He stood a moment, wondering if he should
turn to right or left, then briskly crossed the street. A voice to his
right hand said:
"Good-night, sir."
There in the shadow of a doorway the policeman was standing. The fellow
must have seen him coming out! Utterly unable to restrain a start, and
muttering "Goodnight!" Keith walked on rapidly:
He went full quarter of a mile before he lost that startled and uneasy
feeling in sardonic exasperation that he, Keith Darrant, had been taken
for a frequenter of a lady of the town. The whole thing--the whole
thing!--a vile and disgusting business! His very mind felt dirty and
breathless; his spirit, drawn out of sheath, had slowly to slide
back before he could at all focus and readjust his reasoning faculty.
Certainly, he had got the knowledge he wanted. There was less danger
than he thought. That girl's eyes! No mistaking her devotion. She would
not give Larry away. Yes! Larry must clear out--South America--the
East--it did not matter. But he felt no relief. The cheap, tawdry room
had wrapped itself round his fancy with its atmosphere of murky love,
with the feeling it inspired, of emotion caged within those yellowish
walls and the red stuff of its furniture.
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