When Lilian was alone in her room she thought anxiously:
"Supposing he should want more brandy in the night--there is none!"
The travelling flask was now empty. (In the emergency, hot water from the lavatory-basin tap had been used to dilute the brandy. Felix having said impatiently that any water would do so long as it was hot--hang a few germs!) She had noticed that he would always take a little brandy if he felt unwell from whatever cause, and this habit caused her no uneasiness, for from her father she had acquired a firm belief in the restorative qualities of brandy; even her mother would say how unwise it was to "be without" brandy, and before starting for the annual domestic holiday invariably attended herself to the provision of it. The lack of brandy settled upon Lilian's mind, intensifying somehow her sense of guilt. She felt deeply the responsibilities of the situation, which became graver and graver to her--the more so as she had no real status to deal with it.
She wanted to ring the bell, but the bell was within a few yards of Felix's door--he often complained on this score--and to ring might be to wake him. Cautiously she stepped into the corridor, hoping to find Jacqueline in the service-room at the end of the shabby little side corridor where the bell and the room-indicator were. She knew the French for brandy. The main corridor stretched away with an effect of endlessness. In its whole length only two electric lights had been left to burn. Solitude and silence made it mysteriously solemn. A pair of boots, or two pairs of boots--one large, one small and dainty--here and there on a door-mat seemed inexplicably to symbolize the forlornness of humanity in the sight of the infinite. The beating of Lilian's heart attracted her attention. Not without an effort could she cross the magic and formidable corridor. The door of the service-room was locked. No hope! Even Jacqueline had a bed somewhere and was asleep in it; and brandy was as unattainable as on a coral island.
Lilian felt the rough hair-lining of pleasure. The idea of her insecurity frightened her. She perceived that a life of toil, abstinence, deprivation and cold virginity had its advantages. Of course, Felix was not going to be ill; but if he were, and if her dreadful fears about her own condition were realized--what then? What would happen? Were the moral maxims and strict practice of her parents after all horribly true? The wages of sin, and all that sort of thing ... She heard steps in the distance of the corridor. She peeped. Somebody was approaching. Had she time to cross and vanish into the shelter of her room? She hesitated. The visitant was a woman. It was the girl who in the baccarat rooms had talked of a hundred thousand francs in a cockney accent, the girl whom Felix had described as probably a rising star in the most powerful of professions. She too had a bed, and was seeking it at last.
"I expect there's no chance of getting hold of a servant to-night," said Lilian meekly, as the girl instinctively paused in passing.
The girl, staring sharply out of her artificially enlarged eyes, shrugged the shoulders of negation at Lilian's simplicity.
"Anything the matter?"
"I only wanted some brandy. My"--'husband' she meant to say, but could not frame the majestic word--"my friend's not very well. Chill. He's had a very little brandy, and might need some more in the night." She flushed.
"Come along of me. I'll let you have some." What a harsh, rasping little voice!