hour after hour slipped on, and I still gazed, spell-bound, on these
Chimeras and Typhons,--these symbols of the Destroying Principle. "Poor
Vivian!" said I, as I rose at last; "if thou readest these books with
pleasure or from habit, no wonder that thou seemest to me so obtuse
about right and wrong, and to have a great cavity where thy brain should
have the bump of 'conscientiousness' in full salience!"

Nevertheless, to do those demoniacs justice, I had got through time
imperceptibly by their pestilent help; and I was startled to see, by my
watch, how late it was. I had just resolved to leave a line fixing an
appointment for the morrow, and so depart, when I heard Vivian's knock,
--a knock that had great character in it, haughty, impatient, irregular;
not a neat, symmetrical, harmonious, unpretending knock, but a knock
that seemed to set the whole house and street at defiance: it was a
knock bullying--a knock ostentatious--a knock irritating and offensive--
impiger and iracundus.

But the step that came up the stairs did not suit the knock; it was a
step light, yet firm--slow, yet elastic.

The maid-servant who had opened the door had, no doubt, informed Vivian
of my visit, for he did not seem surprised to see me; but he cast that
hurried, suspicious look round the room which a man is apt to cast when
he has left his papers about and finds some idler, on whose
trustworthiness he by no means depends, seated in the midst of the
unguarded secrets. The look was not flattering; but my conscience was
so unreproachful that I laid all the blame upon the general
suspiciousness of Vivian's character.

"Three hours, at least, have I been here!" said I, maliciously.