Part 42 (1/2)

The first time Andreyvitch and Manners were introduced, Manners had the feeling that they had met at some time before. He even asked the Russian if it had not been in Moscow. When Andreyvitch told him that he had never in his whole life seen him, and that he positively regretted not having done so, Manners' att.i.tude underwent a sudden and unexpected change. He became silent, almost morose. He kept away from Andreyvitch all evening, and yet he stayed near enough to him to watch his every move.

After that night Manners decided he hated Andreyvitch; that he knew the man was a liar, an impostor. Not at the time that he was in any way jealous of the Russian; still there was a strange familiar feeling there that he had felt at some other time, and in connection with the same man. He could have sworn he had known him before. It was the only way then in which he could explain the thing to himself with any degree of coherence.

It was never difficult to get Gregory Manners to speak of the first evening he met Andreyvitch. It was almost as if he were tremendously puzzled, as if he thought speaking of it, even to a casual acquaintance, might clear things up to himself. He never varied the thing. At first, at any rate. Later on he became strangely, uncannily secretive about it all. That must have been when he began to suspect there was a great deal more to it than had appeared upon the surface.

”D'you know?” His words always came slowly. ”Deuce take it! I thought I was going to like the fellow. I'd heard so much about him, too. Why, old chap, I was anxious; positively keen, to know him. And then--Why, when I stood face to face with him, I couldn't think of anything but that I had known him, or did know him, or something. First glance and I saw he was one of those poseurs. One of those rummy fellows who affect poses because they're always consciously trying to imitate the people about them. That's it, you know. They can't be themselves because of some queer kink they funk expressing. So they fake other people and quite naturally they overdo it.”

He would usually get worked up about this time; and then he would go on a lot more quickly:

”I've seen them the world over. There was one chap--but--well--I thought this--this fellow who calls himself Andreyvitch, was just going to be one of them--poseurs, you know. He looked harmless enough to be sure.

Of course there were his eyes--and the way he walks--but then--I couldn't help feeling he wasn't quite--quite cricket. That came over me confoundedly strongly at the very first minute. And when he smiled--I say, man, d'you ever see such d.a.m.nably wicked teeth?”

And the man to whom he spoke always had to admit that he had never seen such teeth.

Later on Manners never worked himself up as much.

”That fellow who calls himself Andreyvitch--I've met him before. Don't know where; and at that I've a pretty fair head for names and places.

But I know him. He may have looked differently, and it probably was in some of those out-of-the-way holes; but I know him. I don't say he was the Russian Andreyvitch when I knew him--but--Well, old chap, we'll see.”

They stopped asking Andreyvitch and Manners around together after a while. But that never kept Manners from speaking of the Russian.

”Was Andreyvitch there?”

”They don't ask us together, eh?”

”No fear, old chap, of my insulting him; I couldn't, you know!”

”Rather a filthy sort of beggar, that Russian; makes the gooseflesh come over me. Happened before. Deuce take the thing!--If I could only think when!”

And then after Manners had dropped out of sight for a fortnight or more, he suddenly made his appearance at the club.

They were all of them unspeakably shocked by his looks. He never carried much weight, but in those two weeks he had gotten down to little else than skin and bones. His color was ghastly. His cheekbones were appallingly prominent and his eyes looked as if they were sunken back into his skull.

To all their questions he gave the same answer:

”No, he wasn't ill. No, he hadn't been ill. There was nothing the matter with him. He'd felt a bit seedy and he'd run down to his place for a fortnight. It was good of them to bother. He was quite, quite all right.”

They saw he wanted to be left alone and they let him go over to the window and sit there, his great, loose frame huddled together in the leather arm chair.

There could not have been more than three or four of them sitting near him. It was only those three or four who saw him stagger to his feet, swaying there dizzily for a second. Only those three or four who could distinguish the words spoken in that low, half strangled whisper.

”That's it--I've got it now--Something rotten; always living--Always waiting the chance to do its filthy harm! The power to incarnate--in any form. The greater its loathsomeness, the greater that incarnating stuff!

Probably at most times more beast than human--but it could take on human guise--that's it--that's--”

And those three or four men saw him rush out of the reading-room, his head thrown well back, his eyes ablaze with a great light.

And then Mrs. Broughton-Hollins gave the famous house-party. The house-party of which every member, although not fully understanding, tried to forget. The house-party which drove Gregory Manners and Kathleen Bennet out of England.

Mrs. Broughton-Hollins was a charming little American widow, with untold wealth and a desire to do everything, everywhere, with every one. Of course she always managed to get a lot of nice people together, and of course she picked the very nicest ones for her house-party. Then because she had set her heart on having the Russian, Stephanof Andreyvitch, she naturally got him to come, and because she had Kathleen Bennet, she had to ask Gregory. Kathleen and Gregory were engaged to be married.