Trist's meek eyes rested upon the speaker's face with a persistence which was not encouraging to idle gossip.
'The night I left for Servia?' he inquired.
Hicks nodded his head.
'Yes. I remember.'
The artist paused, and his gloved fingers sought the beauteous moustache. Trist's calm eyes were not easy to meet. They were so unconsciously scrutinizing.
'Well, I saw Huston the other day,' he said at length. 'He has not improved in appearance. In fact, I should say that there is some truth in the story I repeated to you.'
There was no encouragement forthcoming, but Hicks was not lacking in assurance. He was a true son of the pavement—that is to say, an individual radical. His opinion was, in his own mind, worth that of Theodore Trist.
'There are,' he continued, 'other stories going about at present. Do you not think ... Trist ...—I mean, had we not better, for Brenda's sake, settle upon a certain version of the matter and stick to it? You and I, old fellow, are looked upon by the general world as something more than ordinary friends of Alice and Brenda. Mrs. Wylie is not going out just now. They have no one to stick up for them, except us. If you know more than you care to confess, I am sorry if I am forcing your hand....'
He paused again, and again his companion preserved that calm non-committing silence which he knew so well how to assume. He held a hand which could not have been forced by a player possessing ten times the power and ten times the cunning of William Hicks.
'But, Trist, I know what the London world is. Something must be done.'