Stork looked at him without speaking and placed on the table a small plate of macaroons. The Doctor glanced whimsically at Sorio and, helping himself from the little plate, muttered in a low voice after he had nibbled the edge of a biscuit, “Yes, these seem perfectly up to par to-day.”
The three men had scarcely settled themselves down in their respective chairs around the fire than Adrian began speaking hurriedly and nervously.
“I have an extraordinary feeling,” he said, “that this evening is full of fatal significance. I suppose it’s nothing to either of you, but it seems to me as though this damned shish, shish, shish, shish of the sea were nearer and louder than usual. Doctor, you don’t mind my talking freely to you? I like you, though I was rude to you the other day—but that’s nothing—” he waved his hand, “that’s what any fool might fall into who didn’t know you. I feel I know you now. That word about the rum—forgive me, Tassar!—and the kettle—yes, particularly about the kettle—hit me to the heart. I love you, Doctor Raughty. I announce to you that my feeling at this moment amounts to love—yes, actually to love!
“But that’s not what I wanted to say.” He thrust his hands deep into his pockets, stretched his legs straight out, let his chin sink upon his chest and glared at them with sombre excitement. “I feel to-night,” he went on, “as though some great event were portending. No, no! What am I saying? Not an event. Event isn’t the word. Event’s a silly expression, isn’t it, Doctor,—isn’t it—dear, noble-looking man? For you do look noble, you know, Doctor, as you drink that punch—though to say the truth your nose isn’t quite straight as I see it from here, and there are funny blotches on your face. No, not there. There! Don’t you see them, Tassar? Blotches—curious purply blotches.”
While this outburst proceeded Mr. Stork fidgeted uneasily in his chair. Though sufficiently accustomed to Sorio’s eccentricities and well aware of his medical friend’s profound pathological interest in all rare types, there was something so outrageous about this particular tirade that it offended what was a very dominant instinct in him, his sense, namely, of social decency and good breeding. Possibly in a measure because of the “bar sinister” over his own origin, but much more because of the nicety of his æsthetic taste, anything approaching a social fiasco or faux pas always annoyed him excessively. Fortunately, however, on this occasion nothing could have surpassed the sweetness with which Adrian’s wild phrases were received by the person addressed.
“One would think you’d drunk half the punch already, Sorio,” Baltazar murmured at last. “What’s come over you to-night? I don’t think I’ve ever known you quite like this.”
“Remind me to tell you something, Mr. Sorio, when you’ve finished what you have to say,” remarked Dr. Raughty.
“Listen, you two!” Adrian began again, sitting erect, his hands on the arms of his chair. “There’s a reason for this feeling of mine that there’s something fatal on the wind to-night. There’s a reason for it.”
“Tell us as near as you can,” said Dr. Raughty, “what exactly it is that you’re talking about.”
Adrian fixed upon him a gloomy, puzzled frown.