"If he uses his chances it will be a splendid thing. And, of course, if he doesn't use his chances, nothing will do him very much good. I like him a great deal, you know. So does Helen. I'm sure she'll miss him when he's gone.... By the way, where is she? Have you seen her?"
I told him I hadn't seen her for some while, and soon afterwards he had to leave me to bid the first of the good-byes.
XI
I was drunk. I had a persistent and rather ridiculous desire to lean back in my chair and go to sleep. This, in fact, is what I actually did, until a terrific peal of thunder awoke me—or was it Severn laughing? Anyway, he was laughing. He was leaning over the back of the chair next to mine, like a wild animal waiting to spring; and Helen was standing close to him, with her eyes fixed on me. "So you're another victim, are you?" he said.
I stammered an apology and he interrupted hurriedly: "My dear chap, you needn't say all that. It has been an interesting example of what Karelsky was talking about—the effects of heat on the human brain. Or was it something else as well as the heat?... Anyhow, Professor Foljambe could hardly walk to his taxi. Even Terry the teetotaller had to clear off in a hurry."
"Did he?—Wh—why?"
It was Helen who answered. She said, very quietly: "He said the heat made him feel ill, so he just slipped away without making any fuss."
"And without even seeing me," Severn added.
I said something about calling at his lodgings to see how he was, and Helen remarked: "Oh, you needn't be alarmed about him—it was only the heat."
I wasn't alarmed, but I wanted to see him. Ten minutes later I was on my way to the tube station, and in half-an-hour I was at the door of the house in Swinton Street. It was hotter in London than at Hampstead, and the night was full of lightning and rumblings of thunder. I remember how, in the poorer districts that I passed, whole families were sitting out on the pavement, chattering amongst themselves and waiting for the storm to begin.