He pumped me dry on Vereker's strange
confidence and, pronouncing me the luckiest of mortals, mentioned
half a dozen questions he wished to goodness I had had the gumption
to put. Yet on the other hand he didn't want to be told too much--
it would spoil the fun of seeing what would come. The failure of
MY fun was at the moment of our meeting not complete, but I saw it
ahead, and Corvick saw that I saw it. I, on my side, saw likewise
that one of the first things he would do would be to rush off with
my story to Gwendolen.
On the very day after my talk with him I was surprised by the
receipt of a note from Hugh Vereker, to whom our encounter at
Bridges had been recalled, as he mentioned, by his falling, in a
magazine, on some article to which my signature was attached. "I
read it with great pleasure," he wrote, "and remembered under its
influence our lively conversation by your bedroom fire. The
consequence of this has been that I begin to measure the temerity
of my having saddled you with a knowledge that you may find
something of a burden. Now that the fit's over I can't imagine how
I came to be moved so much beyond my wont. I had never before
mentioned, no matter in what state of expansion, the fact of my
little secret, and I shall never speak of that mystery again.
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