There was no answer. He arose and went to the outer office. Hilda had passed through it like an arrow. Simpson was not there. But a man stood leaning against the mantelpiece; he held at full spread a copy of the Signal, which concealed all the upper part of him except his fingers and the crown of his head. Though the gas had been lighted in the middle of the room, it must have been impossible for him to read by it, since it shone through the paper. He lowered the newspaper with a rustle and looked at Edwin. He was a big, well-dressed man, wearing a dark grey suit, a blue Melton overcoat, and a quite new glossy "boiler-end" felt hat. He had a straight, prominent nose, and dark, restless eyes, set back; his short hair was getting grey, but not his short black moustache.
"Were you waiting to see me?" Edwin said, in a defensive, half-hostile tone. The man might be a belated commercial traveller of a big house--some of those fellows considered themselves above all laws; on the other hand he might be a new; customer in a hurry.
"Yes," was the reply, in a deep, full and yet uncertain voice. "The clerk said you couldn't be disturbed, and asked me to wait. Then he went out."
"What can I do for you? It's really after hours, but some of us are working a bit late."
The man glanced at the outer door, which Edwin was shutting, and then at the inner door, which exposed Edwin's room.
"I'm George Cannon," he said, advancing a step, as it were defiantly.
For an instant Edwin was frightened by the sudden melodrama of the situation. Then he thought:
"I am up against this man. This is a crisis."
And he became almost agreeably aware of his own being. The man stood close to him, under the gas, with all the enigmatic quality of another being. He could perceive now--at any rate he could believe--that it was George Cannon. Forgetful of what the man had suffered, Edwin felt for him nothing but the instinctive inimical distrust of the individual who has never got at loggerheads with society for the individual who once and for always has. To this feeling was added a powerful resentment of the man's act in coming--especially unannounced--to just him, the husband of the woman he had dishonoured. It was a monstrous act--and doubtless an act characteristic of the man. It was what might have been expected. The man might have been innocent of a particular crime, might have been falsely imprisoned; but what had he originally been doing, with what rascals had he been consorting, that he should be even suspected of crime? George Cannon's astonishing presence, so suddenly after his release, at the works of Edwin Clayhanger, was unforgiveable. Edwin felt an impulse to say savagely:
"Look here. You clear out. You understand English, don't you? Hook it."