"Eh?" he cried in surprise.

"Thought I would run away, I suppose," said I, and came close up
to him.

All my enormous hatred of his class had flared up at the sight of
his costume, at the fancied challenge of his words. I knew him. He
was Edward Verrall, son of the man who owned not only this great
estate but more than half of Rawdon's pot-bank, and who had interests
and possessions, collieries and rents, all over the district of
the Four Towns. He was a gallant youngster, people said, and very
clever. Young as he was there was talk of parliament for him; he had
been a great success at the university, and he was being sedulously
popularized among us. He took with a light confidence, as a matter
of course, advantages that I would have faced the rack to get, and
I firmly believed myself a better man than he. He was, as he stood
there, a concentrated figure of all that filled me with bitterness.
One day he had stopped in a motor outside our house, and I remember
the thrill of rage with which I had noted the dutiful admiration
in my mother's eyes as she peered through her blind at him. "That's
young Mr. Verrall," she said. "They say he's very clever."

"They would," I answered. "Damn them and him!"

But that is by the way.

He was clearly astonished to find himself face to face with a man.
His note changed.

"Who the devil are YOU?" he asked.