The afternoon deepened into dusk; strange phantoms, wrought of the leaping flame, came out of corners or danced from wall to ceiling and were gone. He was in the midst of a fine flow of words descriptive of some metaphysical passages he had lately encountered in a book, when his voice trailed off and died away. He crept to me and whispered in my ear: “He’s there, behind the door!”
I jumped to my feet, rushed across the room and—met Dr. Crackenthorpe on the threshold.
“Can’t you come in like a decent visitor?” I cried, stamping my foot on the floor.
He looked pale and, I thought, embarrassed, and he backed a little before my onset.
“Why, what’s all this?” he said. “I walked straight up the stairs, as a body should.”
“You made no noise,” I said, black and wrathful. “What right have you to prowl into a private house in that fashion?”
For a moment his face fell menacing. But it cleared—if such may express the lightening of those muddy features—almost immediately.
“Here’s a fine reception!” he cried, “for one who comes to greet the returned prodigal in all good comradeship; and to an old friend, too!”
“You were never ours,” I muttered.
He plucked a bottle of gin from under his arm, where he had been carrying it.