"But I've got to make notes of everything. Don't you see? Certainly our friendship is real enough—but I've got to study it minutely and make notes concerning it. It's necessary to make records of everything—how you walk, stand, speak, look, how you go upstairs——"
"I am going now," she said.
He followed, scribbling furiously; and it is difficult to go upstairs, watch a lady go upstairs, and write about the way she does it all at the same time.
"Good-night," she said, opening her door.
"Good-night," he said, absently, and so intent on his scribbling that he followed her through the door into her room.[145]
XVI
"She goes upstairs as though she were floating up," he wrote, with enthusiasm; "her lovely figure, poised on tip-toe, seems to soar upward, ascending as naturally and gracefully as the immortals ascended the golden stairs of Jacob——"
In full flood of his treacherous imagination he seated himself on a chair beside her bed, rested the note-book on his knees, and scribbled madly, utterly oblivious to her. And it was only when he had finished, for sheer lack of material, that he recollected himself, looked up, saw how she had shrunk away from him against the wall—how the scarlet had dyed her face to her temples.