"Some of the men, I think," he said, "are following me; others, I believe--wonderful creatures!--have gone to array themselves.Others still, doubtless, have gone to bed.""And the ladies?"
"Oh, they've floated away--soared aloft; to high finks--isn't that the idea?--in their own quarters.Don't they too, at these hours, practise sociabilities of sorts? They make, at any rate, here, an extraordinary picture on that great staircase."I thought a moment."I wish I had seen it.But I do see it.Yes--splendid.
Is the place wholly cleared of them?"
"Save, it struck me, so far as they may have left some 'black plume as a token'--""Not, I trust," I returned, "of any 'lie' their 'soul hath spoken!'
But not one of them lingers?"
He seemed to wonder."'Lingers?' For what?""Oh, I don't know--in this house!"
He looked at our long vista, still lighted--appeared to feel with me our liberal ease, which implied that unseen powers waited on our good pleasure and sat up for us.There is nothing like it in fact, the liberal ease at Newmarch.Yet Obert reminded me--if I needed the reminder--that I mustn't after all presume on it."Was one of them to linger for YOU?""Well, since you ask me, it was what I hoped.But since you answer for it that my hope has not been met, I bow to a superior propriety.""You mean you'll come and smoke with me? Do then come.""What, if I do," I asked with an idea, "will you give me?""I'm afraid I can promise you nothing more that i deal in than a bad cigarette.""And what then," I went on, "will you take from me?"He had met my eyes, and now looked at me a little with a smile that I thought just conscious."Well, I'm afraid I CAN'T take any more--""Of the sort of stuff," I laughed, "you've already had? Sorry stuff, perhaps--a poor thing but mine own! Such as it is, I only ask to keep it for myself, and that isn't what I meant.I meant what flower will you gather, what havoc will you play--?""Well?" he said as I hesitated.
"Among superstitions that I, after all, cherish.Mon siege est fait--a great glittering crystal palace.How many panes will you reward me for amiably sitting up with you by smashing?"It might have been my mere fancy--but it WAS my fancy--that he looked at me a trifle harder."How on earth can I tell what you're talking about?"I waited a moment, then went on: "Did you happen to count them?""Count whom?"
"Why, the ladies as they filed up.Was the number there?"He gave a jerk of impatience."Go and see for yourself!"Once more I just waited."But suppose I should find Mrs.Server?""Prowling there on the chance of you? Well--I thought she was what you wanted.""Then," I returned, "you COULD tell what I was talking about!" For a moment after this we faced each other without more speech, but I presently continued: "You didn't really notice if any lady stayed behind?""I think you ask too much of me," he at last brought out."Take care of your ladies, my dear man, yourself! Go," he repeated, "and see.""Certainly--it's better; but I'll rejoin you in three minutes." And while he went his way to the smoking-room I proceeded without more delay to assure myself, performing in the opposite sense the journey I had made ten minutes before.It was extraordinary what the sight of Long alone in the outer darkness had done for me: my expression of it would have been that it had put me "on" again at the moment of my decidedly feeling myself off.I believed that if I hadn't seen him I could now have gone to bed without seeing Mrs.Briss; but my renewed impression had suddenly made the difference.If that was the way he struck me, how might not, if I could get at her, she? And she might, after all, in the privacy at last offered us by empty rooms, be waiting for me.I went through them all, however, only to find them empty indeed.In conformity with the large allowances of every sort that were the law of Newmarch, they were still open and lighted, so that if I had believed in Mrs.Briss's reappearance I might conveniently, on the spot, have given her five minutes more.I am not sure, for that matter, that I didn't.I remember at least wondering if I mightn't ring somewhere for a servant and cause a question to be sent up to her.I didn't ring, but I must have lingered a little on the chance of the arrival of servants to extinguish lights and see the house safe.They had not arrived, however, by the time I again felt that I must give up.
