The girl asked an eager question.
"Was he in a taxicab? There was one waiting as I came in, by the pavement a little way down--I passed it. It was open; there was a man sitting inside whom I had the strangest feeling that I knew, although it was dark and I could not see; perhaps it was Sydney."
"I shouldn't wonder. He said he'd wait in the cab; but he ought to be here by now."
Facing round, Frank Clifford, as it were, addressed the meeting:
"Gentlemen, shall I go out and see if Sydney Beaton is still waiting in the cab?" There was an instant chorus of affirmatives. He turned to Violet. "Miss Forster, with your permission I will go and ask Mr. Beaton to do us the favour to come in here."
"I--I shall be very glad to see him."
"So shall we." He opened the door, but he was not yet through it when he broke into exclamations. "Why, Beaton, you're a sight worth seeing. I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you. We have only just heard from Draycott that you were outside; I'm acting as a deputation to ask you to come in. Gentlemen, Captain Beaton."
Sydney Beaton appeared in the doorway of the room from which, when he was last in it, he had been thrown out. There was a great difference between that man and this; so great that all those who were there, who had known the man that was so well, looked at him and wondered, and were ashamed. The few months which had elapsed since they had seen him last might have been years, so much was he changed; it needed the evidence of their own eyes to assure them that in so short a space of time a man could have so aged. The Sydney Beaton they had known was young, debonair, careless, incapable of looking seriously upon either life or death. This man was serious above and before all else; the burden of life weighed heavily on him; he was hollow-eyed; great lines seamed both his cheeks and forehead; his hair was grey; he had become an old man.
Their surprise at his appearance hushed them into silence. Beaton, as if not knowing what to make of their speechlessness, seemed disposed to draw back. But Draycott reassured him.
"It's all right, old man, I've told them; they know all about it; I think the sight of you has rather bowled them over."