He held my hand and wheeled me round to the light as he stared into my eyes. “Let me look at you. Do you come as a friend?”
I should have smiled, but for his careworn, harrassed, eager expression as he put the strange question. “I hope I shall never come to you as anything but a friend.”
His black eyes shone for the second he continued to stare at me. Then he dropped my hand, and exclaimed. “My God, I hope so. My God, I hope so; but there are things which turn even friends into enemies;” and he sighed as he thrust his fingers through his hair—he had the head of a poet or musician and wore his fair hair quite long—and began to pace up and down the room. It was difficult for him to keep still at any time; and in moments of unusual excitement he was as volatile as quicksilver.
“It will have to be something serious to turn us into enemies, Ladislas,” I replied. “But tell me what it is you think might do it. I shan’t shirk a test, I promise you.”
“Ah, you know there is something, then, Robert,” he cried, wheeling round abruptly and with quite a suggestion of fierceness. He was the only intimate I had who refused to call me Bob. He considered it undignified, he had once said.
“I only know that you sent for me, my dear fellow, and I can see for myself that you are upset. Tell me.”
He started on his walk again and in the pause I lighted a cigar. Five or six times he crossed and recrossed the room, his hands in his hair, in his pockets, and tugging at the lapels of his coat in turn. Then he came and stood over me and fixed his great eyes on mine.
“Do you love Volna Drakona? Answer me; on your solemn word of honour, for the love of God.”
CHAPTER XVIII
FOR FRIENDSHIP’S SAKE
MY friend’s question came like a clap of thunder in the clear blue of a summer sky, so absolutely startling was its surprise.