VI.
JOHN BARTINE’S WATCH: THE DOCTOR’S STORY.
“THE exact time? Good heavens! my friend, why do you insist? One would think—but what does it matter; it is easily bed-time—isn’t that near enough? But, here, if you must set your watch, take mine and see for yourself.”
With that, he detached his watch—a tremendously heavy, old-fashioned one—from the chain and handed it to me, then turned away and, walking across the room to a shelf of books, began an examination of their backs. His agitation and evident distress surprised me; they appeared altogether reasonless. Having set my watch by his, I stepped over to where he stood and said, “Thank you.”
As he took his watch and re-attached it to the guard, I observed that his hands were unsteady. A slight pallor had come into his face. With a tact, upon which I greatly prided myself, I sauntered carelessly to the sideboard and took some brandy and water, then, begging his pardon for my thoughtlessness, asked him to have some and went back to my seat by the fire, leaving him to help himself, as was our custom. He did so, and presently joined me at the hearth, as tranquil as if nothing unusual had happened.
This odd little incident occurred in my apartment, where John Bartine was passing an evening. We had dined together at the club, had come home in a hack and, in short, everything had been done in the most prosaic way; and why John Bartine should break in upon the natural and established order of things to make himself spectacular with a display of emotion, apparently for his own entertainment, I could nowise understand.
The more I thought of it, while his brilliant conversational gifts were commending themselves to my inattention, the more curious I grew and, of course, had no difficulty in persuading myself that my curiosity was friendly solicitude. That is the disguise that curiosity commonly assumes to evade resentment. So I ruined one of the finest sentences of his monologue by cutting it short without ceremony.