Feversham did not change his
attitude, but the look upon his face was now that of a man listening,
and listening thoughtfully, just as he had read thoughtfully. In the
years which followed, that moment was to recur again and again to the
recollection of each of Harry's three guests. The lighted room, with the
bright homely fire, the open window overlooking the myriad lamps of
London, Harry Feversham seated with the telegram spread before him, the
drums and fifes calling loudly, and then dwindling to music very small
and pretty--music which beckoned where a moment ago it had commanded:
all these details made up a picture of which the colours were not to
fade by any lapse of time, although its significance was not apprehended
now.
It was remembered that Feversham rose abruptly from his chair, just
before the tattoo ceased. He crumpled the telegram loosely in his hands,
tossed it into the fire, and then, leaning his back against the
chimney-piece and upon one side of the fireplace, said again:--
"I don't know;" as though he had thrust that message, whatever it might
be, from his mind, and was summing up in this indefinite way the
argument which had gone before.
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