"Evelyn, I distrust that man Lind."
The speaker was George Brand, who kept impatiently pacing up and down those rooms of his, while his friend, with a dreamy look on the pale and fine face, lay back in an easy-chair, and gazed out of the clear panes before him. It was night; the blinds had not been drawn; and the row of windows, framed by their scarlet curtains, seemed a series of dark-blue pictures, all throbbing with points of golden fire.
"Is there any one you do not distrust?" said Lord Evelyn, absently.
"I hope so. But with regard to Lind: I had distinctly to let him know he must not assume that I am mixed up in any of his schemes until I definitely say so. When, in answer to my vague proposal, he told me I had already pledged myself, I confess I was startled for a moment. Of course it was all very well for him afterward to speak of my declared sympathy, and of my promise to reveal nothing, as being quite enough, at least for the earlier stage. If that is so, you may easily acquire adherents. But either I join with a definite pledge, or not at all."
"I am inclined to think you had better not join," said Lord Evelyn, calmly.
After that there was silence; and Brand's companion lay and looked on the picture outside, that was so dark and solemn and still. In the midst of all that blaze of various and trembling lights was the unseen river—unseen but for the myriad reflections that showed the ripples of the water; then the far-reaching rows of golden stars, spanning the bridges, and marking out the long Embankment sweep beyond St. Thomas's Hospital. On the other side black masses of houses—all their commonplace detail lost in the mysterious shadow; and over them the silver crescent of the moon just strong enough to give an edge of white to a tall shot-tower. Then far away in the east, in the clear dark sky, the dim gray ghost of a dome; scarcely visible, and yet revealing its presence; the great dome of St. Paul's.
This beautiful, still scene—the silence was so intense that the footfall of a cab-horse crossing Waterloo Bridge could be faintly heard, as the eye followed the light slowly moving between the two rows of golden stars—seemed to possess but little interest for the owner of these rooms. For the moment he had lost altogether his habitual air of proud reserve.
"Evelyn," he said, abruptly, "was it not in these very rooms you insisted that, if the work was good, one need not be too scrupulous about one's associates?"
"I believe so," said the other, indifferently: he had almost lost hope of ever overcoming his friend's inveterate suspicion.