Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock. The visitor had not stood before it, following it with his eyes, a minute, when M. Obenreizer, at his elbow, startled him by saying, in very good English, very slightly clipped: “How do you do? So glad!”
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Not at all! Sit, please.”
Releasing his visitor’s two arms, which he had lightly pinioned at the elbows by way of embrace, M. Obenreizer also sat, remarking, with a smile: “You are well? So glad!” and touching his elbows again.
“I don’t know,” said Vendale, after exchange of salutations, “whether you may yet have heard of me from your House at Neuchâtel?”
“Ah, yes!”
“In connection with Wilding and Co.?”
“Ah, surely!”
“Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here, as one of the Firm of Wilding and Co., to pay the Firm’s respects?”
“Not at all! What did I always observe when we were on the mountains? We call them vast; but the world is so little. So little is the world, that one cannot keep away from persons. There are so few persons in the world, that they continually cross and re-cross. So very little is the world, that one cannot get rid of a person. Not,” touching his elbows again, with an ingratiatory smile, “that one would desire to get rid of you.”