STEP IN THE DARK. Ethel Lina White
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laughed at her bewilderment.
"All is easily explained," she said. "I manage here, so Madame Vanderpant asked me to look after your comfort. I let myself in by my service-key after you were asleep, and found you hot—so hot, as if you had a fever. The room was like an oven, so I opened the sliding-doors of the salon. As you see, they are covered with wallpaper. That makes them invisible. Voilà."
She gave a demonstration as to how they worked, and then smiled persuasively.
"You understand, Madame," she said eagerly, "how lucky this is for you. The hotel was so full when you applied for your reservation that we had to give you the bedroom belonging to this vacant suite. Now you have proved its convenience, if you would like to engage it we can give you a ten per cent. discount on the price. There is also a bath, where you can be perfectly private."
Although Georgia considered that such an assurance should be unnecessary, she nodded in agreement.
"Then I will turn on the water at once," said the woman quickly, before she could change her mind. "You can have your bath before the waiter brings up your café complèt."
Georgia raised her voice above the splashing of water.
"Was I asleep when you came in last night?" she asked.
"You slept even while I was wheeling your bed round to meet the current of air from the garden. We can keep it so now."
"Thank you. It was very kind of you."
"Oh, no, Madame, I am paid for service. It was Madame Vanderpant who arranged everything."
"But I only met her last night for the first time."
"That signifies nothing. She is a wealthy lady of rank, and such are often charitable."
"Does she come here often?"
"Not as often as we would wish. Will Madame ring for her breakfast?"
The woman went to the door, but in spite of the hint Georgia persisted in her questions.
"What time is she leaving? I should like to thank her."
"Unfortunately, you are too late. They are on the point of departure."
"Yes, the Count told me they were all going early to bed. Did they?"
Georgia spoke impulsively in a vague hope of reassurance. She realised her blunder in discussing the hotel clients when the woman's face became blank.
"So?" she commented. "Madame's bath will soon be filled."
As she closed the door, Georgia shot the bolt and went into the bathroom. It was a gloomy little cell, lighted from the passage by a small window of blue-and-amber panes, across which fell the shadows of people passing outside.
The traffic along the corridor was so continuous that she had the feeling that she was actually bathing in public, in spite of the housekeeper's pledge of privacy. Doubtful of snapping on the light without a curtain to screen the glass, she scrubbed and splashed in semi-darkness.
As she was pulling on her bathrobe again, she heard the ringing of the telephone-bell and hurried back to her bedroom. Eagerly snatching up the receiver, in the hope of speaking to the Count, she was disappointed by her agent's familiar voice.
"How are you this morning, Georgia?"
"Perfectly well," she told him.
"Good. What are you doing today?"
"Nothing."
"Then suppose you come to Bruges with me? I've finished my business here, but I mean to stop over for a day. What about it?"
She intended to refuse the invitation, but as she hesitated she changed her mind. At least she could talk to him about the Count, and perhaps relieve her depression. Because the sun was shining there was still a ray of hope.
"I'd love to," she said gloomily.
"Then I'll come over and collect you at ten," arranged Torch.
It was the most important deal he had ever negotiated in his client's interests, but he rang off with complete unconcern.
As Georgia lay in bed waiting for her breakfast, she began to revive her impressions of the night.
"I must have been awake for a moment or so when I realised that the room was larger," she decided. "After that I dropped off to sleep again. Father always said you could trace the origin of every dream. Mine began with the mirror in Mrs. Vanderpant's salon."
Sure of her starting-point, she began to reassemble the links. The mirror had reminded her of her childish dream when she saw a crowd of foul and loathsome faces, all of which came from Hogarth's prints. This released memory in its turn had been responsible for the hideous transformation of the dinner-party guests, while her dormant horror of the Wiertz picture had kindled the cruelty which had laughed at her from the Count's eyes.
"That lonely island, too," she thought. "Of course, that was a logical result of Waterloo. It made me brood over St. Helena."
She had gone on the expedition without the Count, as an unabashed member of a tourist-party. With the counter-attraction of his personality withdrawn she had been deeply impressed by what she saw and heard. The guide made the battle appear more recent than the Great War of 1914-1918, as he explained the rusty relics in the inn of La Belle Alliance and described the ghastly carnage of the concealed trenches.
Afterwards she had climbed the steps to the top of the mount and, looking down on the peaceful sunlit fields, had reconstructed the battle in her imagination. She had sunk to complete tourist-level and bought a brass trifle engraved with the Dutch lion, which had to be concealed from the derision of the Count.
"No wonder I felt like Napoleon myself," she thought.
Satisfied by her explanation, she got out of bed and crossed to the window of the salon. Below lay a garden which bore little resemblance to the vast arboreal jungle of her dream. It was ambitiously planned for so small an area, with dusty shrubs, leaden statues, and a small fishpond filled with brown water, but the general effect was of neglect. The grass was rank, the rustic seats damply uninviting, the stone-work blackened with smuts.
A little distance away, pencilled against the sky, was the fire-escape. The stair wound up steeply to the roof, where a ledge encircled the four sides of the building around the courtyard. Viewed from Georgia's bedroom it appeared so perilous a bridge to safety that she decided that it must have been constructed on the principle of a major fear destroying a minor.
As she traced its course she noticed a large open window which was set in the angle of two walls. There was something so unpleasantly familiar about the sight of it that she failed to notice the entrance of the waiter with her breakfast tray.
He stared upwards to discover what was holding her attention.
"That high window is where you were last night," he told her.
At his words the memory of her dream flooded her mind.
"No," she protested. "That's impossible."
The man looked at her agitated face in surprise.
"But yes, Madame," he persisted. "That is Madame Vanderpant's apartment where you had dinner last evening. It is our most expensive suite because of the marvellous view of the city. Perhaps Madame looked out of the windows?...Service."
He laid down the tray and went out of the room while Georgia remained clutching the window-frame. Suddenly she was shaken by gusts of hideous doubt. Suspicions which were too fantastic to be credible clamoured for recognition on the strength of a fact.
One part of her dream had been proved true by the evidence of the enlarged room. Therefore, by what authority could she claim to know exactly when the dream had ended? Under the influence of the drug she might actually have made her perilous journey up to the roof.
She looked at the window-ledge and shivered at the thought of balancing herself upon the narrow sill. The gap which divided her from the stair involved a spring across