Somebody was coming down the long stairs from the
upper stories, uninhabited at night. Burglars? He was still very
perturbed, but differently perturbed. He could not move a muscle. The
suspense as the footsteps hesitated at the cubicle was awful. George
stood up straight and called out in a rough voice--louder than he
expected it to be:
"Who's there?"
Mr. Enwright appeared. He was wearing beautiful blue pyjamas and a
plum-coloured silk dressing-gown and doe-skin slippers. His hair was
extremely deranged; he blinked rapidly, and his lined face seemed very
old.
"Well, I like this, I like this!" he said in a quiet, sardonic tone.
"Sitting at my desk and blazing my electricity away! I happened to get
up, and I looked out of the window and noticed the glare below. So I
came to see what was afoot. Do you know you frightened me?--and I don't
like being frightened."
"I hadn't the slightest notion you ever slept here," George feebly
stammered.
"Didn't you know I'd decided to keep a couple of rooms here for myself?"
"I had heard something about it, but I didn't know you'd really moved
in. I--I've been away so much."
"I moved in, as you call it, to-day--yesterday, and a nice night you're
giving me! And even supposing I hadn't moved in, what's that got to do
with your being here? Give me a cigarette.
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