To
this he owed his acquaintance with the family of Dallison. For one day,
after telling his chauffeur to meet him at the Albert Gate, he had
set out to stroll down Rotten Row, as he often did on the way home,
designing to nod to anybody that he knew. It had turned out a somewhat
barren expedition. No one of any consequence had met his eye; and it was
with a certain almost fretful longing for distraction that in Kensington
Gardens he came on an old man feeding birds out of a paper bag. The
birds having flown away on seeing him, he approached the feeder to
apologize.
"I'm afraid I frightened your birds, sir," he began.
This old man, who was dressed in smoke-grey tweeds which exhaled a
poignant scent of peat, looked at him without answering.
"I'm afraid your birds saw me coming," Mr. Purcey said again.
"In those days," said the aged stranger, "birds were afraid of men."
Mr. Purcey's shrewd grey eyes perceived at once that he had a character
to deal with.
"Ah, yes!" he said; "I see--you allude to the present time. That's very
nice. Ha, ha!"
The old man answered: "The emotion of fear is inseparably connected with
a primitive state of fratricidal rivalry."
This sentence put Mr. Purcey on his guard.
'The old chap,' he thought, 'is touched. He evidently oughtn't to be out
here by himself.
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