The Fighting Chance

"But you haven't invited me to do anything--not even to accept a cigarette. Besides, you didn't expect to meet me up here?"

The trailing accent made it near enough a question for him to say, "Yes, I did."

"How could you?"

"I saw you leave the room."

"You were sketching for Marion Page. Do you wish me to believe that you noticed me--"

"--And followed you? Yes, I did follow you." She looked at him, then past him toward a corner of the wide hall where a maid in cap and apron sat pretending to be sewing. "Careful!" she motioned with smiling lips, "servants gossip. … Good night, again."

"Won't you--"

"Oh, dear! you mustn't speak so loud," she motioned, with her fresh, sweet lips curving on the edge of that adorable smile once more.

"Couldn't we have a moment--"

"No--"

"One minute--"

"Hush! I must open my door"--lingering. "I might come out again, if you have anything particularly important to communicate to me."

"I have. There's a big bay-window at the end of the other corridor. Will you come?"

But she opened her door, with a light laugh, saying "good night" again, and closed it noiselessly behind her.

He walked on, turning into his corridor, but kept straight ahead, passing his own door, on to the window at the end of the hall, then north along a wide passageway which terminated in a bay-window overlooking the roof of the indoor swimming tank.

Rain rattled heavily, against the panes and on the lighted roof of opalescent glass below, through which he could make out the shadowy fronds of palms.

It appeared that he had cigarettes enough, for he lighted one presently, and, leaving his chair, curled up in the cushioned and pillowed window-seat, gathering his knees together under his arm.

The cigarette he had lighted went out. He had bitten into it and twisted it so roughly that it presently crumbled; and he threw the rags of it into a metal bowl, locking his jaws in silence. For the night threatened to be a bad one for him. A heavy fragrance from his neighbour's wine-glass at dinner had stirred up what had for a time lain dormant; and, by accident, something--some sweetmeat he had tasted--was saturated in brandy.

Now, his restlessness at the prospect of a blank night had quickened to uneasiness, with a hint of fever tinting his skin, but, as yet, the dull ache in his body was scarcely more than a premonition.

He had his own devices for tiding him over such periods--reading, tobacco, and the long, blind, dogged tramps he took in town. But here, to-night, in the rain, one stood every chance of walking off the cliffs; and he was sick of reading himself sightless over the sort of books sent wholesale to Shotover; and he was already too ill at ease, physically, to make smoking endurable.