Odd and uncanny it seemed to me that he, Soames, in the flesh, in
the waterproof cape, was at this moment living in the last decade of the
next century, poring over books not yet written, and seeing and seen by
men not yet born. Uncannier and odder still that to-night and evermore
he would be in hell. Assuredly, truth was stranger than fiction.
Endless that afternoon was. Almost I wished I had gone with
Soames, not, indeed, to stay in the reading-room, but to sally forth for a
brisk sight-seeing walk around a new London. I wandered restlessly out
of the park I had sat in. Vainly I tried to imagine myself an ardent tourist
from the eighteenth century. Intolerable was the strain of the
slow-passing and empty minutes. Long before seven o'clock I was back
at the Vingtieme.
I sat there just where I had sat for luncheon. Air came in listlessly
through the open door behind me. Now and again Rose or Berthe
appeared for a moment. I had told them I would not order any dinner till
Mr. Soames came. A hurdy-gurdy began to play, abruptly drowning the
noise of a quarrel between some Frenchmen farther up the street.
Whenever the tune was changed I heard the quarrel still raging. I had
bought another evening paper on my way. I unfolded it. My eyes gazed
ever away from it to the clock over the kitchen door.
Five minutes now to the hour! I remembered that clocks in
restaurants are kept five minutes fast.
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