ith indolent amusement, to
plan new ways of detaining her. He dropped back into his chair, lit a
cigar, and smiled a little at the image of her smiling face. He tried to
imagine what incident of the day she was likely to be recalling at that
particular moment, and what part he probably played in it. That it
was not a small part he was certain, and the knowledge was undeniably
pleasant.

Now and then a sound from her room brought before him more vividly
the reality of the situation and the strangeness of the vast swarming
solitude in which he and she were momentarily isolated, amid long lines
of rooms each holding its separate secret. The nearness of all these
other mysteries enclosing theirs gave Darrow a more intimate sense of
the girl's presence, and through the fumes of his cigar his imagination
continued to follow her to and fro, traced the curve of her slim young
arms as she raised them to undo her hair, pictured the sliding down of
her dress to the waist and then to the knees, and the whiteness of her
feet as she slipped across the floor to bed...

He stood up and shook himself with a yawn, throwing away the end of
his cigar. His glance, in following it, lit on the telegram which had
dropped to the floor. The sounds in the next room had ceased, and once
more he felt alone and unhappy.

Opening the window, he folded his arms on the sill and looked out on the
vast light-spangled mass of the city, and then up at the dark sky, in
which the morning planet stood.

VI

At the Theatre Francais, the next afternoon, Darrow yawned and fidgeted
in his seat.

The day was warm, the theatre crowded and airless, and the performance,
it seemed to him, intolerably bad. He stole a glance at his companion,
wondering if she shared his feelings. Her rapt profile betrayed no
unrest, but politeness might have caused her to feign an interest that
she did not feel. He leaned back impatiently, stifling another yawn,
and trying to fix his attention on the stage. Great things were going
forward there, and he was not insensible to the stern beauties of the
ancient drama. But the interpretation of the play seemed to him as
airless and lifeless as the atmosphere of the theatre. The players were
the same whom he had often applauded in those very parts, and perhaps
that fact added to the impression of staleness and conventionality
produced by their performance. Surely it was time to infuse new blood
into the veins of the moribund a