“I am glad you have been sufficiently interested,” I said calmly. “No
merit of mine, though--the commonest sort of regard for the mother of
your friend was enough.... As to Miss Haldin herself, she at one time
was disposed to think that her brother had been betrayed to the police
in some way.”
To my great surprise Mr. Razumov sat down again suddenly. I stared at
him, and I must say that he returned my stare without winking for quite
a considerable time.
“In some way,” he mumbled, as if he had not understood or could not
believe his ears.
“Some unforeseen event, a sheer accident might have done that,” I went
on. “Or, as she characteristically put it to me, the folly or weakness
of some unhappy fellow-revolutionist.”
“Folly or weakness,” he repeated bitterly.
“She is a very generous creature,” I observed after a time. The man
admired by Victor Haldin fixed his eyes on the ground. I turned away and
moved off, apparently unnoticed by him. I nourished no resentment of
the moody brusqueness with which he had treated me. The sentiment I was
carrying away from that conversation was that of hopelessness. Before
I had got fairly clear of the raft of chairs and tables he had rejoined
me.
“H’m, yes!” I heard him at my elbow again. “But what do you think?”