第44章

It had overcome his power of assimilation.It had made him angry.This anger was complicated by incredulity.And suddenly it dawned upon him that all this was an elaborate joke.Mr Vladimir exhibited his white teeth in a smile, with dimples on his round, full face posed with a complacent inclination above the bristling bow of his necktie.The favourite of intelligent society women had assumed his drawing-room attitude accompanying the delivery of delicate witticisms.Sitting well forward, his white hand upraised, he seemed to hold delicately between his thumb and forefinger the subtlety of his suggestion.

`There could be nothing better.Such an outrage combines the greatest possible regard for humanity with the most alarming display of ferocious imbecility.I defy the ingenuity of journalists to persuade their public that any given member of the proletariat can have a personal grievance against astronomy.Starvation itself could hardly be dragged in there -eh? And there are other advantages.The whole civilized world has heard of Greenwich.The very bootblacks in the basement of Charing Cross Station know something of it.See?'

The features of Mr Vladimir, so well known in the best society by their humorous urbanity, beamed with cynical self-satisfaction, which would have astonished the intelligent women his wit entertained so exquisitely.`Yes,'

he continued, with a contemptuous smile, `the blowing up of the first meridian is bound to raise a howl of execration.'

`A difficult business,' Mr Verloc mumbled, feeling that this was the only safe thing to say.

`What is the matter? Haven't you the whole gang under your hand? The very pick of the basket? That old terrorist Yundt is here.I see him walking about Piccadilly in his green havelock almost every day.And Michaelis, the ticket-of-leave apostle - you don't mean to say you don't know where he is? Because if you don't, I can tell you,' Mr Vladimir went on menacingly.

`If you imagine that you are the only one in the secret fund list, you are mistaken.'

This perfectly gratuitous suggestion caused Mr Verloc to shuffle his feet slightly.

`And the whole Lausanne lot - eh? Haven't they been flocking over here at the first hint of the Milan Conference? This is an absurd country.'

`It will cost money,' Mr Verloc said, by a sort of instinct.

`That cock won't fight,' Mr Vladimir retorted, with an amazingly genuine English accent.`You'll get your screw every month, and no more till something happens.And if nothing happens very soon you won't get even that.What's your ostensible occupation? What are you supposed to live by?'

`I keep a shop,' answered Mr Verloc.`A shop! What sort of shop?' `Stationery, newspapers.My wife--'

`Your what?' interrupted Mr Vladimir in his guttural Central Asian tones.

`My wife.' Mr Verloc raised his husky voice slightly.`I am married.'

`That be damned for a yarn,' exclaimed the other in unfeigned astonishment.

`Married! And you a professed anarchist, too! What is this confounded nonsense?

But I suppose it's merely a manner of speaking.Anarchists don't marry.

It's well known.They can't.It would be apostasy.

`My wife isn't one,' Mr Verloc mumbled, sulkily.`Moreover, it's no concern of yours.'

`Oh, yes, it is,' snapped Mr Vladimir.`I am beginning to be convinced that you are not at all the man for the work you've been employed on.Why, you must have discredited yourself completely in your own world by your marriage.Couldn't you have managed without? This is your virtuous attachment - eh? What with one sort of attachment and another you are doing away with your usefulness.'

Mr Verloc, puffing out his cheeks, let the air escape violently, and that was all.He had armed himself with patience.It was not to be tried much longer.The First Secretary became suddenly very curt, detached, final.

`You may go now,' he said.`A dynamite outrage must be provoked.I give you a month.The sittings of the Conference are suspended.Before it reassembles again something must have happened here, or your connection with us ceases.'

He changed the note once more with an unprincipled versatility.

`Think over my philosophy, Mr - Mr - Verloc,' he said, with a sort of chaffing condescension, waving his hand towards the door.`Go for the first meridian.You don't know the middle classes as well as I do.Their sensibilities are jaded.The first meridian.Nothing better, and nothing easier, I should think.'

He had got up, and with his thin sensitive lips twitching humorously, watched in the glass over the mantelpiece Mr Verloc backing out of the room heavily, hat and stick in hand.The door closed.

The footman in trousers, appearing suddenly in the corridor, led Mr Verloc another way out and through a small door in the corner of the courtyard.