A moment of flame and vision rushed over him, and for one single
second--one merciless second of clear sight--he saw the Manager as the
tall dark man of his evil dreams, and the knowledge that he had suffered
at his hands some awful injury in the past crashed through his mind like
the report of a cannon. It all flashed upon him and was gone, changing him from fire to ice,
and then back again to fire; and he left the office with the certain
conviction in his heart that the time for his final settlement with the
man, the time for the inevitable retribution, was at last drawing very
near. According to his invariable custom, however, he succeeded in putting
the memory of all this unpleasantness out of his mind with the changing
of his office coat, and after dozing a little in his leather chair
before the fire, he started out as usual for dinner in the Soho French
restaurant, and began to dream himself away into the region of flowers
and singing, and to commune with the Invisibles that were the very
sources of his real life and being. For it was in this way that his mind worked, and the habits of years had
crystallised into rigid lines along which it was now necessary and
inevitable for him to act. At the door of the little restaurant he stopped short, a half-remembered
appointment in his mind. He had made an engagement with some one, but
where, or with whom, had entirely slipped his memory. He thought it was
for dinner, or else to meet just after dinner, and for a second it came
back to him that it had something to do with the office, but, whatever
it was, he was quite unable to recall it, and a reference to his pocket
engagement book showed only a blank page. Evidently he had even omitted
to enter it; and after standing a moment vainly trying to recall either
the time, place, or person, he went in and sat down. But though the details had escaped him, his subconscious memory seemed
to know all about it, for he experienced a sudden sinking of the heart,
accompanied by a sense of foreboding anticipation, and felt that
beneath his exhaustion there lay a centre of tremendous excitement. The
emotion caused by the engagement was at work, and would presently cause
the actual details of the appointment to reappear. Inside the restaurant the feeling increased, instead of passing: some
one was waiting for him somewhere--some one whom he had definitely
arranged to meet. He was expected by a person that very night and just
about that very time. But by whom? Where? A curious inner trembling came
over him, and he made a strong effort to hold himself in hand and to be
ready for anything that might come. And then suddenly came the knowledge that the place of appointment was
this very restaurant, and, further, that the person he had promised to
meet was already here, waiting somewhere quite close beside him. He looked up nervously and began to examine the faces round him. The
majority of the diners were Frenchmen, chattering loudly with much
gesticulation and laughter; and there was a fair sprinkling of clerks
like himself who came because the prices were low and the food good, but
there was no single face that he recognised until his glance fell upon
the occupant of the corner seat opposite, generally filled by himself. "There's the man who's waiting for me!" thought Jones instantly. He knew it at once. The man, he saw, was sitting well back into the
corner, with a thick overcoat buttoned tightly up to the chin. His skin
was very white, and a heavy black beard grew far up over his cheeks. At
first the secretary took him for a stranger, but when he looked up and
their eyes met, a sense of familiarity flashed across him, and for a
second or two Jones imagined he was staring at a man he had known years
before. For, barring the beard, it was the face of an elderly clerk who
had occupied the next desk to his own when he first entered the service
of the insurance company, and had shown him the most painstaking
kindness and sympathy in the early difficulties of his work. But a
moment later the illusion passed, for he remembered that Thorpe had been
dead at least five years. The similarity of the eyes was obviously a
mere suggestive trick of memory. The two men stared at one another for several seconds, and then Jones
began to act _instinctively_, and because he had to. He crossed over and
took the vacant seat at the other's table, facing him; for he felt it
was somehow imperative to explain why he was late, and how it was he had
almost forgotten the engagement altogether. No honest excuse, however, came to his assistance, though his mind had
begun to work furiously. "Yes, you _are_ late," said the man quietly, before he could find a
single word to utter. "But it doesn't matter. Also, you had forgotten
the appointment, but that makes no difference either." "I knew--that there was an engagement," Jones stammered, passing his
hand over his forehead; "but somehow--"

"You will recall it presently," continued the other in a gentle voice,
and smiling a little. "It was in deep sleep last night we arranged this,
and the unpleasant occurrences of to-day have for the moment obliterated
it." A faint memory stirred within him as the man spoke, and a grove of trees
with moving forms hovered before his eyes and then vanished again, while
for an instant the stranger seemed to be capable of self-distortion and
to have assumed vast proportions, with wonderful flaming eyes. "Oh!" he gasped. "It was there--in the other region?" "Of course," said the other, with a smile that illumined his whole face. "You will remember presently, all in good time, and meanwhile you have
no cause to feel afraid." There was a wonderful soothing quality in the man's voice, like the
whispering of a great wind, and the clerk felt calmer at once. They sat
a little while longer, but he could not remember that they talked much
or ate anything. He only recalled afterwards that the head waiter came
up and whispered something in his ear, and that he glanced round and saw
the other people were looking at him curiously, some of them laughing,
and that his companion then got up and led the way out of the
restaurant. They walked hurriedly through the streets, neither of them speaking; and
Jones was so intent upon getting back the whole history of the affair
from the region of deep sleep, that he barely noticed the way they took. Yet it was clear he knew where they were bound for just as well as his
companion, for he crossed the streets often ahead of him, diving down
alleys without hesitation, and the other followed always without
correction. The pavements were very full, and the usual night crowds of London were
surging to and fro in the glare of the shop lights, but somehow no one
impeded their rapid movements, and they seemed to pass through the
people as if they were smoke.