"It also shows that he doesn't think any less of you for it," I said.
He was silent for quite a couple of minutes before he announced his decision. "I shall go," he said, "although I don't want to go."
IV
There was certainly no excuse for any guest being uncomfortable at the End House. Of all places I know it was the homeliest; it was, like Hampstead itself, cheerful without vulgarity. Severn's immense wealth (and he was rumoured to be making twenty thousand a year) never bullied or forced itself; it rather hid behind things and came upon the visitor at some moment when he was ready for it. Most wealthy houses make a poor man feel poorer than ever; Severn's made you feel rich.
At the last moment I was ill and couldn't turn up on that following Friday. But from two sources I heard what had taken place. First from Terrington himself, who said merely: "I enjoyed it, and I like Severn ... and also Mrs. Severn."
Mrs. Severn, a few days later, gave me a somewhat lengthier report. "He was quiet," she said, "and he spoke very little, but he didn't look quite so awfully miserable as before. After dinner we even got him to sing—he's got rather a good baritone voice, but he only knew songs like 'Annie Laurie' and 'Auld Lang Syne'.... And then he played with June—she liked him. As a matter of fact, we all liked him—there seems to be something about him you can't help liking—don't you think so?"
I agreed, and she added, as if it finally clinched the matter: "Have you noticed his eyes? They are rather nice."
It was then that I first of all learned that he was at work on cancer research. Mrs. Severn had been told so by her husband, and he had learned it from one of the senior men at the College; it was typical, indeed, of my entire relationship with Terrington that I acquired this rather important information by such a roundabout route. But when I tackled him on the subject he would do no more than confirm; he wouldn't discuss. He said, smiling: "You're a journalist and everything seems sensational to you. But there's nothing sensational in the work I'm doing.... You and Severn seem bent on making a howling success of me, but I don't want it. I just want to be left alone—to do my own work." He added, in a tone that robbed his words of any sting: "Please don't think I mean anything unkind."
But his summing-up of Severn's intention had been true enough. Severn always wanted to make a howling success of everybody. I suppose, at rock-bottom, it was a form of conceit—an assumption that everybody's ideal must be his own. And yet there was nothing blatant or vulgar in him. His taste was impeccable to the point of being finicky, and he had charming manners. He never in his life bullied either judge or witness, but his suavity was deadly enough; with calm, almost friendly questions, he would lead a man to confess murder or a woman adultery. In private life he was courteous to all; in fact (as somebody once said) he always talked to you as if his life had been incomplete until he met you. It was an oriental gift, and twenty thousand a year was no more than the figure of its rarity.
I owed him then, and owe him still, more than he would ever care for me to say. He enjoyed pulling strings on behalf of his protégés; he pulled the strings for Terrington, though the latter was too innocent to realize it. Severn talked about him to various editors of scientific journals, and the result was a few commissions. He even persuaded the editor of a "daily" to start a popular science "feature," and that Terrington's contributions to this were moderately successful was due to the fact that I wrote them. He could never have achieved the popular vein, but his science and my journalism made a profitable amalgam. We shared the income, devoting it to more ambitious Sunday rambles, until at last he decided that the job was taking up too much of his time. He was like that—a sudden swerve to right or left, and then an inexorable straight line.