I shook my head.
“Not I.”
“Not you? Who, then?”
“Marbury,” said I, “I am just beginning to learn that there are other contagions than those of the body. Can we be sure, my good sir, that fear is not a disease? Do we know that love is not an infection? Can the criminal’s gloves, saturated with his personality, be safe for the hands of an honest man? Don’t we weaken by rubbing elbows with the weak? Are there not contagious germs of thought?”
He raised his eyebrows. Finance he knew well. Otherwise he was a stupid man.
“I do not believe I follow you,” he said nervously. “I was speaking of Virginia. She is so much better!”
I bowed to him politely, and, instead of entering the open door, descended the steps.
“You’re not coming in?” he exclaimed.
“Not yet,” said I. “To tell you the truth, I am looking in that grass plot next door for something dropped there. I see that no one has disturbed the grass. It has not even been cut. Hello! What’s this?”
I had reached down, picked up a metal cylinder and showed it to him.