This surely was reality; that shadowy business out there only
the drear sound of a wind one must and did keep out--like the poverty
and grime which had no real existence for the secure and prosperous. He
drank champagne. It helped to fortify reality, to make shadows seem more
shadowy. And down in the smoking-room he sat before the fire, in one of
those chairs which embalm after-dinner dreams. He grew sleepy there, and
at eleven o'clock rose to go home. But when he had once passed down the
shallow marble steps, out through the revolving door which let in no
draughts, he was visited by fear, as if he had drawn it in with the
breath of the January wind. Larry's face; and the girl watching it! Why
had she watched like that? Larry's smile; and the flowers in his hand?
Buying flowers at such a moment! The girl was his slave-whatever he told
her, she would do. But she would never be able to stop him. At this very
moment he might be rushing to give himself up!
His hand, thrust deep into the pocket of his fur coat, came in contact
suddenly with something cold. The keys Larry had given him all that time
ago. There they had lain forgotten ever since. The chance touch decided
him.
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