The next morning he was up early, preternaturally awake. When he
descended the waiters were waiting for him, and the zealous porter stood
ready to offer him a Sunday paper, just as though in the night they had
refreshed themselves magically, without going to bed. No sign nor relic
of the Cinderella remained. He breakfasted in an absent mind, and then
went idly into the lounge, a room with one immense circular window,
giving on the Square. Rain was falling heavily. Already from the
porter, and in the very mien of the waiters, he had learnt that the
Brighton Sunday was ruined. He left the window. On a round table in
the middle of the room were ranged, with religious regularity, all the
most esoteric examples of periodical literature in our language, from
"The Iron-Trades Review" to "The Animals' Guardian." With one careless
movement he destroyed the balanced perfection of a labour into which
some menial had put his soul, and then dropped into a gigantic
easy-chair near the fire, whose thin flames were just rising through the
interstices of great black lumps of coal.
The housekeeper, stiff with embroidered silk, swam majestically into the
lounge, bowed with a certain frigid and deferential surprise to the
early guest, and proceeded to an inquiry into dust. In a moment she
called, sharp and low--
"Arthur!"
And a page ran eagerly in, to whom, in the difficult corners of
upholstery and of sculptured wood, she pointed out his sins of omission,
lashing him with a restrained voice that Edwin could scarcely hear.
Passing her hand carelessly along the beading of a door panel and then
examining her fingers, she departed. The page fetched a duster.
"I see why this hotel has such a name," said Edwin to himself. And
suddenly the image of Hilda in that dark and frowzy tenement in Preston
Street, on that wet Sunday morning, filled his heart with a revolt
capricious and violent. He sprang to his feet, unreflecting, wilful,
and strode into the hall.
"Can I have a cab?" he asked the porter.
"Certainly, sir," said the porter, as if saying, "You ask me too little.
Why will you not ask for a white elephant so that I may prove my
devotion?" And within five seconds the screech of a whistle sped
through the air to the cab-stand at the corner.
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