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. My retort was the cheap expedient of re-echoing, “Who the devil are you?” “_Well_,” he said. “I’m coming along this path if I like,” I said. “See? It’s a public path—just as this used to be public land. You’ve stolen the land—you and yours, and now you want to steal the right of way. You’ll ask us to get off the face of the earth next. I sha’n’t oblige. See?” I was shorter and I suppose a couple of years younger than he, but I had the improvised club in my pocket gripped ready, and I would have fought with him very cheerfully. But he fell a step backward as I came toward him. “Socialist, I presume?” he said, alert and quiet and with the faintest note of badinage. “One of many.” “We’re all socialists nowadays,” he remarked philosophically, “and I haven’t the faintest intention of disputing your right of way.” “You’d better not,” I said. “No!” “No.” He replaced his cigar, and there was a brief pause. “Catching a train?” he threw out. It seemed absurd not to answer. “Yes,” I said shortly. He said it was a pleasant evening for a walk. I hovered for a moment and there was my path before me, and he stood aside. There seemed nothing to do but go on. “Good night,” said he, as that intention took effect. I growled a surly good-night. I felt like a bombshell of swearing that must presently burst with some violence as I went on my silent way. He had so completely got the best of our encounter. § 7 There comes a memory, an odd intermixture of two entirely divergent things, that stands out with the intensest vividness. As I went across the last open meadow, following the short cut to Checkshill station, I perceived I had two shadows.