Dorothy manages to brush close to the Canadian, and takes occasion to say:
“To-morrow night we receive. Will you come?”
He looks straight in her eyes as he replies:
“If I am in the flesh, I will.”
Then as she extends her hand, after they have left the wheel, he takes it reverently in his.
“Good night, Mr. Craig.”
He watched the two veiled ladies vanish in the midst of the throng that gathers at this point, where Persian and Turkish theaters, with their noisy mouthpieces in front, vie with the Chinese and Algerian shows further on.
The murmur of her soft voice, the look of her lovely eyes, remain with him like a dream, and to himself this stout-hearted Canadian is saying:
“Hard hit at last, my boy. No more will the old joys allure you. In the past, peace, contentment, and all the humors of a jolly bachelorhood. To come, the fierce longing, the uneasy rest, the yearning after what may prove to be the unattainable. Hang it! I’ve laughed at others, and now they have revenge. Well, would you change it all—cross out the experience of to-night?”
“Not for worlds, my boy, and you know it!” says a voice in his ear, and turning, he finds the speaker, as he supposes, is Wycherley, the careless, good-natured Bohemian—half painter, half actor, and whole vagabond.