"Well, I just came to look up a few points," Richard answered vaguely. "I've been messing about—got a notion or two for articles, that's all."
Mr. Aked stopped to shake hands as soon as they were outside the Museum. Richard was very disappointed that their meeting should have been so short. This man of strange vivacity had thrown a spell over him. Richard was sure that his conversation, if only he could be persuaded to talk, would prove delightfully original and suggestive; he guessed that they were mutually sympathetic. Ever since their encounter in the A. B. C. shop Richard had desired to know more of him, and now, when by chance they met again, Mr. Aked's manner showed little or no inclination towards a closer acquaintance. There was of course a difference between them in age of at least thirty years, but to Richard that seemed no bar to an intimacy. It was, he surmised, only the physical part of Mr. Aked that had grown old.
"Well, good-bye."
"Good-bye." Should he ask if he might call at Mr. Aked's rooms or house, or whatever his abode was? He hesitated, from nervousness.
"Often come here?"
"Generally on Saturdays," said Richard.
"We may see each other again, then, sometime. Good-bye."
Richard left him rather sadly, and the sound of the old man's quick, alert footsteps—he almost stamped—receded in the direction of Southampton Row. A minute later, as Richard was turning round by Mudie's out of Museum Street, a hand touched his shoulder. It was Mr. Aked's.
"By the way," the man's face crinkled into a smile as he spoke, "are you doing anything to-night?"
"Nothing whatever."