"Oh ... sir!" he said in a husky whisper.
"There, that will do! I'd like to be alone for a bit. I'm sure you'll excuse me, Sophy."
She went and kissed him in silence. Gaynor had left the room at once, his head hung low on his breast. Sophy followed quickly.
When the door was shut, a convulsed look broke the assumed calm on Chesney's face.
"Damn it!" he choked, clenching his fist at the wall before him. "Damnation! I've lied to a man—and he believes me!"
Somehow, what had been almost an amusing game when played for Sophy's benefit, turned to stark humiliation when practised on another man.
He slipped from the bed and, striding to the door in his bare feet, snapped the lock. Then reaching his bed again, thrust his arm far in between the mattresses. He drew out a brand-new syringe—opened it deftly, fitted on the needle—took a spoon from a little drawer in the table. Heated water in it over the lamp, dissolved in it a half-grain tablet of morphia (he was afraid to take a larger dose lest it should prove noticeable)—stripped up the sleeve from his powerful forearm all covered with purplish knots, and drove the little needle home in his flesh, holding the syringe firmly in place by its curved, steel horns, so like the antennæ of some poisonous insect. Then he hid all away again—unlocked the door, and slipped quickly into bed.
When Gaynor arrived a moment later, his master seemed to be dozing.
The valet stood looking down on him with a shy expression of affection and relief.
"Thank God," the servant's heart was saying; "thank God—he's acted like a man!"