His face was stem, though this effect was
slightly spoiled by the fact that one of his
feet was making wild circles in the air.
"You drive me to it," he said. "You
drive me to betray my friend. And I will,
for his own sake, betray him."

The sensitive face of Bingham took on an
extra expression of distress as of one antici-
pating some disgraceful disclosure. "Any-
thing painful, of course — " he began.
Basil let his loose foot fall on the carpet
with a crash that struck them all rigid in
their feeble attitudes.
"Idiots!" he cried. "Have you seen the
man? Have you looked at James Chadd
going dismally to and fro from his dingy
house to your miserable library, with his
futile books and his confounded umbrella,
and never seen that he has the eyes of a

214



Conduct of Professor Chadd

fanatic? Have you never noticed, stuck
casually behind his spectacles and above his
seedy old collar, the face of a man who might
have burned heretics or died for the phi-
losopher's stone? It is all my fault, in a
way; I lit the djniamite of his deadly faith.
