Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/390

 Alone I made my way back from Welter's house, alone and on foot. I had a fancy to walk thus through the decorated streets; alone to pause an instant before the Countess' door, recollecting many things; alone to tell myself that the stocking must be kept over the graze, and that the asking of sympathy was the betrayal of my soul's confidence to me; alone to be weak, alone to be strong; alone to determine to do my work with my own life, alone to hope that I must not render too wretched the life of another. I had good from that walk of mine. For you see, when a man is alone, above all, I think, when he is alone in the truce of night, one day's fight done and the new morning's battle not yet joined, he can pause and stand and think. He can be still; then his worst and his best steal out, like mice from their holes (the cat of convention is asleep), and play their gambols and antics before his eyes: he knows them and himself, and reaches forth to know the world and his work in it, his life and the end of it, the difference, if any, that he has made by spending so much pains on living.

It was four o'clock when a sleepy night-porter let me in. My servants had orders never to wait beyond two, and in my rooms all was dark and quiet. But when I lit a candle from the little lamp by the door, I saw somebody lying on the sofa in my dressing-room, a woman's figure stretched in the luxury of quiet sleep. Victoria this must be and none else. I was glad to see her there and to catch her drowsy smile as her eyes opened under the glare of my candle.

"What in the world are you doing here, my dear?" said I, setting down the candle and putting my hands in my pockets.