For a dozen paces he moved rapidly and unevenly, then the natural result occurred. He collided with a man coming in the opposite direction.
The shock was abrupt. Both men swore simultaneously, then both laughed. The whole thing was casual, but Chilcote was in that state of mind when even the commonplace becomes abnormal. The other man's exclamation, the other man's laugh, struck on his nerves; coming out of the darkness, they sounded like a repetition of his own.
Nine out of every ten men in London, given the same social position and the same education, might reasonably be expected to express annoyance or amusement in the same manner, possibly in the same tone of voice; and Chilcote remembered this almost at the moment of his nervous jar.
“Beastly fog!” he said, aloud. “I'm trying to find Grosvenor Square, but the chances seem rather small.”
The other laughed again, and again the laugh upset Chilcote. He wondered uncomfortably if he was becoming a prey to illusions. But the stranger spoke before the question had solved itself.
“I'm afraid they are small,” he said. “It would be almost hard to find one's way to the devil on a night like this.”
Chilcote made a murmur of amusement and drew back against the shop.
“Yes. We can see now where the blind man scores in the matter of salvation. This is almost a repetition of the fog of six years ago. Were you out in that?”
It was a habit of his to jump from one sentence to another, a habit that had grown of late.
“No.” The stranger had also groped his way to the shopfront. “No, I was out of England six years ago.”