ore formal type of fashion; he had a red flower in
his buttonhole. As Syme drew nearer to him step by step, he did not even
move a hair; and Syme could come close enough to notice even in the dim,
pale morning light that his face was long, pale and intellectual, and
ended in a small triangular tuft of dark beard at the very point of the
chin, all else being clean-shaven. This scrap of hair almost seemed
a mere oversight; the rest of the face was of the type that is best
shaven--clear-cut, ascetic, and in its way noble. Syme drew closer and
closer, noting all this, and still the figure did not stir.

At first an instinct had told Syme that this was the man whom he was
meant to meet. Then, seeing that the man made no sign, he had concluded
that he was not. And now again he had come back to a certainty that the
man had something to do with his mad adventure. For the man remained
more still than would have been natural if a stranger had come so close.
He was as motionless as a wax-work, and got on the nerves somewhat in
the same way. Syme looked again and again at the pale, dignified and
delicate face, and the face still looked blankly across the river. Then
he took out of his pocket the note from Buttons proving his election,
and put it before that sad and beautiful face. Then the man smiled, and
his smile was a shock, for it was all on one side, going up in the right
cheek and down in the left.

There was nothing, rationally speaking, to scare anyone about this. Many
people have this nervous trick of a crooked smile, and in many it is
even attractive. But in all Syme's circumstances, with the dark dawn and
the deadly errand and the loneliness on the great dripping stones, there
was something unnerving in it.

There was the silent river and the silent man, a man of even classic
face. And there was the last nightmare touch that his smile suddenly
went wrong.

The spasm of smile was instantaneous, and the man's face dropped at once
into its harmonious melancholy. He spoke without further explanation or
inquiry, like a man speaking to an old colleague.

"If we walk up towards Leicester Square," he said, "we shall just be in
time for breakfast. Sunday always insists on an early breakfast. Have
you had any sleep?"

"No," said Syme.

"Nor have I," answered the man in an ordinary tone. "I shall try to get
to bed after breakfast."

He spoke with casual civility, but in an utterly dead voice that
contradicted the fanatici