The words were like a stone dashed in the midst of a pool of brown water, still, under willows. Wentworth, looking like a Napoleonic revenant, shivered into wakefulness; Eveleth sat bolt upright with a start; even the opium-smokers, all but Enderby, turned their heavy heads, wakened from mysterious dreams.
The new-comer stopped in the door and stared,—stared mightily. He coughed and blinked in the smoky air. It was the clash of East and West, of a fictitious, exotic East, of a commonplace, hard-headed, practical West.
"Where are you?" McCann cried loudly, making his way through the twilight toward the sound of Aurelian's voice.
"I'm glad to see you at last," he said doubtfully, "but I'm not quite used to this sort of thing, you know; I feel as though I had drank too much." His eyes fell on the confused heap of drowsy humanity around the brazier. "Aurelian," he said sternly, "is this a 'joint' I have happened on?"
"It is my house," said Aurelian, in his gentle voice, "wherein I have the honour to count you for the moment a guest."
"I beg pardon," grimly; "but as I said, you must remember I am not familiar with this sort of thing. I think I had better wait until you are less busily engaged."
"My dear fellow, I am never busily engaged, and I am never more idle than now. You will stay, of course. Will you smoke?—I mean tobacco. I think you smoke narghilehs; shall Murad come and light you one?"
"Thanks, by your leave I will smoke my own," and McCann pulled out his brier bull-dog, filled it from his own pouch, and sat down constrainedly, his eyes fixed on the four men in their motley costumes, strewn on the floor.
At once Aurelian began to talk to him frankly and freely, as though nothing had changed since last master and pupil had spoken together, questioning him of his adventures in England and Germany while on his mission among the socialist leaders. McCann noted with surprise and with a feeling almost of reassurance that no detail of recent sociological events had escaped Aurelian; that he listened with equal interest to all that he told him; that he showed keen satisfaction at the outcome of two or three recent strikes in which the strikers had been victorious. But all the time the agitator's eyes were wandering over the dimly visible details of the strange treasure-house where he found himself. He looked on it all with growing resentment; it was hardly to be called socialistic, and there seemed to be a lack of harmony between these luxurious surroundings and the words that Aurelian was saying. There was something awfully wrong; but he shrunk from knowing what he feared to be the worst.