s moustaches,
he wrung his hands, and burst out: "It is poison."

Swithin grinned faintly. "You foreign fool!" he said. "Get out!"

The valet vanished.

'He forgot himself!' thought Swithin. Slowly he raised the glass, slowly
put it back, and sank gasping on his pillows. Almost at once he fell
asleep.

He dreamed that he was at his club, sitting after dinner in the crowded
smoking-room, with its bright walls and trefoils of light. It was there
that he sat every evening, patient, solemn, lonely, and sometimes fell
asleep, his square, pale old face nodding to one side. He dreamed that he
was gazing at the picture over the fireplace, of an old statesman with a
high collar, supremely finished face, and sceptical eyebrows--the
picture, smooth, and reticent as sealing-wax, of one who seemed for ever
exhaling the narrow wisdom of final judgments. All round him, his fellow
members were chattering. Only he himself, the old sick member, was
silent. If fellows only knew what it was like to sit by yourself and
feel ill all the time! What they were saying he had heard a hundred
times. They were talking of investments, of cigars, horses, actresses,
machinery. What was that? A foreign patent for cleaning boilers? There
was no such thing; boilers couldn't be cleaned, any fool knew that! If
an Englishman couldn't clean a boiler, no foreigner could clean one. He
appealed to the old statesman's eyes. But for once those eyes seemed
hesitating, blurred, wanting in finality. They vanished. In their place
were Rozsi's little deep-set eyes, with their wide and far-off look; and
as he gazed they seemed to grow bright as steel, and to speak to him.
Slowly the whole face grew to be there, floating on the dark background
of the picture; it was pink, aloof, unfathomable, enticing, with its
fluffy hair and quick lips, just as he had last seen it. "Are you
looking for something?" she seemed to say: "I could show you."

"I have everything safe enough," answered Swithin, and in his sleep he
groaned.

He felt the touch of fingers on his forehead. 'I'm dreaming,' he thought
in his dream.

She had vanished; and far away, from behind the picture, came a sound of
footsteps.

Aloud, in his sleep, Swithin muttered: "I've missed it."

Again he heard the rustling of those light footsteps, and close in his
ear a sound, like a sob. He awoke; the sob was his own. Great drops of
perspiration stood on his forehead. 'What is it?' he t