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"My dear fellow, what on earth does this mean?" Glennard recognized his check. "That I was remiss, simply. It ought to have gone to you before." Flamel's tone had been that of unaffected surprise, but at this his accent changed and he asked, quickly: "On what ground?" Glennard had moved away from the desk and stood leaning against the calf-backed volumes of the bookcase.
Flamel's muscles were under control, but his face showed the undefinable change produced by the slow infiltration of poison. Every implication that the words contained had reached its mark; but Glennard felt that their obvious intention was lost in the anguish of what they suggested.
Glennard at this point laid down his fork and glanced at her between the candle-shades. The alternative explanation of her indifference was not slow in presenting itself. Her head had the same listening droop as when he had caught sight of her the day before in Flamel's company; the attitude revived the vividness of his impression. It was simple enough, after all.
"Daedalus is the base; Orpheus is the wall; Hermes is the edifice, that is all. You shall come when you will," he continued, turning to Tourangeau, "I will show you the little parcels of gold which remained at the bottom of Nicholas Flamel's alembic, and you shall compare them with the gold of Guillaume de Paris. I will teach you the secret virtues of the Greek word, peristera.
He lost all sense of what he was saying to his neighbors and once when he looked up his wife's glance struck him cold. She sat nearly opposite him, at Flamel's side, and it appeared to Glennard that they had built about themselves one of those airy barriers of talk behind which two people can say what they please. While the reading was discussed they were silent.
To a man of less than Flamel's astuteness it must now be clear to whom the letters were addressed; and the possibility once suggested, nothing could be easier than to confirm it by discreet research. An impulse of self-accusal drove Glennard to the window. Why not anticipate betrayal by telling his wife the truth in Flamel's presence?
"I do, of course," he agreed, vexed at his own incorrigible tendency to magnify Flamel's importance by hovering about the topic. "A sail would be rather jolly; let's go." She made no reply and he drew forth the rolled-up evening papers which he had thrust into his pocket on leaving the train. As he smoothed them out his own countenance seemed to undergo the same process.
He wondered why his wife had wanted to drag him on such a senseless expedition.... He hated Flamel's crowd and what business had Flamel himself to interfere in that way, standing up for the publication of the letters as though Glennard needed his defence?... Glennard turned his head and saw that Flamel had drawn a seat to Alexa's elbow and was speaking to her in a low tone.
Cleverness was useful in business; but in society it seemed to him as futile as the sham cascades formed by a stream that might have been used to drive a mill. He liked the collective point of view that goes with the civilized uniformity of dress-clothes, and his wife's attitude implied the same preference; yet they found themselves slipping more and more into Flamel's intimacy.
As for Latin and Greek he could patter them off like his A B C's. Nevertheless, he was not satisfied with the things he knew, but was for learning the things that no schools could teach him. So one day he came knocking at Nicholas Flamel's door.
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