“Well, good-night.”
Edwin came out on to the landing, shut the door, and walked about a little in his own room. Then he went back to his father’s room. Maggie’s door was closed. Darius was already in bed, but the gas was blazing at full.
“You’ve forgotten the gas,” he said lightly and pleasantly, and turned it down to a blue point.
“I say, lad,” the old man stopped him, as he was finally leaving.
“Yes?”
“What about that Home Rule?”
The voice was weak, infantile. Edwin hesitated. The “Signal” made a patch of white on the ottoman.
“Oh!” he answered soothingly, and yet with condescension, “it’s much about what everybody expected. Better leave that till to-morrow.”
He shut the door. The landing received light through the open door of his bedroom and from the hall below. He went downstairs, bolted the front door, and extinguished the hall gas. Then he came softly up, and listened at his father’s door. Not a sound! He entered his own room and began to undress, and then, half clothed, crept back to his father’s door. Now he could hear a heavy, irregular snoring.
“Devilish odd, all this!” he reflected, as he got into bed. Assuredly he had disconcerting thoughts, not all unpleasant. His excitement had even an agreeable, zestful quality.