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Updated: May 23, 2025
Loder involuntarily turned away. "I mean it," he said, slowly. "It's over; we've come to the end." "But why?" Chilcote articulated, blankly. "Why? Why?" In his confusion he could think of no better word. "Because I throw it up. My side of the bargain's off!" Again Chilcote's lips parted stammeringly.
But Chilcote's glance was unstable and indifferent; he skirted the railings heedlessly, and, crossing the road with the speed of long familiarity, gained Whitehall on the lefthand side. There the fog had dropped, and, looking upward towards Trafalgar Square, it seemed that the chain of lamps extended little farther than the Horse Guards, and that beyond lay nothing.
Loder waited until he heard the outer door close, then he crossed the room thoughtfully and dropped into the chair that she had vacated. He sat for a time looking at the hand her fingers had touched; then he lifted his head with a characteristic movement. "By Jove!" he said, aloud, "how cordially she detests tests him!" Loder slept soundly and dreamlessly in Chilcote's canopied bed.
He made a speculative measurement with the stem of his pipe. Chilcote still looked irritable and disturbed. "I detest rings. I never wear rings." Loder raised his eyes calmly. "Neither do I," he said. "But there's no reason for bigotry." But Chilcote's irritability was started. He pushed back his chair. "I don't like the idea," he said. The other eyed him amusedly.
He was possessed by a great impatience; the joy of action was stirring in his blood. Leaving the cab, he walked confidently to the door of Chilcote's house and inserted the latch-key. Even in this small act there was a grain of individual satisfaction. Then very quietly he opened the door and crossed the hall. As he entered, a footman was arranging the fire that burned in the big grate.
There was a moment's wait while his fingers rested on the handle; then a sensation he could not explain a reticence, a reluctance to intrude upon this one precinct caused his, fingers to relax. With a slightly embarrassed gesture he drew back slowly and retraced his steps. Once in Chilcote's bedroom, he walked to the nearest bell and pressed it.
He met no one in the hall or on the stairs of Chilcote's house, and on entering the study he found that also deserted. Greening had been among the most absorbed of those who had listened to his speech. Passing at once into the room, he crossed as if by instinct to the desk, and there halted.
His perplexity had dropped to a quiet sense of self-reliance; his paramount desire was for solitude in which to prepare for the task that lay before him; the most congenial task the world possessed the unravelling of Chilcote's tangled skeins. Looking into Lillian's eyes, he smiled. "Good-bye!" he said, holding out his hand. "I think we've finished for to-day." She slowly extended her fingers.
Loder's interest quickened as his eye caught the mark. It had been agreed between them that only engagements essential to Chilcote's public life need be carried through during his absence, and these, to save confusion, were to be crossed in blue pencil.
For one moment on the night of his great speech, as he leaned out of Chilcote's carriage and met Chilcote's eyes, Loder had seen himself and under the shock of revelation had taken decisive action.
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