After I had gratefully accepted, I turned to the girl.
"Lady Tressidy has said I may come and see her," I ventured. "Will you–may I hope to find you with her when I do?"
She looked up with a sudden, illumining smile that answered me. "Come soon," she returned. They were her last words for me that night, and they rang in my head as I left her, dizzy with the memory of her loveliness.
CHAPTER III
A Dead Man's Hand
I had taken rooms temporarily at the Savoy Hotel, not knowing how long it might be ere I should be moved in spirit to desert London; and that night, instead of looking in at the club as I had meant, I went from the theatre straight to the hotel.
There was a fire burning in my room, and I drew up a chair before it to smoke an unlimited number of cigarettes, and to think of Karine Cunningham.
I had parted from Farnham outside the theatre, and had made an appointment to meet him next day at dinner, which he was to eat with me at my hotel.
I felt no inclination for bed, nor was I in the least sleepy, and yet, before an hour had passed, I must have fallen into a doze.
Suddenly I was awakened by the impression of having heard a sound. I looked round me, half dazed still from my dreams. The fire had died down, and I had left myself with no other light. Only a ruddy glow lingered on the hearth, and a small clock on the mantelpiece just above lightly chimed out the hour of two.