"You know!" I gasped.
"Know? I should know by your faces, anyhow. But as a matter of fact, I knew as soon as he'd finished prodding me in the back. Knew by the way he changed the subject when I questioned him. Knew by everything he said and looked.... Lawyers get used to reading faces."
He went on: "Don't look so terrible about it! ... After all, what the Law will lose, Literature will gain.... By the way, my book on Disraeli comes out next week. Give me a good review, won't you, Hilton? Something wistful and pathetic—in your own inimitable style. A sob in every line. Short paragraph about Disraeli. Column and a half about me. You know the sort of thing?"
I stammered something—Heaven knows what—and he asked me to reach a half-opened parcel that was on his table. "Advance copies," he said. "Give me one of them, will you? And my fountain-pen."
I obeyed, and he wrote my name with a great flourish on the fly-leaf. "There! My gift to you on this memorable occasion. Take it away and read it.... A gem of irony, sparkling with epigram and polished satire—that's what all the other critics will say. But you—you only—must see through it—must see the tragedy behind the mask.... Know what I mean?"
I didn't know. I don't know now. I don't know whether he was laughing at me, or whether, at this queer and desperate moment, emotion was seething in him. There were tears in his eyes, but they may have been tears of laughter.... I just don't know....
* * * * * * * *
Outside his room, with the sunlight streaming in upon us both, she took my hand in hers. All the time she hadn't spoken a word. She had sat beside him, pale and silent, gazing emptily at the shelves of books. When we left, he had smiled at her, and she had smiled back at him. That was all.
We walked into the quiet garden, where the shadows were conquering the last strip of sunlight on the lawn. The maid was clearing away the tea-cups. In that other garden not far off someone was still playing crocquet.... It was all, in a strange and curious way, reassuring.
"So now ..." I began, and stopped.