Stephen interrupted him with a pressure of the arm.
“I understand, my dear Jack; your anxiety for information is only natural. I am very glad I came up this evening—very glad! And now, as I feel rather tired, would you mind coming up to my rooms? and we’ll have a hansom, after all.”
Jack hailed a cab, and they were rattled to the Albany.
Of course they could not talk, and Stephen had therefore time to perfect his scheme; for he had already begun to plot and plan.
The door of the chambers was opened by Slummers, his tall, square figure dressed in black, his discreet, shifty eyes absolutely veiled under his lids.
“Let us have some Apollinaris and the liquor-case, Slummers,” said Stephen, “and that box of cigars which Mr. Newcombe liked. Sit down, my dear Jack.”
And he wheeled forward a chair facing the light, and took one for himself, so that his own face should be shaded.
Jack looked round the room while Slummers brought the tray.
The four walls were nearly covered with books, all of them of the dryest and most serious kind. Where any space was left, it was filled up with portraits of eminent divines and philanthropists, and every article in the room was neatly and methodically arranged. In fact, it presented as marked a contrast to Jack’s rooms as it was possible to conceive.
Jack had not been inside it for years, but he remembered distinctly how he used to loathe the room and its “fixings.”