And then bed's the best place for me."
Her voice seemed to expire.
He crept across the wide carpet and departed with the skill of a
trained nurse, and inaudibly closed the door.
From the landing the whole of the rest of the house seemed to offer
itself to him in the night as an enigmatic and alluring field of
adventure ... Should he drop the notes under the chair on the landing,
where he had found them?... He could not! He could not!... He moved to
the head of the stairs, past the open door of the spare bedroom,
which was now dark. He stopped at the head of the stairs, and then
descended. The kitchen was lighted.
"Are you there?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Rachel.
"May I come?"
"Why, of course!" Her voice trembled.
He went towards the other young creature in the house. The old one lay
above, in a different world remote and foreign. He and Rachel had the
ground floor and all its nocturnal enchantment to themselves.
III
Mechanically, as he went into the kitchen, he drew his cigarette-case
from his pocket. It was the proper gesture of a man in any minor
crisis. He was not a frequenter of kitchens, and this visit, even more
than the brief first one, seemed to him to be adventurous.
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