having his pocket picked—or his soul, or his brain!” said the stranger, throwing his head back in a brilliant smile, his eyes dilated.
“I don’t know what you mean, sir,” said Siegmund, very quietly, with a strong fear and a fascination opposing each other in his heart.
“You’re not tired of the House, but of your own particular room—say, suite of rooms——”
“To-morrow I am turned out of this ‘blue room,’ ” said Siegmund with a wry smile. The other looked at him seriously.
“Dear Lord!” exclaimed Hampson; then: “Do you remember Flaubert’s saint, who laid naked against a leper? I could not do it.”
“Nor I,” shuddered Siegmund.
“But you’ve got to—or something near it!”
Siegmund looked at the other with frightened, horrified eyes.
“What of yourself?” he said, resentfully.
“I’ve funked—ran away from my leper, and now am eating my heart out, and staring from the window at the dark.”
“But can’t you do something?” said Siegmund.
The other man laughed with amusement, throwing his head back and showing his teeth.
“I won’t ask you what your intentions are,” he said, with delicate irony in his tone. “You know, I am a tremendously busy man. I earn five hundred a year by hard work; but it’s no good. If you have acquired a liking for intensity in life, you can’t do without it. I mean vivid soul experience. It takes the place, with us, of the old adventure, and physical excitement.”
