Then I began to feel uneasy. Where could this strange child be? had any accident befallen her? I remembered my dream, and hurried back to the house. Old James, the butler, was crossing the hall, a tray of glasses in his hands. I asked him had he seen the child, did he know where she was hiding?
He answered that she had gone out for a drive; she went at eight.
I could have boxed the old fellow's ears.
Was she in the habit of going out for drives so early in the day?
Oh, yes, several times a week the horses were ordered early. That exasperated me. So it was a habit not to be broken through on my account. Just because it was her habit, she had gone out and left me all alone, knowing very well that I would be hunting for her. Then I remembered the absurd fright I had been in about my dream, and I remembered the strange and passionate parting of the night before, and now this cold creature had gone out for a drive; no wonder she was so fond of snails.
Where was the use of loving a creature like this? it would build a house for itself of your dreams and sighs and groans, and then crawl off with its house on its back. All my waking irritation returned. I told the old butler to bring me my luncheon to my room when luncheon-time came, for I felt ill—so I did—and would not come down again that day.
Then I went upstairs to my bedroom utterly determined to give Geraldine a lesson that she would never forget. She might wait for me, but I would not come, not I.
Up in my bedroom I fell into one of those stupid fits in which we—at least I do—take a tremendous amount of interest in nothing. I looked at my rings and at my hair brushes. I looked at myself in the glass. I stood with my head against the pane, looking out at the garden. The weather had not altered, still moist and warm and autumny; all these three days seemed carven out of the same kind of weather so that they might last for ever as one piece, all the same, beautiful, sorrowful, and dark. "For ever" I say, for I am sure I shall see them even when I am dead: perhaps they will be for me the only solatium through eternity, given me to look at, like some gloomy but beautiful jewel to a sick and sorry child.
After a while I grew tired of taking an interest in nothing. I fell to wondering what Geraldine would do or say if I killed myself or was killed. She would go out for a drive very likely. Then I thought what a fool I had been to prison myself up in my bedroom and give out to the old butler that I was ill. I smoked a cigarette as I thought, and then I determined on an expedition: I would go for a prowl.
At the end of the corridor on which my bedroom opened there was a door. Yesterday morning I had opened this door to see what was behind, and had seen a staircase, a spiral staircase, that had somehow an elfish look. I told you before, I think, that on my first arrival at this house everything except the dining-room seemed familiar. Well, that feeling had utterly vanished, yet still everything remained familiar. I don't exactly know how to explain my meaning fully, unless I can make you understand that the ghostly part of the familiar feeling was gone.