As I lighted my guests down the stairs of my Chelsea lodgings, turned up
the hall gas that they might see the steps at the front door, and shook
hands with them, I bade them good night the more heartily that I was glad
to see their backs. Lest this should seem but an inhospitable confession,
let me state, first, that they had invited themselves, dropping in in
ones and twos until seven or eight of them had assembled in my garret,
and, secondly, that I was rather extraordinarily curious to know why, at
close on midnight, the one I knew least well of all had seen fit to
remain after the others had taken their departure. To these two
considerations I must add a third, namely, that I had become tardily
conscious that, if Andriaovsky had not lingered of himself, I should
certainly have asked him to do so.
It was to nothing more than a glance, swift and momentary, directed by
Andriaovsky to myself while the others had talked, that I traced this
desire to see more of the little Polish painter; but a glance derives its
import from the circumstance under which it is given. That rapid turning
of his eyes in my direction an hour before had held a hundred questions,
implications, criticisms, incredulities, condemnations. It had been one
of those uncovenanted gestures that hold the promise of the treasures of
an eternal friendship. I wondered as I turned down the gas again and
remounted the stairs what personal message and reproach in it had lumped
me in with the others; and by the time I had reached my own door again a
phrase had fitted itself in my mind to that quick, ironical turning of
Andriaovsky's eyes: _"Et tu, Brute!..."_
He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in the
attitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the
recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still
continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The
same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chair
to chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatingly
smiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied,
suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released from
a strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point of
sitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another.
"That's right," said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he had
picked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; you
might profane it."
I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, not
replying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyes
humorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I had
mentally associated with that glance of his.
_"Et tu, Brute!"_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lenses
of his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table.