anchorage."

"About that."

My lack of excitement, of curiosity, of surprise, of any sort of
pronounced interest, began to arouse his distrust. But except for
the felicitous pretence of deafness I had not tried to pretend
anything. I had felt utterly incapable of playing the part of
ignorance properly, and therefore was afraid to try. It is also
certain that he had brought some ready-made suspicions with him,
and that he viewed my politeness as a strange and unnatural
phenomenon. And yet how else could I have received him? Not
heartily! That was impossible for psychological reasons, which I
need not state here. My only object was to keep off his inquiries.
Surlily? Yes, but surliness might have provoked a point-blank
question. From its novelty to him and from its nature, punctilious
courtesy was the manner best calculated to restrain the man. But
there was the danger of his breaking through my defence bluntly. I
could not, I think, have met him by a direct lie, also for
psychological (not moral) reasons. If he had only known how afraid
I was of his putting my feeling of identity with the other to the
test! But, strangely enough--(I thought of it only afterward)--I
believe that he was not a little disconcerted by the reverse side
of that weird situation, by something in me that reminded him of
the man he was seeking--suggested a mysterious similitude to the
young fellow he had distrusted and disliked from the first.

However that might have been, the silence was not very prolonged.
He took another oblique step.