“Did you say, sir,” he asked, “that he went back three times?”
“Yes, Mr. Norvel, three times—three fishmongers.”
The man’s sneers would have been disgusting if they had not been so plainly aimed at himself first. As it was, they were almost terrible.
“Whether the three fishmongers lived or died,” he went on, “I don’t know. The six inches neglected to state. Want of space, possibly. You are a newspaper man, Savelle, perhaps you can explain.”
“I wish you would explain this, Mr. Savelle,” said little Norvel.
“What?” said Savelle.
“What part of nature Mr. Philbin was imitating when he went back?”
All the pent-up intensity of Savelle’s being rushed out in his answer: “I am maliciously misrepresented. There is no human element in such action. It is the divine phenomenon of Calvary.”
“Savelle,” put in Philbin, “when my son was alive he was a man. I believe, too, he died like a man. I prefer that to an imitation of anything—even God.”
The width of the table was between the two men, and the whole meaning of the universe. Their antagonism was irreconcilable. In that instant it had recovered all its bitterness of five years before. Time could do nothing. Not even chance could. It was literally immutable, the only thing in the world neither of those great forces can effect.