"You're a good girl," he said. "Dear Joan! I'm glad you've not left me too. I love you, Joan, and I've not been good enough to you. Oh, no, I haven't! Many things I might have done, and now it's too late...too late..."
He kissed her again and again, stroking her hair, then he said that he was tired, very tired--he'd sleep to-night. He went slowly upstairs.
He undressed rapidly, flinging off his clothes as though they hurt him. As though some one else had unexpectedly come into the room, he saw himself standing before the long glass in the dressing-room, naked save for his vest. He looked at himself and laughed.
How funny he looked only in his vest--how funny were he to walk down the High Street like that! They would say he was mad. And yet he wouldn't be mad. He would be just as he was now. He pulled the vest off over his head and continued to stare at himself. It was as though he were looking at some one else's body. The long toes, the strong legs, the thick thighs, the broad hairless chest, the stout red neck--and then those eyes, surely not his, those strange ironical eyes! He passed his hand down his side and felt the cool strong marble of his flesh. Then suddenly he was cold and he hurried into his night-shirt and his dressing-gown.
He sat on his bed. Something deep down in him was struggling to come up. Some thought...some feeling...some name. Falk! It was as though a bell were ringing, at a great distance, in the sleeping town--but ringing only for him. Falk! The pain, the urgent pain, crept closer. Falk! He got up from his bed, opened his door, looked out into the dark and silent house, stepped forward, carefully, softly, his old red dressing-gown close about him, stumbling a little on the stairs, feeling the way to his study door.
He sat in his arm-chair huddled up. "Falk! Falk! Oh, my boy, my boy, come back, come back! I want you, I want to be with you, to see you, to touch you, to hear your voice! I want to love you!
"Love--Love! I never wanted love before, but now I want it, desperately, desperately, some one to love me, some one for me to love, some one to be kind to. Falk, my boy. I'm so lonely. It's so dark. I can't see things as I did. It's getting darker.
"Falk, come back and help me...."