"It's so confounded' dark," he complained: "I couldn't tell you from
Eve. So perhaps you'd better run back to your room now...."
He turned away deliberately. Behind him, after a pause of an instant,
there rose a sound of soft rustling draperies, a swift and hushed patter
of footsteps on the stairs. A moment or two later a latch clicked very
gently in the corridor above.
Quietly Matthias switched on a single light, returned to the door,
unbolted and quickly opened it.
He was not disappointed that this manoeuvre surprised a shadow
skulking in the penumbra of rose bushes that bordered the steps, the
shadow of a man who drew back swiftly when he recognized Matthias. This
last stepped out, turned in the direction of the fugitive shadow, and
pursuing at leisure, hailed in a quiet and natural tone: "I
say--Marbridge!--that you?"
Immediately he came upon Marbridge at a standstill round the corner of
the house, awaiting him in a curious posture of antagonism: his feet
well apart, heavy body inclined a trifle forward, round dark head low
between his shoulders, hands clenched, upon his face a cloud of anger.
Matthias greeted him suavely: "I was afraid I'd locked you out."
Ignoring his attitude even as he seemed to ignore the fact that
Marbridge had changed from evening dress to a suit of dark flannels, he
added: "Coming in now? It's a bit late."
Marbridge pulled himself together. "Perhaps you're right," he assented
surlily. But it was with patent effort that he mastered his resentment
and accompanied Matthias back to the doors.
"A fine night, what?" Matthias filled in the awkward silence.
"Yes," agreed Marbridge brusquely. "Too fine," he amended--"too fine to
waste in bed."
"Sleepless, eh?"
"Yes."
Following him in, Matthias refastened the door. "Several of us seem
troubled with the same indisposition," he observed coolly, swinging to
face Marbridge. "That's why I bothered to call you in, you know."