Then Armine came decisively away from his place on the far side of the long table, and joined Meyer Isaacson.
"I'm glad to meet you again, Isaacson," he said, grasping the Doctor's hand.
The Doctor returned his grip with a characteristic clasp, and they sat down side by side, while the other men began talking and lighting cigarettes.
"Have you only just come back?" asked the Doctor.
"I have been back for a week."
"So long! Where are you staying?"
"At the Savoy."
"The Savoy?"
"Are you surprised!"
The Doctor's brilliant eyes were fixed upon Armine with an expression half humorous, half affectionate.
"Any smart hotel would seem the wrong place for you," he said. "I can see you on the snows of the Alps, or your own moors at Etchingham, even at--where is it?"
"Sennoures."
"But at the Savoy, the Ritz, the Carlton--no. Their gilded banality isn't the cadre for you at all."
"I'm very happy at the Savoy," Armine replied.
As he spoke, he looked away from Meyer Isaacson across the table to the wall opposite to him. Upon it hung a large reproduction of Watts's picture, "Progress." He gazed at it, and his face became set in a strange calm, as if he had for a moment forgotten the place he was in, the people round about him. Meyer Isaacson watched him with a concentrated interest. There was something in this man--there always had been something--which roused in the Doctor an affection, an admiration, that were mingled with pity and even with a secret fear. Such a nature, the Doctor often thought, must surely be fore-ordained to suffering in a world that holds certainly many who cherish ideals and strive to mount upwards, but a majority that is greedy for the constant gratification of the fleshly appetites, that seldom listens to the dim appeal of the distant voices which sometimes speak, however faintly, to all who dwell on earth.
"What a splendid thing that is!" Armine said, at last, with a sigh. "You know the original?"
"I saw it the other day at the gallery in Compton."
"Progress--advance--going on irresistibly all the time, whether we see it, feel it, or not. How glorious!"
"You are always an optimist?"
"I do believe in the triumph of good. More and more every day I believe in that, the triumph of good in the world, and in the individual. And the more believers there are--true believers--in that triumph, the more surely, the more swiftly, it will be accomplished. You can help, Isaacson."
"By believing?"
"Yes, that's the way to help. But Lord! how few people take it! Suspicion is one of the most destructive agents at work in the world. Suspect a man, and you almost force him to give you cause for suspicion. Suspect a woman, and instantly you give her a push towards deceit. How I hate to hear men say they don't trust women."