So she rose and placed her hand lightly on his arm, and together they made her adieux to everybody, and everybody was cordially demonstrative in thanking her for her party.
So he took her down stairs to her apartment, off the hall, noticing that neither Soane nor Miss Kurtz was on duty at the desk, as they passed, and that a pile of undistributed mail lay on the desk.
“That’s rotten,” he said curtly. “Will you have to change your clothes, sort this mail, and sit here until the last mail is delivered?”
“I don’t mind,” she said.
“But I wanted you to go to sleep. Where is Miss Kurtz?”
“It is her evening off.”
“Then your father ought to be here,” he said, irritated, looking around the big, empty hallway.
But Dulcie only smiled and held out her slim hand:
“I couldn’t sleep, anyway. I had really much rather sit here for a while and dream it all over again. Good-night.... Thank you—I can’t say what I feel—but m-my heart is very faithful to you, Mr. Barres—will always be—while I am alive ... because you are my first friend.”
He stooped impulsively and touched her hair with his lips: