"That doesn't carry me very far," I said.

He switched off the table lights and lay back in his chair with legs crossed.

"Don't you think it strange and--unsettling? Three months ago life was rounded and complete; you were all-sufficient to yourself. One day was just like another, till the morning when you woke up and felt lonely--lonely and wasted, gradually growing old. Till three, four hours ago you tried to define your new hunger.... Now you've forgotten it, now you're wondering why you can't drive out of your mind the vision of a girl you've not seen for twenty years. Shall I go on?

You've just had a new thought; you were thinking I was impertinent, that I oughtn't to talk like this, that you ought to be angry.... Then you decided you couldn't be, because I was right." He paused, and then exclaimed quickly, "Now, now there's another new thought! You're not going to be angry, you know it's true, you're interested, you want to find out how I know it's true, but you want to seem sceptical so as to save your face." He hesitated a second time, and added quietly, "Now you've made up your mind, you're going to say nothing, you think that's non-committal, you're going to wait in the hope that I shall tell you how I know."

I made no answer, and he sat silent for a while, tracing his initials with the end of a match in the little mound of cigar ash on his plate.

"I can't tell you how I know," he said at last. "But it was true, wasn't it?"

"Suppose it was?"

His shoulders gave a slight shrug.

"Oh, I don't know. I just wanted to see if I was right."

I turned up the table lamp again so that I could see his face.

"Just as a matter of personal interest," I said, "do you suggest that I always show the world what I'm thinking about?"

"Not the world."

"You?"

"As a rule. Not more than other people."

"Can you tell what everybody's thinking of?"

"I can with a good many men."

"Not women?"

He shook his head.

"They often don't know themselves. They think in fits and starts--jerkily; it's hard to follow them."

"How do you do it?"

"I don't know. You must watch people's eyes; then you'll find the expression is always changing, never the same for two minutes in succession--you just _see_."

"I'm hanged if I do."

"Your eyes must be quick. Look here, you're walking along in evening dress, and I throw a lump of mud on to your shirt front. In a fraction of a second you hit me over the head with your cane. That's all, isn't it? But you know it isn't all; there are a dozen mental processes between the mud-throwing and the head-hitting. You're horror-stricken at the mess I've made of your shirt, you wonder if you'll have time to go back and change into a clean one, and if so, how late you'll be.

You're annoyed that any one should throw mud at you, you're flabbergasted that _I_ should be the person. You're impotently angry.

Gradually a desire for revenge overcomes every other feeling; you're going to hurt me. A little thought springs up, and you wonder whether I shall summon you for assault; you decide to risk it Another little thought--will you hit me on the body or the head? You decide the head because it'll hurt more. Still another thought--how hard to hit? You don't want to kill me and you don't want to make me blind. You decide to be on the safe side and hit rather gently. Then--then at last you're ready with the cane. Is that right?"

I thought it over very carefully.

"I suppose so. But no one can see those thoughts succeeding each other. There isn't time."

The Seraph shook his head in polite contradiction.

"The same sort of thing was said when instantaneous photography was introduced. You got pictures of horses galloping, and people solemnly assured you it was physically impossible for horses' legs to get into such attitudes."

"How do you account for it?" I asked.

"Don't know. Eyes different from other people's, I suppose."

I could see he preferred to discuss the power in the abstract rather than in relation to himself, but my curiosity was piqued.

"Anything else?" I asked.

He listened for a moment; the Club was sunk in profound silence. Then I heard him imitating a familiar deep voice: "Oh--er--porter, taxi, please."

"Why d'you do that?" I asked, not quite certain of his meaning.

"Don't you know whose voice that was supposed to be?"

"It was Arthur Roden's," I said.

He nodded. "Just leaving the Club."

I jumped up and ran into the hall.

"Is Sir Arthur Roden in the Club?" I asked the porter.

"Just left this moment, sir," he answered.

I came back and sat down opposite the Seraph.

"I want to hear more about this," I said. "I'm beginning to get interested."

He shook his head.

"Why not?" I persisted.

"I don't like talking about it. I don't understand it, there's a lot more that I haven't told you about. I only----"

"Well?"

"I only told you this much because you didn't like to see me taking drugs. I wanted to show you my nerves were rather--abnormal."

"As if I didn't know that! Why don't you do something for them?"

"Such as?"

"Occupy your mind more."

"My mind's about as fully occupied as it will stand," he answered as we left the dining-room and went in search of our coats.