You wouldn't be here on the border of Belgium if you didn't
mean to cross the frontier."
"Oh, we shall cross it, of course. But where we shall go when we get
across is another question."
"I'll find the answer, and I'll find you," he flings at me with a smile
of defiance.
"Why should you give yourself trouble?"
"To--see some more of your brother's pictures," he says gravely. I know
that he wishes to see me, not the pictures, and he knows that I know;
but I let it go at that.
When the sketch has been wrapped up between cardboards, and the twelve
hundred francs placed carelessly on a table, there seems no reason why
Mr. Jim Wyndham shouldn't start for the cathedral. But he suddenly
decides that the way of wisdom is to eat first, and begs me to lunch
with him. "Do, _please_," he begs, "just to show you're not offended
with my false pretences."
I yearn to say yes, and don't see why I shouldn't; so I do. We have
_dejeuner_ together in the summer-house where Brian and I always eat. We
chat about a million things. We linger over our coffee, and I smoke two
or three of his gold-tipped Egyptians. When we suppose an hour has gone
by, at most, behold, it is half-past four! I tell him he must start: he
will be too late for the cathedral at its best. He says, "Hang the
cathedral!" and refuses to stir unless I promise to dine with him when
he comes back.
"You mean in a fortnight?" I ask. "Probably we shan't be here.
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