For
some time they sat in silence, drinking and smoking. The artist appeared to
be absorbed in contemplation of his drink; considering its clouded green in
various lights. After a while the other looked up, and remarked, abruptly.
'I may as well tell you that I happened to overlook you, just now,
unintentionally.'
Sebastian Murch held up his glass, with absent eyes.
'Don't mention it, my dear fellow,' he remarked, at last, urbanely.
'I beg your pardon; but I am afraid I must.'
He spoke with an extreme deliberation which suggested nervousness; with
the air of a person reciting a little set speech, learnt imperfectly: and
he looked very straight in front of him, out into the street, at two dogs
quarrelling over some offal.
'I daresay you will be angry: I can't avoid that; at least, I have known
you long enough to hazard it. I have had it on my mind to say something. If
I have been silent, it hasn't been because I have been blind, or approved.
I have seen how it was all along. I gathered it from your letters when I
was in England. Only until this afternoon I did not know how far it had
gone, and now I am sorry I did not speak before.'
He stopped short, as though he expected his friend's subtilty to come to
his assistance; with admissions or recriminations.
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