Part 25 (1/2)

”No--surely--how long ago?”

”I don't know, sir. He may be in. I'll see.”

”Do--do--quickly. If he's in, say I must see him--Mr Endover. But you know my name.”

”Yes, sir.”

The porter, mounting the stone staircase, suddenly came upon Sergius standing there like a stone figure.

”Lord, sir!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. ”You give me a start!” His voice was loud from astonishment.

”Hus.h.!.+” Sergius whispered. ”Go down at once and say that I've gone out!”

The man turned to obey, but Anthony Endover was half-way up the stairs.

”It's all right,” he exclaimed, as he met the porter.

He had pa.s.sed him in an instant and arrived at the place where Sergius was standing.

”Sergius,” he cried, and there was a great music of relief in his voice.

”Hulloa! Now you're not going out.”

”Yes, I am, Anthony.”

”But I want to talk to you tremendously. Where are you going?”

”To dine with the Venables in Curzon Street.”

”I met young Venables just now, and he said you'd written that you were ill and couldn't come. He asked me to fill your place.”

Sergius muttered a ”d.a.m.n!” under his breath.

”Well, come in for a minute,” he said, attempting no excuse.

He turned round slowly and re-entered his flat, followed by Endover.

II

For some years Endover had been Sergius Blake's close friend. They had left Eton at the same time; had been at Oxford together. Their intimacy, born in the playing fields, grew out of its cricket and football stage as their minds developed, and the world of thought opened like a holy of holies--beyond the world of action. They both pa.s.sed behind the veil, but Anthony went farther than Sergius. Yet this slight separation did not lead to alienation, but merely caused the admiration of Sergius for his friend to be mingled with respect. He looked up to Anthony.

Recognising that his friend's mind was more thoughtful than his own, while his pa.s.sions were far stronger than Anthony's, he grew to lean upon Anthony, to claim his advice sometimes, to follow it often. Anthony was his mentor, and thought he knew instinctively all the workings of Sergius' mind and all the possibilities of his nature. The mother of Sergius was a Russian and a great heiress. Soon after he left Oxford, she died. His father had been killed by an accident when he was a child.

So he was rich, free, young, in London, with no one to look after him, until Anthony Endover, who had meanwhile taken orders, was attached as fourth--or fifth--curate to a smart West End church, and came to live in lodgings in George Street, Hanover Square.

Then, as Sergius laughingly said, he had a father confessor on the premises. Yet to-night he had bidden his porter to tell a lie in order to keep his father confessor out. The lie had been vain. Sergius led the way morosely into his drawing-room, and turned on the light. Anthony walked up to the fire, and stretched his tall athletic figure in its long ebon coat. His firm throat rose out of a jam-pot collar, but his thin, strongly-marked face rather suggested an intellectual Hercules than a Mayfair parson, and neither his voice nor his manner was tinged with what so many people consider the true clericalism.

For all that he was a splendid curate, as his rector very well knew.

Now he stood by the fire for a minute in silence, while Sergius moved uneasily about the room. Presently Anthony turned round.

”It's beastly wet,” he said in a melodious ringing voice. ”The black dog is on me to-night, Sergius.”