Time thus rolls us on to a February afternoon, divided by fifteen
months from the parting of Elfride and her lover in the brown
stubble field towards the sea.
Two men obviously not Londoners, and with a touch of foreignness
in their look, met by accident on one of the gravel walks leading
across Hyde Park. The younger, more given to looking about him
than his fellow, saw and noticed the approach of his senior some
time before the latter had raised his eyes from the ground, upon
which they were bent in an abstracted gaze that seemed habitual
with him.
'Mr. Knight--indeed it is!' exclaimed the younger man.
'Ah, Stephen Smith!' said Knight.
Simultaneous operations might now have been observed progressing
in both, the result being that an expression less frank and
impulsive than the first took possession of their features. It
was manifest that the next words uttered were a superficial
covering to constraint on both sides.
'Have you been in England long?' said Knight.
'Only two days,' said Smith. India ever since?'
'Nearly ever since.'
'They were making a fuss about you at St. Launce's last year. I
fancy I saw something of the sort in the papers.'
'Yes; I believe something was said about me.'
'I must congratulate you on your achievements.'
'Thanks, but they are nothing very extraordinary. A natural
professional progress where there was no opposition.'
There followed that want of words which will always assert itself
between nominal friends who find they have ceased to be real ones,
and have not yet sunk to the level of mere acquaintance.
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