Jarvis recognized his visitor with an involuntary start, which David perceived with ill-disguised triumph.
“The fellow’s afraid of me,” he told himself, and hung up his hat on the rack as if quite at his ease.
He followed Jarvis into the library and sat down, looking about him with cool curiosity.
“You’ve been expecting to see me, I dare say,” he began, his eyes returning from their tour of inspection to the other man’s face.
Jarvis returned the look doubtfully.
“It occurred to me that you might wish——”
“Yes; I do,” interrupted David. “You’re entirely right, sir.”
Having said this much in a loud, aggressive tone, David stopped short. He had become suddenly aware that Jarvis was looking at—or rather, through—him, in a way which made him irritably conscious of his hands, his feet, the set of his collar, and the material of his light summer clothes. Then those strange eyes went deeper; they were busying themselves with his thoughts, his motives, they even saw his fears, which crowded forward, a cloud of gibbering shapes, out of his past.
He spoke again, hurriedly, and backed up his words with a laugh, which sounded foolishly loud in the quiet room.