Jeremy was startled for a moment, after the darkness of the passages, to find himself in a full blaze of morning light. While he blinked awkwardly, the door closed behind him; and it was a minute or two before he could clearly distinguish the person with whom he had been left alone. At last he became aware of a great, high-backed armchair of unpolished wood, which was placed near to the window and held the old man whom he had seen from a distance, indistinctly, the night before at dinner. This figure wore a dark robe of some thick cloth, which was drawn in loosely by a cord girdle at the waist and resembled a dressing-gown. His thick, wrinkled neck rising out of the many-folded collar supported a square, heavy head, which by its shape proclaimed power, as the face by every line proclaimed both power and age. The nose was large, hooked and fleshy, the lips thick but firm, the beard long and white; and under the heavy, raised lids the brown eyes were almost youthful, and shone with a surprising look of energy and domination. Jeremy stared without moving; and, as his eyes met those of the old man, a queer sensation invaded his spirit. He felt that here, in the owner of these eyes, this unmistakably Jewish countenance, this inert and bulky form, he had discovered a mind like his own, a mind with which he could exchange ideas, as he could never hope to do with Roger Vaile or Father Henry Dean.
The silence continued for a full minute after Jeremy had got back the use of his sight. At last the old man said in a thick, soft voice:
“Are you the young man of whom they tell me this peculiar story?” And before Jeremy could reply, he added: “Come over here and let me look at you.”
Jeremy advanced, as if in a dream, and stood by the arm of the chair. The Speaker rose with one slow but powerful movement, took him by the shoulder and drew him close against the window. He was nearly a head taller than Jeremy, but he bent only his neck, not his shoulders, to stare keenly into the younger man’s face. A feeling of hope and contentment rose in Jeremy’s heart; and he endured this inspection for several moments in silence and with a steady countenance. At last the old man let his hand fall, turned away and breathed, more inwardly, almost wistfully: “If only it were true!”
“It is true,” Jeremy said. There was neither expostulation nor argument in his voice.
The Speaker wheeled round on him with a movement astonishingly swift for his years and his bulk. “You will find me harder to persuade than the others,” he said warningly.
“I know.” And Jeremy bore the gaze of frowning enquiry with a curiously confident smile.
The Speaker’s reply was uttered in a much gentler tone. “Come and sit down by me,” he murmured, “and tell me your story.”
Jeremy took a deep breath and began. He told his story in much more detail than he had given to Roger, dwelling on the riots and their causes, and on Trehanoc’s experiment and his own interpretation of its effect. He did not spare particulars, both of the strikes, as well as he remembered them, and of the course of scientific investigation which had landed him in this position; and as he proceeded he warmed to the tale, and gave it as he would have done to a man of his own sort in his own time. The brown eyes continued to regard him with an unflickering expression of interest. When he paused and looked for some comment, some sign of belief or disbelief, the thick voice murmured only:
“I understand. Go on.”