She had said he was a gentleman--bless her heart!
"This staircase is confoundedly dark," he said; "I'll strike a
match."
She waited, heart beating, listening to the scratching of the
match-head against the woodwork. When it flared, he raised it above
his head and strode on before her, grim shadows falling round him,
following him like noiseless ghosts. Sally kept close behind.
"I used to live on the top floor," he said, "until the day before
yesterday; I've moved down now to the first. There's not so much
difference in the rooms, but those four flights of stairs in this
sort of light were a bit too much." He thought of the last woman who
had climbed the stairs with him. All she had said that evening, the
first day he had met Sally, trooped through his mind in slow and vivid
procession. He compared her life with that of Sally's, the ghastly
hollowness of it in contrast with this child's simplicity of faith.
The picture was an ugly one. He shuddered before the first, no less
than before the second; for whereas one repelled, the other drew him
to itself with all its subtle fascinations.
"Now," he said, forcing a smile and turning round to face her with
his hand upon the handle of the door, "these are only bachelor's
quarters, remember; no soft cushions, no mirrors--nothing.
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