"
"If that is your conclusion and summing-up of the whole matter," Lionel
said, with studied indifference, "perhaps you will offer me a drink, and
I'll have a cigarette, and we can talk about something on which we are
likely to agree."
"I'm sure I beg your pardon," Mangan said, with a laugh; and he went and
brought forth what modest stores he had, and he was quite willing that
the conversation should flow into another channel.
And little did Lionel know that at this very moment there was something
awaiting him at his own rooms that would (far more effectually than any
reasoning and plain speaking) banish from his mind, for the moment at
least, all those restless aspirations and vague regrets. When eventually
he arrived in Piccadilly and went up-stairs, he was not expecting any
letters, this being Sunday; and as there was on the table only a small
parcel, he would probably have left that unheeded till the morning (no
doubt it was a pair of worked slippers, or a couple of ivory-backed
brushes, or something of the kind) but that in passing he happened to
glance at the note on the top of it, and he observed that the
handwriting was foreign.
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