“We have met before. I hope we shall meet again—and on terms of a better understanding.”
I rose to my feet, at least perfectly cool in seeming.
“Meaning—what?” I asked.
“Nothing cryptic, of course,” said he.
He glanced about the room. His manner was very alert and vivacious. His teeth and glittering eyes seemed, when he turned his face again, to take possession of me.
“The tragedy of that first meeting,” he said, “put any pleasant understanding between us two at the time out of the question, didn’t it?”
“You use an odd word, Mr Dalston,” I said; “and take an odd way—you will excuse me—for a stranger.”
“Why, as to that,” he answered, smiling, “I found the door open, and took what I supposed to be the proper woodland way with hermits. Men of your principles love secrecy, don’t they? and quiet comings and goings, and visits unawares? I only borrowed a leaf out of your book, you see.”
Now, though he was so gay and debonair, I recognised on the instant some sinister meaning behind his words, and knew that he was aware, in some measure at least, of the watchful part I had been playing, and knew, moreover, that he wanted me to know that he knew. I could not guess his purpose, beyond the fact that it appeared to imply some menace and a warning; but I could be as cool as he, and his equal, as I thought, in cunning.
“You referred to an understanding between us,” I said rather drawlingly. “Well, I can only repeat that it seems to me an odd word to use.”