"Not at all. They would show what kind of a man Terry was. Karelsky would say—'These are good wages for a mere laboratory assistant—a man who takes temperatures and cleans test-tubes.'"
I said (and regretted it immediately afterwards); "It seems a pity Terry ever had anything to do with Karelsky."
He replied instantly: "It is. And, of course, it's my fault in the first place. Fortunately I've no conscience. If I troubled about all the thousands of things in the world that are my fault, I should never have a minute's peace."
We talked on until after tea, and he was (or seemed to me) most irritatingly cheerful about it all. There was even a faint undertone of admiration in his voice when he spoke of Karelsky; and my own indignation grew with his calmness. Couldn't something be done, I implored him. Was Terry to stand by helplessly and do nothing at all?
He remarked that Karelsky was clever—damned clever.
"I daresay he is," I retorted, "and I believe you admire him for that, whether he's a rogue or not!" He laughed then. "I'm afraid it's a shade more subtle than that, Hilton. You see—I like things that make me happy. Being interested makes me happier than anything. And Karelsky interests me.... Therefore—you follow? ... I'm sorry if it seems to you rather callous."
"It's Terry I'm thinking about," I replied. "It's terrible to think that there's nothing really that can be done. Surely there's something—some law or other——"
"Oh, there may be—I certainly don't say there isn't. All I want to make clear is that if he goes into battle against a man like Karelsky he'll have to fortify himself with something more than a few note-books and an immense quantity of moral virtue. Do you think you understand?"
I thought I did. I thought that Severn had made up his mind to stand aside, an amused and cynical spectator of a drama so rare as to be especially worth the seeing. Severn, I decided, was going to be neutral, being bound to Karelsky no less than to Terry by ties of 'interest'. It was a disappointment, but, in any case, what could he have done? Beyond advice (which he had already given freely enough) there was little that could reasonably be expected from a man unable to move out of his chair without skilled assistance. He had done and was doing his best, and it was perhaps too much to wish that he had shown my own particular brand of indignation.
And yet in most of those thoughts I was entirely wrong. That night, as I was working late in my room, one of the End House servants brought me a note that showed me how wrong I was. Written less than an hour before I broke open the envelope, it was as follows: