Wingrave folded his paper down at the precise place where he had been reading and extended a very limp hand. His manner betrayed not the slightest interest or pleasure.
“How are you, Lovell?” he asked. “Some time since we met!”
“A good many years,” Lovell answered.
“Finished your campaigning?” Wingrave inquired. “Knocked you about a bit, haven’t they?”
“They very nearly finished me,” Lovell admitted. “I shall pick up all right over here, though.”
There was a moment’s silence. Lovell’s thoughts had flashed backwards through the years, back to the time when he had sat within a few feet of this man in the crowded court of justice and listened through the painful stillness of that heavy atmosphere, charged with tragedy, to the slow unfolding of the drama of his life. There had been passion enough then in his voice and blazing in his eyes, emotion enough in his twitching features and restless gestures to speak of the fire below. And now, pale and cold, the man who had gripped his fingers then and held on to them like a vise, seemed to find nothing except a slight boredom in this unexpected meeting.
“I shall see you again, I hope,” Wingrave remarked at last. “By the bye, if we do meet, I should be glad if you would forget our past acquaintance. Sir Wingrave Seton does not exist any longer. I prefer to be known only as Mr. Wingrave from America.”
Lovell nodded.
“As you wish, of course,” he answered. “I do not think,” he added, “that you need fear recognition. I myself should have passed you in the street.”
Wingrave leaned back in the carriage.