Brent burst out laughing.
“All right; leave it to me. When do they want the hot water?”
“At ten o’clock, monsieur.”
“Tell them it shall be there.”
Punctually at ten o’clock Paul deposited a tea-cup full of hot water outside each door. He knocked at Mr. Hoskyn’s door. It was the lady who opened it, expecting something in petticoats and not a man. She wore a lace nightcap, and a pink silk dressing-gown.
“What’s this?”
“The water for the bath, madame,” said Paul with complete solemnity; “we shall not charge for it in the bill.”
XL
The house was finished, or as good as finished, and then something happened to Paul Brent.
He had been like a child absorbed in a game, building castles on the sands with a playmate to help him, conscious of the sea and the sky as a spacious blueness; of the schoolroom and the copy-book he had thought but little. The house was finished. There was a pause. He stood up, feeling a sudden sense of fateful melancholy spreading across the sands. He seemed to hear voices. He looked into the eyes of his playmate—and awoke.