‘And where would you be?’
‘Nowhere at all. You’d have just dreamt me. You know how people you’ve seen only once or twice, as you saw me, pop up in your dreams and become quite important. Well, I should be one of them.’
‘I don’t want to wake up in Piccadilly Circus then.’
‘Why?’ He looked at her above the flask.
‘Because I like you.’
‘And by rain, by darkness, and by Sir Roderick Femm himself,’ he cried, ‘I like you too! I feel this is a great and solemn moment. You’re sure you don’t want any of this whisky?’
‘Yes, I told you I didn’t.’
‘Then it must be put to an even nobler purpose than that of helping to rot my liver.’
‘What are you going to do? Something crazy, I’ll bet. I can see it coming.’
‘I’m going to sacrifice it—the last drop too, mind, and I’m coldish—to celebrate this moment. I’ll address a few remarks, we won’t call it a prayer, to the gods, and then I’ll pour it out as an offering, a libation. How’s this?’ He sat bolt upright. ‘Oh, gods of light and beauty and happiness,’ he began, in rich, vibrating tones, ‘crowned with flowers in eternal May, hear the cry that comes from the little world that you have left so long unvisited. Behold two mortals whose hearts were fashioned for your service but who sit in a darkness within a darkness, homeless, lost, the black water rising round them——’