Morris half started to countermand the order. Then he reconsidered and leaned against the doorway.
“He can’t mean to drink it, after his promise to me,” he thought. “Anyway, he might get something worse. Besides, I am not his guardian; and,” he added very slowly, a strange smile hovering about his lips, “I can scarcely keep my own head to-night.”
Somehow he, best dancer in town as he was, had no partner to-night. The sight before him had no novelty; and Mr. Trotter Upton’s vivacious prancing somewhat irritated him, in spite of the amusement at himself he felt at the sensation.
“Didn’t think I was so far gone as to be jealous of Trotter,” he muttered.
Then he slipped into the hat-room and was quickly capped and cloaked for that precious boon to the bored, the exit sans adieu.
V.
It was a raw, searching Christmas morning into which Van Morris stepped, as he softly closed the door of the Allmand mansion and turned up his fur collar against “a nipping and an eager air.”
Even in that fashionable section the streets already showed somewhat of the bustle of the busy to-morrow. Belated caterers’ carts spun by; early butchers’ and milk-wagons rumbled along, making their best speed towards distant patrons. Here and there, gleams from gas-lit windows slanted athwart the frosty darkness, punctuated by ever-recurrent flaring of street lamps. Not infrequent groups of muffled men—some jovial with reminiscent scenes of pleasure left behind, and some hilarious from what they brought along with them—passed him, as he strode rapidly along the echoing flags, too intent on his own thoughts to notice any of them.
Suddenly, from beneath one of the gloom punctuators opposite, a woman’s voice cut the air sharply:
“Please let me pass!”