"Well, where was it?" I asked again.
His eyes were unwinkingly on mine. "You were coming out of my place, if you must know. And I imagine my place is still mine. Since we're friends, I haven't asked you what you were doing there."
"Then I'll tell you without asking. I've been staying there, on the chance of your coming back for something you'd forgotten. I've got your key in my pocket now, and I'm going back there to-night."
He muttered, his eyes now removed from mine. "Damned good guess. I did come back. But I saw you across the road and turned away again."
"What did you come back for?"
"That Gland book. But I got a copy somewhere else."
"I hope you found it useful."
Then, all in a moment, the thing for which I was longing happened. He broke down completely. Instead of a man trying to maintain an insane tight-rope-balance on an indeterminable moment of time, there pitched against me, crushing me against the wall and bringing down a shower of Trenchard's photographs, a man who could be met on common ground of normal experience. His arms were folded over his face. I heard his groan within them.
"Lord have mercy upon me!... I oughtn't to have talked—I oughtn't to have talked ... all unsettled again ... but I can't let sixteen go ... perhaps it won't let me go...."
"For heaven's sake forget that nightmare!"