As you see, it came off."
"And the cause of their quarrel?" Francis asked.
"There might have been a hundred reasons," Sir Timothy observed.
"As a matter of fact, it was the eternal one. There is no need
to mention a woman's name, so we will let it go at that."
There was a moment's silence--a strange, unforgettable moment for
Francis Ledsam, who seemed by some curious trick of the
imagination to have been carried away into an impossible and
grotesque world. The hum of eager conversation, the popping of
corks, the little trills of feminine laughter, all blended into
one sensual and not unmusical chorus, seemed to fade from his
ears. He fancied himself in some subterranean place of vast
dimensions, through the grim galleries of which men and women
with evil faces crept like animals. And towering above them,
unreal in size, his scornful face an epitome of sin, the knout
which he wielded symbolical and ghastly, driving his motley flock
with the leer of the evil shepherd, was the man from whom he had
already learnt to recoil with horror. The picture came and went
in a flash. Francis found himself accepting a courteously
offered cigar from his companion.
"You see, the story is very much like many others," Sir Timothy
murmured, as he lit a fresh Cigar himself and leaned back with
the obvious enjoyment of the cultivated smoker.
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