“I’m sorry,” said Lewisham, with a sort of stiff civility, “if I seem to be forcing myself upon you.  I don’t want to pry into your affairs—­if you don’t wish me to.  The sight of you has somehow brought back a lot of things....  I can’t explain it.  Perhaps—­I had to come to find you—­I kept on thinking of your face, of how you used to smile, how you jumped from the gate by the lock, and how we had tea ... a lot of things.”

He stopped again.

“A lot of things.”

“If I may come,” he said, and went unanswered.  They crossed the wide streets by the Junction and went on towards the Common.

“I live down this road,” she said, stopping abruptly at a corner.  “I would rather ...”

“But I have said nothing.”

She looked at him with her face white, unable to speak for a space.  “It can do no good,” she said.  “I am mixed up with this....”

She stopped.

He spoke deliberately.  “I shall come,” he said, “to-morrow night.”

“No,” she said.

“But I shall come.”

“No,” she whispered.

“I shall come.”  She could hide the gladness of her heart from herself no longer.  She was frightened that he had come, but she was glad, and she knew he knew that she was glad.  She made no further protest.  She held out her hand dumbly.  And on the morrow she found him awaiting her even as he had said.

CHAPTER XIV.

MR. LAGUNE’S POINT OF VIEW.

For three days the Laboratory at South Kensington saw nothing of Lagune, and then he came back more invincibly voluble than ever.  Everyone had expected him to return apostate, but he brought back an invigorated faith, a propaganda unashamed.  From some source he had derived strength and conviction afresh.  Even the rhetorical Smithers availed nothing.  There was a joined battle over the insufficient tea-cups, and the elderly young assistant demonstrator hovered on the verge of the discussion, rejoicing, it is supposed, over the entanglements of Smithers.  For at the outset Smithers displayed an overweening confidence and civility, and at the end his ears were red and his finer manners lost to him.

Lewisham, it was remarked by Miss Heydinger, made but a poor figure in this discussion.  Once or twice he seemed about to address Lagune, and thought better of it with the words upon his lips.

Lagune’s treatment of the exposure was light and vigorous.  “The man Chaffery,” he said, “has made a clean breast of it.  His point of view—­”

“Facts are facts,” said Smithers.

“A fact is a synthesis of impressions,” said Lagune; “but that you will learn when you are older.  The thing is that we were at cross purposes.  I told Chaffery you were beginners.  He treated you as beginners—­arranged a demonstration.”

“It was a demonstration,” said Smithers.

“Precisely.  If it had not been for your interruptions ...”