"How late you are, Hugh!" a woman, lying in bed, said in a peevish
but solicitous voice. Her husband was brushing his teeth, and for some
moments did not answer.
"You should have gone to sleep," he replied. "I was talking to
Thornbury."
"But you know that I never can sleep when I'm waiting for you," she
said.
To that he made no answer, but only remarked, "Well then, we'll turn out
the light." They were silent.
The faint but penetrating pulse of an electric bell could now be heard
in the corridor. Old Mrs. Paley, having woken hungry but without her
spectacles, was summoning her maid to find the biscuit-box. The maid
having answered the bell, drearily respectful even at this hour though
muffled in a mackintosh, the passage was left in silence. Downstairs all
was empty and dark; but on the upper floor a light still burnt in the
room where the boots had dropped so heavily above Miss Allan's head.
Here was the gentleman who, a few hours previously, in the shade of the
curtain, had seemed to consist entirely of legs. Deep in an arm-chair he
was reading the third volume of Gibbon's _History_ _of_ _the_ _Decline_
_and_ _Fall_ _of_ _Rome_ by candle-light. As he read he knocked the ash
automatically, now and again, from his cigarette and turned the page,
while a whole procession of splendid sentences entered his capacious
brow and went marching through his brain in order.
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