He saw that she was
exquisitely dressed--she had made one or two changes for the better
since the night before, and that seemed something definite to turn
over and over in his mind as he rumbled foggily home in the four-
wheeler in which, a few steps from the stage-door, he had taken
refuge as soon as he knew that the curtain was up. He lived a couple
of miles off, and he had chosen a four-wheeler to drag out the time.
When he got home his fire was out, his room was cold, and he lay down
on his sofa in his overcoat. He had sent his landlady to the dress-
circle, on purpose; she would overflow with words and mistakes. The
house seemed a black void, just as the streets had done--every one
was, formidably, at his play. He was quieter at last than he had
been for a fortnight, and he felt too weak even to wonder how the
thing was going. He believed afterwards that he had slept an hour;
but even if he had he felt it to be still too early to return to the
theatre. He sat down by his lamp and tried to read--to read a little
compendious life of a great English statesman, out of a "series.
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