It was a cold, clear night, with myriads of stars in the dark sky that seemed to shed a faintly luminous light to earth, bright enough at all events for Micky to distinguish the figure of a girl walking slowly along the pathway below.
She was walking so slowly and dispiritedly that a sort of vague curiosity stirred in Micky’s heart; here, at least, was some one even more fed-up with life than he himself, and with a sudden impulse he turned from the window, and, snatching up a hat and coat which he had thrown down when he came in an hour earlier, made for the stairs.
He was half-way down when an apologetic cough at his elbow arrested him; he stopped and turned.
“Well, what is it?”
“If you please, sir, Mr. Ashton has just sent round to ask if you could make it convenient to be in at ten o’clock this evening, as he wants to see you particularly.”
Micky looked surprised; Ashton had been very particularly engaged for that evening, he knew. Evidently something had happened to upset his plans as well.
“Ten o’clock? All right; I dare say I shall be in.”
He went on down the stairs.
Out on the path he paused and looked up and down the street.
The impulse that had sent him out had died away; it was beastly cold, and much more comfortable by the fire. He hesitated, and in that moment he saw the figure of the girl again.