nd
my difficulty, but you know what it is."

V

With a quick inclination of the head for us both, and an earnest,
friendly glance at the young man, Miss Haldin left us covering our heads
and looking after her straight, supple figure receding rapidly. Her walk
was not that hybrid and uncertain gliding affected by some women, but
a frank, strong, healthy movement forward. Rapidly she increased the
distance--disappeared with suddenness at last. I discovered only then
that Mr. Razumov, after ramming his hat well over his brow, was looking
me over from head to foot. I dare say I was a very unexpected fact for
that young Russian to stumble upon. I caught in his physiognomy, in his
whole bearing, an expression compounded of curiosity and scorn, tempered
by alarm--as though he had been holding his breath while I was not
looking. But his eyes met mine with a gaze direct enough. I saw then for
the first time that they were of a clear brown colour and fringed with
thick black eyelashes. They were the youngest feature of his face. Not
at all unpleasant eyes. He swayed slightly, leaning on his stick and
generally hung in the wind. It flashed upon me that in leaving us
together Miss Haldin had an intention--that something was entrusted to
me, since, by a mere accident I had been found at hand. On this assumed
ground I put all possible friendliness into my manner. I cast about
for some right thing to say, and suddenly in Miss Haldin's last words I
perceived the clue to the nature of my mission.

"No," I said gravely, if with a smile, "you cannot be expected to
understand."

His clean-shaven lip quivered ever so little before he said, as if
wickedly amused--

"But haven't you heard just now? I was thanked by that young lady for
understanding so well."

I looked at him rather hard. Was there a hidden and inexplicable sneer
in this retort? No. It was not that. It might have been resentment. Yes.
But what had he to resent? He looked as though he had not slept very
well of late. I could almost feel on me the weight of his unrefreshed,
motionless stare, the stare of a man who lies unwinking in the dark,
angrily passive in the toils of disastrous thoughts. Now, when I know
how true it was, I can honestly affirm that this was the effect he
produced on me. It was painful in a curiously indefinite way--for,
of course, the definition comes to me now while I sit writing in the
fullness of my knowledge. But this is what the effect was