Sergius sat down again, with a heavy look, the look of a man who has been thrashed, and means to return every blow with curious interest.
“You parsons are a riddle to me,” he said in a low and dull voice. “You and your charity and your loving-kindness, and your turning the cheek to the smiter and all the rest of it. And as to your way of showing friendship—”
His voice died away in something that was almost a growl, and he stared at the carpet. Between it and his eyes once more the mist seemed rising stealthily. It began to curl upwards softly about him. As he watched it, he heard Anthony say:—
“Sergius, you don't understand how well I understand you.”
The big hand of the clock had left the half-hour after ten behind him. Anthony breathed more freely. At last he could be more explicit, more unreserved. He thought of a train rushing through the night, devouring the spaces of land that lie between London and the sea that speaks, moaning, to the South of England. He saw a ship glide out from the dreary docks. Her lights gleamed. He heard the bell struck and the harsh cry of the sailors, and then the dim sigh of a coward who had escaped what he had merited. Then he heard Sergius laugh.
“That again, Anthony!”
“Yes. I didn't meet Vernon by chance at all.”
“What? You wrote to him, you fixed a meeting?”
“I went to Phillimore Place, to his house.”