LEYDEN'S ANALYSIS
sister as I have just said, I would shoot him on sight. Just why I am telling it all to you I'm sure I don't know. There's no other man living to whom I would breathe such a thing; perhaps it's because you have told me things … it's because you know your world as no man living whom I ever met before, and I want your advice."
Manning's face was drawn and haggard; young as he was he did not open his soul without breaking certain seals and wrenching his whole fabric to its core. This stifling of his pride had in it something submissive; it was simply that he had fallen beneath the influence of the world wisdom of this man who wandered up and down, looking, seeing, observing, dispassionately analyzing, quietly placing startling truths upon their proper shelves, sticking labels on heart beats, compassionate, kind, with the large-heartedness of deep understanding and the stamp of an ineradicable pain which had purified his soul and set him apart from selfish interest with those affairs which he might be asked to arbitrate.
Leyden studied the fire, for there was a damp drizzle without and the hall was cold and draughty. He pushed a log with his toe, poked another into place, crouched on the hearth, resting on his heels—the aboriginal position acquired by one who lives much in the open; his fine face was rather more flushed than the backset of heat would warrant.
"Ach!" he said, "this Channel weather, with its cold and fog and rain!" He clapped his hands absently, waited, clapped again, glanced vexedly over his shoulder, then laughed. "Will you ring the bell, Moultrie?
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