He was so absorbed that her words had no meaning to him. "Good-by," he said, mechanically—and the next moment he was on his way.
At the office his employer gave him a keen glance. "You look used up, Curtis; got a cold?" Mr. Weston asked, kindly.
Maurice, sick in spirit, said, "No, sir; I'm all right."
And so the minutes of the long day ticked themselves away, each a separate pang of disgust and shame, until five o'clock came, and he started for Lily's.
While he waited in the unswept vestibule of an incredibly ornate frame apartment house for the answer to his ring, and the usual: "My goodness! Is that you? Come on up!" he had the feeling of one who stands at a closed door, knowing that when he opens it and enters he will look upon a dead face. The door was Lily's, and the face was the face of his dead youth. Carelessness was over for Maurice, and irresponsibility. And hope, too, he thought, and enthusiasm, and ambition. All over! All dead. All lying stiff and still on the other side of a shiny golden-oak door, with its half window hung with a Nottingham lace curtain. When he started up the three flights of stairs to that little flat where he was to look upon his dead, he was calm to the point of listlessness. "My own fault. My own fault," he said.
She was waiting for him on the landing, her fresh cleanness in fragrant contrast to the forlorn untidiness of the stairways. They went into her parlor together and he began to speak at once.
"I got your letter. No; I won't sit down. I—"
"My soul and body! You're all in!" Lily said, startled, "Let me get you some whisky—"
"No, please, nothing! Lily, I'm ... awfully sorry, I—I'll do what I can. I—"
She put her hands over her face; he went on mechanically, with his carefully prepared sentences, ending with: