At that moment a loud and prolonged rat-tat-tatting at the street door startled him,—he hastily thrust all his loose manuscripts into a drawer, and went to answer the summons, glancing at the clock as he passed it with an air of complete bewilderment,—for it was close upon two A.M., and he could not imagine how the time had flown. He had scarcely set foot across the hall before another furious knocking began, and he stopped abruptly to listen to the imperative clatter with a curious wondering expression on his dark handsome face. When the noise ceased again, he began slowly to undo the door.
“Patience, my dear boy,” he said as he flung it open—“is a virtue, as you must have seen it set forth in copy-books. I provided you with a latch-key—where is it?—there could not be a more timely hour for its usage.”
But while he spoke, Féraz, for it was he, had sprung in swiftly like some wild animal pursued by hunters, and he now stood in the hall, nearly breathless, staring confusedly at his brother with big, feverishly-bright bewildered eyes.
“Then I have escaped!” he said in a half-whisper—“I am at home,—really at home again!”
El-Râmi looked at him steadily,—then, turning away quietly, carefully shut and bolted the door.
“Have you spent a happy day, Féraz?” he gently inquired.
“Happy!” echoed Féraz—“Happy? Yes. No! Good God!—what do you mean by happiness?”
El-Râmi looked at him again, and, making no reply to this adjuration, simply turned about and went into his study. Féraz followed.
“I know what you think,” he said in pained accents—“You think I’ve been drinking—so I have. But I’m not drunk, for all that. They gave me wine—bad burgundy—detestable champagne—the sun never shone on the grapes that made it,—and I took very little of it. It is not that which has filled me with a terror too real to deserve your scorn,—it is not that which has driven me home here to you for help and shelter——”
“It is somewhat late to be ‘driven’ home,” remarked El-Râmi with a slightly sarcastic smile—“Two in the morning, and—bad champagne or good,—you are talking, my dear Féraz, to say the least of it, rather wildly.”