He had taken off collar, tie, coat and waistcoat, slipping on instead a futurist dressing-gown which a haughty salesman in a smart shop had forced upon him as "the thing." Zélie would probably have approved it. In any case, it would have graced a Russian ballet.
Minutes, hours perhaps, passed before he felt even somnolent. But the ring of light on the ceiling above Marise's concealed lamp, resembling a faint, round moon in a twilight sky, hypnotised him. At last sleep caught him like a wrestler, and downed him for a moment. In a flash came a dream. He thought that Marise had cried out again. Then he waked, in another flash, and knew that it was not true. Vividly he saw her face, as it had been in that last glimpse he had stolen; sweet as a rose; lips apart, long lashes shadowing the cheeks; then—a flicker; and he saw the bosom that had been shaken all through the silent scene with heart-beats too quick for those of a sleeper.
With this photograph upon his retina, he deliberately rolled off the sofa, and fell with a bump on the floor.
Crash! went a screen.
Marise was beside him.
"Are you dead?" she gasped.
"No. Only asleep," he answered with a yawn.