“I notice a kind of infernal heat, if that is the same thing.  Seventy-eight in this room!  You will have to walk slowly.  I am not in good condition just yet.  Wait a moment.  I must take my field-glasses.  I never go without them.”

Mr. Heard, resigned to his fate, was filled at the same time with anxiety.  He could not drive Keith’s words out of his head.  Perhaps Denis was really up to some mischief.  Who could tell?  His eagerness—­his curious language!  That note of exaltation in his voice. . . .  And what did he mean by saying that something funny would happen?  Was he contemplating—?  Above all, his dread of being unaccompanied!  Mr. Heard was aware that persons of unbalanced mind are apt to experience before some critical outbreak a pathetic horror of solitude, as though, dimly conscious of what was about to happen, they feared to trust themselves alone.

He meant to keep a sharp eye on Denis.

Often, in later times, he recalled that trivial conversation.  Every word of it was graven on his memory.  How more than strange that Denis should have dragged him away that afternoon, to that particular spot, at that very hour!  By what a string of accidents had everything happened. . . .

CHAPTER XXXIII

It was nearly two o’clock.  To step out of doors was like passing into a furnace.  Streets were deserted.  The houses showed glaring white against the cobalt of the firmament; their inhabitants lay asleep within, behind closed shutters.  Heat and silence brooded over the land.

Climbing slowly aloft by a lava-paved lane they reached the bibliographer’s residence and paused awhile near its entrance.  Mr. Heard tried to picture the scholar’s life in this two-roomed cottage; he regretted having had no chance of visiting that amiable person in his own abode. (Mr. Eames was chary of issuing invitations.) A life of monastic severity.  There was a small outhouse attached to one side of the wall; it was the kitchen, Denis explained; Eames’ only servant being a boy whom he borrowed for an occasional morning’s work from a neighbouring farm which supplied him with dairy produce.

“It isn’t often used, that kitchen,” said Denis.  “He lives mostly on bread and milk.  Does his own marketing in the early hours.  I met him one day before breakfast, walking with a large brown basket on his arm.  Said he was buying anchovies.  There was a big haul of them overnight.  He had heard about it.  A penny a pound, he said.  I noticed some lettuce as well.  A couple of oranges.  Fine chap!  He knows what he wants.”