Not certainly on the distaff side, the side of his eminently sane and wholesome mother; but can he be throwing back to some distempered ancestor?
"What security have I if I go to bed that she will not steal away from me in the night? It was in the night—almost in the night—that she stole away from me before."
From this logic it is impossible to move him; and although, with some return to his old sweet-natured kindliness of manner, he begs his friend not to think it necessary to keep him company, yet the latter is far too ill at ease as to his condition, both of mind and body, to comply.
The porter, having drawn the natural inference that as soon as the traveller has refreshed his body he will wish to retire to rest, has put out the lights in the smoking-room; the salle à manger is therefore the only room in the hotel where lamps still burn, and in it the two men spend the dreary remaining hours of the night, Byng walking up and down like a captive beast, frequently going to the door, opening it, putting his head out into the darkness, and listening suspiciously if, perchance, he may hear the footfall of Elizabeth fleeing away from him even through the hurricane. As the time goes on, his restlessness increases rather than diminishes. Jim has vainly tried to distract his thoughts by putting questions to him as to his pursuits and companions since their last parting—by inquiries as to the extent and direction of his travels.
Did he get as far as Palestine? How long is it since he left Cairo? etc. But to all his interrogations Byng gives brief and unsatisfactory answers, putting a final stop to them by breaking out excitedly:
"Why do you go on questioning me as to where I have been, and what I have done? I tell you I have been nowhere, and done nothing; I believe that my body has been here and there, but my soul has been nowhere; it has been lying dead! Would you expect a man who has been lying six months in his coffin to give you a catalogue of his adventures? My soul has been dead, I tell you—dead and putrescent. What is the use of putting me through a catechism about its doings?"
Before the long-delaying dawn shows its pale profile upon the deep obscurity, it seems to Jim as if six midwinter nights must have pieced themselves end to end. But it comes at last; and at last also, by dint of strenuous representations to his companion as to how unfit he is, in his present travel-stained and disordered condition, to offer himself to Elizabeth's eyes, he induces him to let himself be led to the bedroom prepared overnight for him, and to refresh himself with a bath and a change of clothes. Even this concession he obtains only in exchange for an exacted promise to seek out Elizabeth at the earliest possible hour at which she may be presumed accessible, and urgently to entreat of her an instant interview with his friend.
Jim feels that he is keeping his word handsomely when, not a minute later than nine o'clock, he finds himself knocking at the door of the Le Marchants' apartment—that door with which of late his knuckles have grown so pleasantly and friendlily familiar. It is opened to him by Elizabeth herself, and he follows her silently through the ante-room into the little salon. Arrived there, he looks mournfully round with a sort of feeling as of taking farewell of the familiar objects.
It is impossible that Elizabeth can have spent the just-past stormy night in gathering flowers, and yet the flowers have a freshened air. She must have been carefully rearranging them. The bits of brocade, too, the Turkish embroideries, the haiks, and the praying-carpets, wear a more festal appearance than usual. The little room looks decked as if for a gala. His jealous fancy cannot but admit that Elizabeth herself is dressed in her ordinary morning gown, but even over it some holiday transmutation has passed. He cannot trust himself to verify whether that holiday look is on her face too.
"He has come; you know that, I suppose?"