CHAPTER XVI.
‘This is the short and long of it.’
The moon is streaming brilliantly over the silent streets as the two men leaving Fitzwilliam Square turn presently into Stephen’s Green and then down Dawson Street. Crosby’s footsteps are bound for the Gresham Hotel, and Wyndham, who should have gone the other way, considering his rooms are in Elgin Road, walks with him silently, and so mechanically that it becomes at once plain to Crosby that he has lost himself a little in a world of troublous thought.
Determining to let him find his way out of his mind’s labyrinth by himself, Crosby maintains a discreet silence, refraining even from good words and the whistle that has come to be part of him during his strange wanderings by sea and land, and is difficult to discard when in the midst of civilization.
It is not until they have reached the railings that run round Trinity College, where the glorious light of the moon is lighting up the old and splendid pile, that Wyndham speaks.
‘I’ve had the deuce of a time,’ says he.
‘Well, I could see that,’ says Crosby, turning his cigar in his fingers. ‘I’m rather disappointed in you, do you know, Paul. How you are to make a fortune out of your profession is to me a mystery. Throw it up. You are certainly not a liar born.’
‘I’m in a tight place,’ says Wyndham disgustedly, ‘but I dare say I’ll get out of it. Well’—reluctantly—‘good-night.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ says Crosby, tucking his arm into his; ‘come and have a pipe with me, and—if you can bring yourself to it—give voice to this worry of yours, and get it off your mind.’
A pipe is a great help; soothed by it, and the influence of the society of his old chum, Wyndham, seated comfortably in a huge armchair in Crosby’s room, tells the latter the whole of his remarkable acquaintance with his unknown guest at the Cottage.