Part 29 (1/2)
”You have heard of something about him?”
”No.”
”You have seen him, then; I say, you have seen him?”
Anthony hesitated. He pushed the champagne bottle over towards Sergius.
It had been placed on a little table near the fireplace.
”No; I don't want to drink. Why on earth don't you answer me, Anthony?”
”I have always felt that Vernon was a coward. His conduct to you shows it. He was--or seemed--your friend. He saw you deeply in love with this--with Olga. He chose to ruin her after he knew of your love. Who but a coward could act in such a way?”
An expression of dark impatience came into the eyes of Sergius.
”You are confusing treachery and cowardice, and you are doing it untruthfully. You have seen Vernon.”
Anthony thought for a moment, and then said:
”Yes, I have.”
”By chance, of course. Why did you speak to him?”
”I thought I would.”
Sergius was obviously disturbed and surprised. The deeply emotional, yet rigid calm in which he had been enveloped all the evening was broken at last. A slight excitement, a distinct surface irritation, woke in him.
Anthony felt an odd sense of relief as he observed it. For the constraint of Sergius had begun to weigh upon him like a heavy burden and to move him to an indefinable dread.
”I wonder you didn't cut him,” Sergius said. ”You're my friend. And he's--he's--”
”He's done you a deadly injury. I know that. I am your friend, Serge; I would do anything for you.”
”Yet you speak to that--devil.”
”I spoke to him because I'm your friend.”
Sergius sat down again, with a heavy look, the look of a man who has been thrashed, and means to return every blow with curious interest.
”You parsons are a riddle to me,” he said in a low and dull voice. ”You and your charity and your loving-kindness, and your turning the cheek to the smiter and all the rest of it. And as to your way of showing friends.h.i.+p--”
His voice died away in something that was almost a growl, and he stared at the carpet. Between it and his eyes once more the mist seemed rising stealthily. It began to curl upwards softly about him. As he watched it, he heard Anthony say:--
”Sergius, you don't understand how well I understand you.”
The big hand of the clock had left the half-hour after ten behind him.
Anthony breathed more freely. At last he could be more explicit, more unreserved. He thought of a train rus.h.i.+ng through the night, devouring the s.p.a.ces of land that lie between London and the sea that speaks, moaning, to the South of England. He saw a s.h.i.+p glide out from the dreary docks. Her lights gleamed. He heard the bell struck and the harsh cry of the sailors, and then the dim sigh of a coward who had escaped what he had merited. Then he heard Sergius laugh.
”That again, Anthony!”
”Yes. I didn't meet Vernon by chance at all.”