“I am going away suddenly,” he said, in answer to Baird’s questioning expression. “I want to catch the next train. I want you to see me off—you.”
“Let us get in,” was Baird’s brief reply. He had an instant revelation that the circumstance was not trivial or accidental.
As the door closed and the cab rolled away his companion leaned back, folding his arms.
“I had an hour to pass before keeping an appointment,” he said. “And I dropped in to hear you. You put things before a man in a new way. You are appallingly vivid. I am not going to keep my appointment. It is not easy not to keep it! I shall take the train to New York and catch to-morrow’s steamer to Liverpool. Don’t leave me until you have seen me off. I want to put the Atlantic Ocean and a year of time between myself and——”
“Temptation,” said Baird, though he scarcely realised that he spoke.
“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed the other man savagely. “Call her that if you like—call me that—call the whole thing that! She does not realise where we are drifting. She’s a lovely dreamer and has not realised that we are human. I did not allow myself to realise it until the passion of your words brought me face to face with myself. I am repenting in time. Don’t leave me! I can’t carry it through to-night alone.”
John Baird leaned back in the corner of the carriage and folded his arms also. His heart was leaping beneath them.
“Great God!” he said, out of the darkness. “I wish someone had said such words to me—years ago—and not left me afterwards! Years ago!”
“I thought so,” his companion answered, briefly. “You could not have painted it with such flaming power—otherwise.”
They did not speak again during the drive. They scarcely exchanged a dozen words before they parted. The train was in the station when they entered it.