"Yes, I hear," said Leighton, dully. Then he tossed back his head. He would not blur Lew's happy hour. He held out his hand. "I hear," he repeated, "and I'll—I'll see you through."
Lewis gripped the extended hand with all his strength, then he sat down and chatted eagerly for half an hour. He did not see that his father was tired.
"Go and tell H lne," he said when Lewis at last paused. "Telephone her that you want to talk to her."
H lne was on the point of going out. She told Lewis to come and see her at ten the next morning. He went, and as he was standing just off the hall, waiting to be announced, the knocker on the great front door was raised, and fell with a resounding clang. Before the doorman could open, it fell again.
Lewis, startled, looked around. The door opened. A large man in evening dress staggered in. His clothes were in disorder. His high hat had been rubbed the wrong way in spots. But Lewis hardly noticed the clothes. His eyes were fastened on the man's face. It was bloated, pouched, and mottled with purple spots and veins. Fear filled it. Not a sudden fear, but fear that was ingrown, that proclaimed that face its habitual habitation. The man's eyes bulged and stared, yet saw nothing that was. He blundered past the doorman.
Lewis caught a glimpse of a tawdry woman peering out from a hansom at the disappearing man. "Thank Gawd!" he heard her say as the cab drove off.
With one hand on the wall the man guided himself toward the stairs at the end of the hall. On the first step he stumbled and would have fallen had it not been for a quick footman. The man recovered his balance and struck viciously at the servant. Then he clutched the baluster, and stumbled his way up the stairs.
Lewis was frightened. He turned and hurried through the great, silent drawing-rooms, through the somber library, to the little passage to H lne's room. He met the footman who had gone to announce him. He did not stop to hear what he said. He pushed by him and knocked at H lne's door.
"Come in," she cried.
Lewis stood before her. He was excited.