At the Burlington in the hall we found Deeming. I saw him before he
was aware of us, and was startled by the change in his face. There was
the stamp of nervous exhaustion upon it. The complexion was grey, the
mouth was drawn, the eyes were anxious, almost feverish. When he turned
and faced us fully he made an abrupt movement which was certainly not
caused by pleasure, and I saw the fingers of his two hands clench
themselves violently in the palms. Then he recovered himself, came
forward, and greeted us with self-possession.
“I never expected to see you in England so soon,” he said to Vernon. “I
thought you usually spent part of the summer in Rome.”
“I often do. But this year something has called me to London.”
“Oh. Well, all the better. We shall see something of you. I hope we
shall bring off our dinner together in town. Only you must let me be
the host.”
“Thank you. I shall be delighted.”
The note of cordiality was, I thought, forced by both men. Few more
words were spoken, for it was getting late, and the hour of dinner was
approaching. As we went upstairs I said to Vernon—
“Deeming does certainly want medicine of one sort or another. Don’t you
think he looks horribly ill?”
“He has a strung-up expression. I should say he’s overworking. Did you
notice how he started when he saw us?”
“Did he?” I answered, disingenuously I confess. “Naturally he was
surprised. He had no idea we were in England.”
“Exactly. Here are our rooms. _Au revoir_ at dinner.”
The dinner I need not chronicle at length. It took place downstairs,
although we had engaged the sitting-room to appease a management
shocked at our lack of evening clothes. The talk ran easily enough,
helped by Lord Elyn’s unconsciousness of the obsession of the black
spaniel, which sometimes seemed to me to be hovering about our table,
creeping beneath our chairs, a shadow importunate, servile, yet
menacing. I felt that the thoughts of Deeming and Vernon, interlacing
and inimical, were on this whining, whimpering, uneasy shadow, that had
called the latter from his home in Italy, that had stopped him here
by the grey sea. I knew it as if those thoughts were spread before
me by my plate. And all the time we chatted, glancing from subject
to subject without great earnestness, laughing lightly at the last
London absurdity, or discussing with apparent animation the chances
of politics and the trend of art, I felt that our conversation was
but a thin veil spread over a depth in which were other voices than
ours, murmuring, in which the pale forms of future events glided, like
spectres, to and fro.
Directly after dinner Lord Elyn excused himself.
“The eyes of the nurse are upon me,” he said, jocosely. “I see them
saying: ‘Master Elyn, it’s time for you to go to bed!’ Eh, Deeming?”
“Quite right, Lord Elyn,” answered Deeming, smiling.
“Well, good-night. You’d much better come too, Deeming.”
“Oh, I couldn’t sleep yet. I haven’t been on the sea. I think I shall
go out and take a breath of air on the front.”
“Perhaps it may do you good. I feel full of sleep.”
And he went off, leaving us in the hall.
“Will you come out?” asked Deeming.
The invitation seemed addressed to both of us. I expected Vernon
to accept it with alacrity, but, to my surprise, he took up the
_Westminster Gazette_.
“I’m a bit tired,” he answered. “I think I’ll stay here.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said.
“Right. I want a turn or two to summon slumber.”
There was something almost pathetic in his voice. It moved me to
ask, as we went down the steps, and along the row of houses to the
sea-front—
“Have you been sleeping badly, then?”
“Pretty badly. I say, what’s brought Vernon over so soon?”
The question was sharply suspicious.
“He didn’t tell me,” I answered.
“Then you don’t know?”
We turned to the left and walked along the parade towards the cliff. No
one was about in the cold and gusty night. Now and then a light flashed
out across the sea, swept it in a half circle, and vanished in the
darkness.
“Oh, I’m not in all Vernon’s secrets,” I said.
Directly I had spoken I regretted my choice of words.
“Secrets!” he said.
“I only mean that Vernon’s not specially given to making confidences.
If he has any particular reason for coming to England at this time
of year, he hasn’t told it to me. But why should he have any special
reason?”
Deeming shrugged his shoulders.
“Where is he going to stay in town?” he asked.
“At Claridge’s, I believe; at any rate, for a time.”
“Then he means to make a long stay?”
His voice still sounded intensely suspicious. Suddenly I felt as if
I could not stand all this subterfuge, as if I must brush away from
me the spider’s web of mutual distrust in which my two friends were
entangling me with each other.
“My dear fellow!” I exclaimed. “You really make me feel as if I were
under cross-examination. I begin to wish I had never introduced you and
Vernon to each other.”
Deeming stopped dead, and looked at me.
“Perhaps it would have been better,” he said. “Much better.”
“You think so, too? Why?”
“Can’t you see that Vernon hates me?” he said, with violence.
“What earthly reason can he have for hating you?”
“Some men don’t ask for reasons. There is something about me which
is antipathetic to Vernon, and he’s a strange fellow. You think him
gentle, I know. But I—well, I believe that underneath his apparent
gentleness hides the soul of a fanatic, a black fanatic.”
We were still standing face to face. Now I looked into his eyes and
said:
“I’m going to be very rude to you.”
“Go on. I’ll bear it.”
“I am perfectly certain you are suffering from nervous exhaustion.
You have all the symptoms. You are horribly pale and shaky, and full
of irritability and suspicion, ready to entertain any dark idea that
may present itself to you, unable to see things in a clear light of
reason.”
“And you, Luttrell; do you know what you are?”
“I!”
“Yes. I’m going to be rude to you. You are either a self-deceiver or
a—well, something one doesn’t care to call a man. You know quite well,
in your heart, that Vernon has come over so soon because—because⸺”
Suddenly he hesitated, faltered, broke off.