The voice of her adversary was heard at last, singing
fearlessly from his expanded lungs, like a professional.
Herein he differed from Englishmen, who always have a little
feeling against music, and sing only from the throat,
apologetically. He padded upstairs, and looked in at the
open door of the reception-room without seeing her. Her
heart leapt and her throat was dry when he turned away and
passed, still singing, into the room opposite. It is
alarming not to be seen.
He had left the door of this room open, and she could
see into it, right across the landing. It was in a shocking
mess. Food, bedclothes, patent-leather boots, dirty plates,
and knives lay strewn over a large table and on the floor.
But it was the mess that comes of life, not of desolation.
It was preferable to the charnel-chamber in which she was
standing now, and the light in it was soft and large, as
from some gracious, noble opening.
He stopped singing, and cried "Where is Perfetta?"
His back was turned, and he was lighting a cigar. He
was not speaking to Miss Abbott. He could not even be
expecting her. The vista of the landing and the two open
doors made him both remote and significant, like an actor on
the stage, intimate and unapproachable at the same time.
She could no more call out to him than if he was Hamlet.
"You know!" he continued, "but you will not tell me.
Exactly like you." He reclined on the table and blew a fat
smoke-ring. "And why won't you tell me the numbers? I have
dreamt of a red hen--that is two hundred and five, and a
friend unexpected--he means eighty-two.
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