“Possibly. But now our bargain is made. Strike hands upon it. Henceforth we are collaborators as well as friends.”
Andrew extended his long, thin, feverish hand, and, as Henley held it for a moment, he started at the intense, vivid, abnormal personality its grasp seemed to reveal. To collaborate with Trenchard was to collaborate with a human volcano.
“And now for the germ of our book,” he said, as the clock struck one. “Where shall we find it?”
Trenchard leaned forward in his chair, with his hands pressed upon the arms.
“Listen, and I will give it you,” he said.
And, almost until the dawn and the wakening of the slumbering city, Henley sat and listened, and forgot that his pipe was smoked out, and that his feet were cold. Trenchard had strange powers, and could enthral as he could also repel.
“It is a weird idea, and it is very powerful,” Henley said at last. “But you stop short at the critical moment. Have you not devised a dénouement?”
“Not yet. That is where the collaboration will come in. You must help me. We must talk it over. I am in doubt.”
He got up and passed his hands nervously through his thick hair.