THE SACRED FOUNT
"Why, the ladies as they filed up. Was the number there?"
He gave a jerk of impatience. "Go and see for yourself!"
Once more I just waited. "But suppose I should find Mrs. Server———?"
"Prowling there on the chance of you? Well—I thought she was what you wanted."
"Then," I returned, "you could tell what I was talking about!" For a moment after this we faced each other without more speech, but I presently continued: "You didn't really notice if any lady stayed behind?"
"I think you ask too much of me," he at last brought out. "Take care of your ladies, my dear man, yourself! Go," he repeated, "and see."
"Certainly—it's better; but I'll rejoin you in three minutes." And while he went his way to the smoking-room I proceeded without more delay to assure myself, performing in the opposite sense the journey I had made ten minutes before. It was extraordinary what the sight of Long alone in the outer darkness had done for me: my expression of it would have been that it had put me "on" again at the moment of my decidedly feeling myself off. I believed that if I hadn't seen him I could now have gone to bed without seeing Mrs. Briss; but my renewed impression had suddenly made the difference. If that was the way he struck me, how
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