Читать книгу The Inquisitor. A Novel онлайн

42 страница из 52

'The fact is, Mike, we're not prepared for you. You should have given us warning. Poor Sarah—I don't know whether you noticed, but she's blind, poor thing—a terrible deprivation. And at the moment we have no maid——'

'Oh, I'm used to roughing it,' Michael broke in heartily. 'I'll sleep anywhere. If I stay for a bit I can look around——'

At the word 'stay' Stephen Furze straightened his body, then turned with a gentle twisting movement towards his brother.

'Stay? Well, as to that . . .'

This short conversation had brought his childhood back to Michael with an amazing vividness—for always, from the very beginning, the relations of the two brothers had been like this: they had never wasted time over preliminaries, had been at once in opposition, Michael with the blustering vehemence of his simple egotism, Stephen with the quiet resolve of a monomaniac.

Stephen always had his way. But now—and how curious that it should be so late postponed!—they were meeting for the first time in serious contact as grown men. Michael had the obstinacy of his naïf selfishness, Stephen the driving determination of his monomania. But, as yet, there was no battle, for Michael said: