It was while Jones was airing these platitudes that Paliser entered the room. He approached the two men. Lennox at once got up, turned his back, marched away.
A few days later, Jones, in reviewing the incident, wondered whether Lennox could, even then, have suspected. But, at the moment, in apology for him, he merely lied.
"I frightened him off with shop-talk."
Paliser took the vacant seat "What are you writing?"
"Cheques. There is nothing simpler and, except cash, nothing so easily understood. To keep my hand in I will write one now."
Then Jones too got up. Paliser, to whom solitude was always irksome, found himself alone. But his solitude was not prolonged. A man joined him. Another followed. Presently there was a group.
From the table where Jones had gone, the inkbeast saw and seeing thought: Empires may totter, nations fall. The face of the earth will be changed. But the toady endureth forever.
XVI
It was another perfect day, a forenoon after Veronese, a day of which the charm was heightened by the witcheries that Harlem knows—the shouted temptations of push-carts; the pastimes of children, so noisy, so dirty, so dear! the engaging conversation of German ladies; the ambient odour of cabbage and the household linen fluttering gaily on the roofs. It was rapturous. Just beyond was a sewer—the Hudson. But above was the turquoise of the mid-April day.