“I should have a shrewd idea.”
“No.”
Anthony didn't contradict him, but got up from the dinner-table and joined him by the fire, glass in hand.
“I might not let you know how much I guessed, how much I knew.”
Sergius laughed.
“Oh, ignorance always surrounds itself with mystery,” he said.
“Knowledge need not go naked.”
Again the eyes of the two friends met in the firelight, and over the face of Sergius there ran a new expression. There was an awakening of wonder in it, but no uneasiness. Anxiety was far away from him that night. When passion has gripped a man, passion strong enough, resolute enough, to over-ride all the prejudices of civilisation, all the promptings of the coward within us, whose voice, whining, we name prudence, the semi-comprehension, the criticism of another man cannot move him. Sergius wondered for an instant whether Anthony suspected against what his heart was beating. That was all.
While he wondered, the clock chimed the half hour after nine. He heard it.