out of that den if I were you.’
‘Well, I want to. But what’s one to do? I can’t get rid of either of my
lions.’
‘Not even of the tenant?’
‘I don’t see how I can, now I have given my promise.’
‘Well, introduce them to each other; that’s a capital suggestion if you
will only look into it. Whilst they claw each other, you may be able to
make your escape.’
‘Introduce them?’ Wyndham pauses, as if sounding the proposition, then
gives way to wrath. ‘Hang it!’ says he; ‘you are worse than Job’s three
comforters all rolled into one.’