Page:Walpole--portrait of man with red hair.djvu/115

 He paused there panting, happy, forgetting for an instant everything but the fun and freedom that he had just passed through. Then, as though it would forcibly remind him, the Town Hall clock struck half-past nine.

He spoke to a man standing near him:

"Can you kindly tell me where a hotel called the 'Feathered Duck' is?" he asked.

"Certainly," said the man, wiping the sweat from the hair matted on his forehead. "It's out on the sea-front. Go down High Street—that'll take you to the sea front. Then walk to your right and it's about five houses down."

Harkness thanked him and hurried away. He had no difficulty in finding the High Street, but there how strange to walk so quietly down it, hearing your own foot tread, watched by all the silent houses, when only five minutes ago you had been whirling in Dionysian frenzy! He was on the sea front and two steps afterwards was looking up at the quiet and modest exterior of "The Feathered Duck."

The long road stretched shining and sleek. Not a living soul about. The little hotel offered a discreet welcome with plants in large green pots, one on either side of the door, a light warm enough to greet you and not too startling to frighten you, and the knob gleaming like an inviting eye.

Harkness pushed open the door and entered. The