Читать книгу Wickford Point онлайн

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When I set down the telephone I had a feeling that I had been away, although I could not define where I had been, but at any rate it was a long way from Wickford Point. Joe had never understood the place, or if he had he was not tied up with it. He was as sensitive as I was, probably more sensitive, but there were no cobwebs of the past about him.

By the time I had walked from the parlor to the dining room, Sid had come down to breakfast. He was sitting hunched over the table in his shirt sleeves, stirring his coffee very carefully, watching the eddies that followed his spoon. Occasionally he would lift it up and allow drops to fall from it very gradually, one by one, back into the cup. I knew what he was doing; it was an exercise which he had contrived to test the steadiness of his hand. He had prided himself on his manual dexterity from the time he had decided to be a chemist, some years before, and now he was in the land of make-believe, thinking of someone like Alexis Carrel. He had not yet tied his necktie and the two ends dangled dreamily over the front of his white shirt.