All bitterness had gone from him and he thought of her now quite
simply, as the girl he loved.
At Thirty-fifth Street he reflected that he had better jump into a car and
go down to his steamer. Again there rose before him the repulsive vision
of the dark cabin, with creaking noises overhead, and the cold wash of
water against the pier: he thought he would stop in a cafe and take a
drink. He turned into Broadway and entered a brightly-lit cafe; but when
he had taken his whisky and soda there seemed no reason for lingering. He
had never been the kind of man who could escape difficulties in that way.
Yet he was conscious that his will was weakening; that he did not mean to
go down to the steamer just yet. What did he mean to do? He began to feel
horribly tired and it occurred to him that a few hours' sleep in a decent
bed would make a new man of him. Why not go on board the next morning at
daylight?
He could not go back to his rooms, for on leaving the house he had taken
the precaution of dropping his latch-key into his letter-box; but he was
in a neighborhood of discreet hotels and he wandered on till he came to
one which was known to offer a dispassionate hospitality to luggageless
travellers in dress-clothes.
II
He pushed open the swinging door and found himself in a long corridor with
a tessellated floor, at the end of which, in a brightly-lit enclosure of
plate-glass and mahogany, the night-clerk dozed over a copy of the _Police
Gazette_.
Pages:
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