“They don't exist.”
“Don't exist? Yet you voice your country? I concluded that much in the fog.”
Chilcote laughed sarcastically.
“When one has voiced one's country for six years one gets hoarse—it's a natural consequence.”
The other smiled. “Ah, discontent!” he said. “The modern canker. But we must both be getting under way. Good-night! Shall we shake hands—to prove that we are genuinely material?”
Chilcote had been standing unusually still, following the stranger's words—caught by his self-reliance and impressed by his personality. Now, as he ceased to speak, he moved quickly forward, impelled by a nervous curiosity.
“Why should we just hail each other and pass—like the proverbial ships?” he said, impulsively. “If Nature was careless enough to let the reproduction meet the original, she must abide the consequences.”
The other laughed, but his laugh was short. “Oh, I don't know. Our roads lie differently. You would get nothing out of me, and I—” He stopped and again laughed shortly. “No,” he said; “I'd be content to pass, if I were you. The unsuccessful man is seldom a profitable study. Shall we say good-night?”
He took Chilcote's hand for an instant; then, crossing the footpath, he passed into the road-way towards the Strand.
It was done in a moment; but with his going a sense of loss fell upon Chilcote. He stood for a space, newly conscious of unfamiliar faces and unfamiliar voices in the stream of passersby; then, suddenly mastered by an impulse, he wheeled rapidly and darted after the tall, lean figure so ridiculously like his own.