Her slim, childish body lay partly across the table, her cheek was
pillowed on one outstretched arm, the fingers of which lay loosely
around the slender crystal stem of a wine-glass.
"Are you asleep?" he asked. And saw that she was.
So he roamed about, hunting for something or other--he forgot
what--until he found it was her mantilla. Having found it, he
forgot what he wanted it for and, wrapping it around his shoulders,
sat down on the sofa, very silent, very white, but physically
master of the demoralisation that sharpened the shadows under his
cheek-bones and eyes.
"I guess," he said gravely to himself, "that I'd better become a
gambler. It's--a--very, ve--ry good 'fession--no," he added
cautiously, "_per_--fession--" and stopped short, vexed with his
difficulties of enunciation.
He tried several polysyllables; they went better. Then he became
aware of the mantilla on his shoulders.
"Some time or other," he said to himself with precision, "that
little dancer girl ought to go home."
He rose steadily, walked to the table:
"Listen to me, you funny little thing," he said.
No answer.
The childlike curve of the cheek was flushed; the velvet-fringed
lids lay close.
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