"It was a splendid inspiration that! Had I gone out last night, infallibly I should have missed it." Just then I heard a blundering, uncertain step upon the stair, and then a dig in the centre of the door panel.
I smiled.
"How long will it take him to find the lock, I wonder?" I thought.
The period was protracted. Round and round the keyhole did a shaky, unsteady hand guide the wandering key. It scratched above, it dug at the door beneath, while the low indistinct murmur of one repeated word reached me within. At last, in sheer pity, I got up and opened the door from the inside. Howard came unsteadily over the threshold, and half blundered against me. His face was deadly pale; a bright greenish shade lay close about his bloodshot eyes; his grey lips shook. With difficulty he staggered to the chair opposite me and sat down. I shut the door and resumed my seat and cigar.
"Enjoy yourself?" I asked.
He was not very steady on his feet, but fairly clear in his brain.
"Yes. But it's no good—can't stand it," he murmured, pressing his hand hard upon his head and across his eyes.
His voice was little more than a gasp.
"God!—this weakness"—
We sat without speaking. In the bright light, in a glass opposite, I caught sight of my own face. I was as pale as he from work, as he from pleasure. My eyes were as bloodshot as his from sleeplessness, as his from drink. My hand shook as much as his from mental excitement, as his from physical exhaustion. He was the representative of those who sacrifice to-morrow for to-day. I, of those who sacrifice to-day for to-morrow. And I wondered, as I smoked on with his collapsed figure before me, which was the greater fool. "Do neither" is the cry. "Take the gifts of to-day without robbing to-morrow." Estimable rule, I agree, if you are fortunate enough to have the chance of carrying it out. But very few of us have. A man with Howard's constitution could only purchase the hours last night with the hours of this morning. Success would not come to me to-morrow unless I were willing to struggle for it to-day.