Yet, despite all this ominous introduction, it was pity and not fear that Arthur felt as he sat down by the old man, who had, so mysteriously it seemed, terrified his own family. He looked even less intimidating than usual this morning. He was obviously pleased by the news of the engagement, and his first words were almost roguish.
"Well, well, Arthur: I mustn't keep you long to-day," he said. "And I suppose, after this, that I shall have to reconcile myself to seeing rather less of Eleanor. However...." He completed his sentence with a gesture of his delicate, shrivelled hand.
Arthur knew the inference that he was expected to draw: in a few months—a year or two, at longest—all these little cares and troubles would have ceased for ever. And it crossed his mind that he might open his extraordinarily difficult announcement by some well-considered professional assurance that his patient might quite conceivably live another ten or fifteen years. He rejected that as being clumsy and tactless—although every form of approach seemed to him, just then, to be either clumsy or cruel. And it was in desperation, alarmed by the growing significance of his own silence, that he at last said,—
"Yes, sir, I'm afraid you'll miss her—rather—at first."
The old man appeared to be unaware that this sentence held any unusual suggestion. "Have you had it in your mind that you might be married quite soon?" he asked.
"I think so, sir; yes, quite soon," Arthur replied, and then frowning and keeping his eyes averted from the old man's face—he went on quickly. "As soon as ever we can find somewhere to live, in fact. Flats and so on are fearfully difficult to get just now. And in Peckham, where I shall be practising...."
He paused and looked up. The old man had changed neither his position nor his expression. "But I know of no reason why you shouldn't be married while you are still here," he said, apparently missing all the implications of Arthur's speech.
"We—we thought of leaving here—at once," he replied, making an effort that even as he made it seemed gross and brutal. "In fact I meant—that is, I'm leaving to-day."
Mr Kenyon's keen blue eyes slowly concentrated their gaze with an effect of extraordinary attention on Arthur's face; and as they did so, their lids, which commonly drooped so that the iris was partly hidden, were lifted until the pupils, completely ringed by white, stared with the cold, intense watchfulness of a great bird.
"But that's impossible," he said very quietly.