Again I led him towards the door, and this time, without further protest, he allowed me to pilot him along the corridor to the door of his own room. He was muttering to himself, as I bade him good-night: "Do nothing.... That's what you say ... just nothing ... nothing at all...."
XI
I oughtn't to have left him. I can see now that I oughtn't, but I had an idea then that if he were left alone he would go to sleep. Not, of course, immediately; I didn't do that myself. I lay awake, I think, for two hours or more, smoking cigarette after cigarette and pondering. But it wasn't Severn who occupied the centre of the stage. Perhaps it was odd that his personal affairs stirred me so little; but then, I had always felt that he was incalculable. There was hardly a thing in the world, good or bad, that I would ever have swore that he wouldn't or couldn't do. I don't mean to assert that I wasn't surprised to find him running off with another woman; I was surprised, but, if you know what I mean, I wasn't surprised to be surprised.
What mattered most was Terry's health. His great need was for rest and tranquillity of mind, and it was very evident that neither was to be obtained in Buda-Pesth. We must leave it, therefore; and I fell asleep with that decision firmly fixed in my mind. I think I must have slept heavily, for I remember nothing till I opened my eyes to see Terry in my room again, still fully dressed. It was past dawn, for the window, as he pulled the blind away from it, threw a ghostly spotlight over his head and shoulders. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't intend to wake you."
I stammered some sort of enquiry, and he answered:
"I only came in to see if you were awake. You left your door unlocked.... Shall we go downstairs and have breakfast?"
"What time is it?"
"Past six."
"Isn't that too early?"
"Not in this country."