"It certainly was. I imagine that Hawksley's journey has that of Ulysses laid away on the shelf. Karlov was the head of the society which had voted Gregor's death. So he had agents watching Hawksley. And Karlov himself undertook the chase across Russia, China, and the Pacific."
"I'm glad I gave him something to eat. But Gregor, a valet in a hotel, with all that money!"
"The red tape."
"What a dizzy world we live in, Cutty!"
"Dizzy is the word." Cutty sighed. His yarn had passed a very shrewd censor. "Karlov feels it his duty to kill off all his countryman who do not agree with his theories. He wanted these funds here, but Hawksley was too clever for him. Remember, now, not a word of this to Hawksley. I tell you this in confidence."
"I promise."
"You'll have to spend the night here. It's round four, and the power has been shut off. There's the stairs, but it would be dawn before you reach the street."
"Who cares?"
"I do. I don't believe you're in a good mood to send back to that garlicky warren. I wish to the Lord you'd leave it!"
"It's difficult to find anything desirable within my means. Rents are terrifying. I'll sleep on the divan. A rug or a blanket. I'm a silly fool, I suppose."
"You can have a guest room."
"I'd rather the divan; less scandalous. Cutty, I forgot. He played for me."
"What? He did?"
"I had to run out of the room because some things he said choked me up. Didn't care whether he died or not. He was even lonelier than I. I lay down on the divan, and then I heard music. Funny, but somehow I fancied he was calling me back; and I had to hang on to the divan. Cutty, he is a great violinist."
"Are you fond of music?"
"I am mad about it! I'm always running round to concerts; and I'd walk from Battery to Bronx to hear a good violinist."
Fiddles and Irish hearts. Swiftly came the vision of Hawksley fiddling the heart out of this lonely girl - if he had the chance.
And he, Cutty, was going to fascinate her - with what? He rose and took her by the shoulders, bringing her round so that the light was full in her face. Slate-blue eyes.
"Kitty, what would you say if I kissed you?" Inwardly he asked:
"Now, what the devil made me say that?"
The sinister and cynical idea leaped from its ambush. "Why, Cutty, I - I don't believe I should mind. It's - it's you!" Vile wretch that she was!
Cutty, noting the lily succeeding the rose, did not kiss her. Fate has a way of reversing the illogical and giving it logical semblance.
It was perfectly logical that he should not kiss her; and yet that was exactly what he should have done. The fatherliness of the salute - and he couldn't have made it anything else - would have shamed Kitty's peculiar state of mind out of existence and probably sent back to its eternal sleep that which was strangely reawaking in his lonely heart.
"Forgive me, Kitty. That wasn't exactly nice of me, even if I was trying to be funny."
She tore away from him, flung herself upon the divan, her face in the pillows, and let down the dam.
This wild sobbing - apparently without any reason terrified Cutty.
He put both hands into his hair, but he drew them out immediately without retaining any of the thinning gray locks. Done up, both of them; that was the matter. He longed to console her, but knew not what to say or how to act. He had not seen a woman weep like this in so many years that he had forgotten the remedies.
Should he call the nurse? But that would only add to Kitty's embarrassment, and the nurse would naturally misinterpret the situation. He couldn't kneel and put his arms round her; and yet it was a situation that called for arms and endearments. He had sense enough to recognize that. Molly's girl crying like that, and he able to do nothing! It was intolerable. But what was she weeping about?
Covering the divan was a fine piece of Bokhara embroidery. He drew this down over Kitty and tucked her in, turned off the light, and proceeded to his bedroom.
Kitty's sobs died eventually. There was an occasional hiccup. That, too, disappeared. To play - or even think of playing - a game like that! She was despicable. A silly little fool, too, to suppose that so keen a mind as Cutty's would not see through the artifice!
What was happening to her that she could let such a thought into her head?
By and by she was able to pick up Cutty's narrative and review it.
Not a word about the drums of jeopardy, the mark of the thong round Hawksley's neck. Hadn't she let him know that she knew the author of that advertisement offering to buy the drums, no questions asked? Very well, then; if he would not tell her the truth she would have to find it out herself.
Meanwhile, Cutty sat on the edge of his bed staring blankly at the rug, trying to find a pick-up to the emotions that beset him. One thing issued clearly: He had wanted to kiss the child. He still wanted to kiss her. Why hadn't he? Unanswerable. It was still unanswerable even when the pallor of dawn began slowly to absorb the artificial light of his bed lamp.
