“I should not dare to fail.”
He nodded, his hope evidently strengthened, as hers had been weakened, by the morning’s flight.
“That Day you ask about—I do not understand myself why it has been postponed so long. Do you suppose——”
As if startled by his own thought, Satan caught her hand with a touch that pained like a burn, yet left no mark. His voice sagged superstitiously as he finished:
“Do you suppose it could have been ordained that I should wait—for you?”
CHAPTER VIII
“When hall bedrooms are alcoves in disguise”—so said the Royal Entertainer—“their inner walls are likely to be thin.”
This was true of the haven paid for in advance by Dolores Trent—true as thin. Often during that first night after the dénouement at Seff’s she had need to remind herself of the fact and of the sleep needs of the actor lady in the adjoining star-guest chamber. It was hard, though, not to cry, when she kept thinking of her father lying underneath his sod blanket out in the rain. Indeed, she did not sleep until after the rain had stopped.
Comfort came with oblivion. In her dreams somebody strong, young and ardent entered her door as though he had the right—the love-lad who, in a vision more real than the shameful reality of the store-stage scene, had crossed to her side from the stranger who had rescued her. Through the narrow space between the wall and her cot he slipped; sat looking at her from the single, stiff chair; at last leaned down and, ever so tenderly, kissed her on the lips.
A peremptory knock awakened her. In the coarse night-gown, which had felt like the embrace of a mother after those cobwebby things at Seff’s, she opened the door a crack upon the young blond hair and old brunette face of her landlady.