"
And we took wine together across the table.
Thus had this singular introduction passed unperceived
in the midst of more than thirty persons, art-students,
ladies in dressing-gowns and covered with rice powder,
six foot of Siron whisking dishes over our head, and
his noisy sons clattering in and out with fresh relays.
"One question more," said I: "Did you recognise my
voice?"
"Your voice?" he repeated. "How should I? had never
heard it--we have never met."
"And yet we have been in conversation before now," said
I, "and I asked you a question which you never
answered, and which I have since had many thousand
better reasons for putting to myself."
He turned suddenly white. "Good God!" he cried, "are
you the man in the telephone?"
I nodded.
"Well, well!" said he. "It would take a good deal of
magnanimity to forgive you that. What nights I have
passed! That little whisper has whistled in my ear ever
since, like the wind in a keyhole. Who could it be?
What could it mean? I suppose I have had more real,
solid misery out of that .
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