Of course, in his way Gregory Manners was a bit of a lion. It was that which undoubtedly made them attribute his dislike of the Russian to jealousy. At least at first. Afterwards they found plenty of other reasons. Naturally one of them was Kathleen. But that came much later on.
He had traveled all over the world, had Manners, and he wrote charmingly vague bits that one read and then forgot. He took himself very seriously. He was one of those men who believe firmly and basically that they are sent into this world with a mission to perform. One could not actually tell whether Manners really thought his writing to be his life work. His best friends maintained that he had not as yet found himself. But no one bothered to ask him the question. His work was good; he was a distinctly decent sort of chap, utterly British, and he was above all else exceedingly interesting. For the most part, people were really fond of Manners, and he fond of them.
The first time Andreyvitch and Manners were introduced, Manners had the feeling that they had met at some time before. He even asked the Russian if it had not been in Moscow. When Andreyvitch told him that he had never in his whole life seen him, and that he positively regretted not having done so, Manners' attitude underwent a sudden and unexpected change. He became silent, almost morose. He kept away from Andreyvitch all evening, and yet he stayed near enough to him to watch his every move.
After that night Manners decided he hated Andreyvitch; that he knew the man was a liar, an impostor. Not at the time that he was in any way jealous of the Russian; still there was a strange familiar feeling there that he had felt at some other time, and in connection with the same man. He could have sworn he had known him before. It was the only way then in which he could explain the thing to himself with any degree of coherence.
It was never difficult to get Gregory Manners to speak of the first evening he met Andreyvitch. It was almost as if he were tremendously puzzled, as if he thought speaking of it, even to a casual acquaintance, might clear things up to himself. He never varied the thing. At first, at any rate. Later on he became strangely, uncannily secretive about it all. That must have been when he began to suspect there was a great deal more to it than had appeared upon the surface.