"Tell me quickly!"
"Mr. Florimond awoke from a deep sleep. There was nobody there but the Dog Trust."
"You are wonderful. I see it, of course. It's style itself! And how would you end the story? Have you studied the end yet?"
"Yes. I worked at it all the time I was in Italy last year. You shall hear that too. Mr. Florimond sank into a deep sleep. There was nobody there but the Dog Trust."
. . . He told her of his younger days in London when he shared a flat with a brother journalist named Passhe.
"We lived the most delightful freakish lives you can imagine," he said. "When we came into breakfast from our respective bedrooms we had a ritual which never varied. We neither looked at each other nor spoke, but sat down opposite at the table. We each had our newspaper put in our place by the man who looked after us. We opened the papers and pretended to read for a moment. Then Basil looked over the top of his at me, very gravely. 'We live in stirring times, Mr. Lothian!' he would say, and I used to answer, 'Indeed, Mr. Passhe, we do!' Then we became as usual."
"How perfectly sweet! I must do that with Ethel—that's the girl I live with, you know—only we don't have the papers. It runs up so!" she concluded, with a wise little air that sent a momentary throb of pain through a man who had never understood (even in his poorest days) what money meant; and probably never would understand.
Poor, dear little girl! Why couldn't he give her—
"We're here, Mr. Lothian! Look at the lights! Brighton at last!"
Rita had been whisked away by a chambermaid and he was waiting for her in the great hall of the Metropole. He had washed, reserved a table, and swallowed a gin and bitters. He felt rather tired physically, and a little depressed also. His limbs had suddenly felt cramped as he left the motor car, the wild exhilaration of their fun had made him tired and nervous now. His bad state of health asserted itself unpleasantly, his forehead was clammy and the palms of his hands wet.