"What floor?" stammered Tommy, gazing wildly from one to the other.
"The usual one, in my case," said Seabury, surprised.
"The usual one, in my case," said the girl, looking curiously at the agitated lad. The cage shot up to the third floor; they both rose, and he handed her out. Before either could turn the elevator hurriedly dropped, leaving them standing there together. Then, to the consternation of Seabury, the girl quietly rang at one of the only two apartments on the floor, and the next instant a rather smart-looking English maid opened the door.
Seabury stared; he turned and examined the corridor; he saw the number on the door of the elevator shaft; he saw the number over the door.
"There seems to be," he began slowly, "something alarming the matter with me to-night. I suppose—I suppose it's approaching dementia, but do you know that I have a delusion that this apartment is mine?"
"Yours!" faltered the girl, turning pale.
"Well—it was once—before I left town. Either that or incipient lunacy explains my hallucination."
The maid stood at the door gazing at him in undisguised astonishment. Her pretty mistress looked at her, looked at Seabury, turned and cast an agitated glance along the corridor—just in time to catch a glimpse of the curly black whiskers and the white and ghastly face of the proprietor peering at them around the corner. Whiskers and pallor instantly vanished. She looked at Seabury.
"Please come in a moment, Mr. Seabury," she said calmly. He followed her into the familiar room decorated with his own furniture, and lined with his own books, hung with his own pictures. At a gesture from her he seated himself in his own armchair; she sat limply in a chair facing him.
"Are these your rooms?" she asked unsteadily.