“Not just buried there afterward, maybe?”
“I should say not. By the way, Superintendent, don’t go without letting me have a match.”
“Not afraid of the dark, I hope?” Salt looked significantly up among the trees, where the light was thickening.
“No, not exactly, but I’m famished for a smoke.”
“Smokin’ is not one of my virtues,” he responded. “I’m sorry, sir; you’ll have to wait until you get to the House.”
I was angry, yes poisonously angry with Salt. It takes all kinds of lunatics to make up a world, but is there any lunatic as irritating as the man who doesn’t smoke?
I returned to the House, having all the while the awareness that forms were following and eyes watching me in the shadowy walks. To tell the merciless truth, these episodes of the Unforthcoming Match had chagrined me so that my nerves were teetering, and I had the uncomfortable sense that if I were to step from the centre of the path or make any untoward movement, something disagreeable might happen. I felt like a prisoner, and even when I had emerged upon the lawn, I did not like the way the black windows of the House stared at me.
“Great heavens,” I thought, “am I coming under the thumbs of the Influences, as Mrs. Belvoir called them?”
The Vale was dim when I reached the House. I knew that I should surely find a match-holder on the mantel in the Hall of the Moth. I did, but some other smoker had abstracted the last match! I hope heaven’s ears were closed at that moment.