Joyous recognition of Buffy Thomas.
“Well,” said the honest friend, “that’s all over, anyhow. Come along in with me. You’ll want your rooms again.”
He stopped in front of a door in the little side street and put in the key.
“Yes,” said Mr. Petre, hesitating more oddly still, “these are my rooms all right.”
The rolling mists in his mind had formed now definitely into clouds with shapes to them, and gaps in between through which appeared things more and more definite. He had a sudden sharp vision of a red-brick cloister and of the same voice shouting to him from a window, and it was mixed up in his mind with the name of a place, but he could not catch that name. Cayridge? Clayridge? He had simultaneously a little picture presented to his mind of green Downs beyond a valley, and he was thinking of horses; and again the wreaths of the mist blotted all that out, and he was side by side with this same man on a public platform listening to his friend orating badly. He mechanically pulled out his watch as he had done on that distant day on that platform. Political speeches bored him.
Mr. Petre put his watch back and looked pathetically into Buffy’s face.
“Thompson,” he said slowly, “Thompson, you’re a good fellow.”
“Are you ill?” said Thompson, holding him as if he were afraid he would fall.
“No, not exactly,” said Mr. Petre. “I have been ill. Take me in.”