But in dragging the curtain from the window he had noticed a writing-desk. After he had finished with the pillow case he returned to it. Like the door it was locked. He kicked at it, kicked it open, discovered in it loose money and trinkets, stuck them in his pockets, grabbed at the bundles and dashed from the room just as with a roar the flames leaped in.
In the corridor he tripped, but he was up again with the tightly tied bundles and down the stair before the flames and the smoke of them could catch him. Once on the road without he turned to look, but the flames pirouetting in increasing size made it too hot to linger. Down the road he went, not overweighted but impeded by the awkward bundles, and staggered first into an engulfing, shouting crowd, then into a convenient hack, in which he reached the Inn, minus his cap and perspiring profusely.
The Prices as yet had not turned up. Annandale secured rooms for them, had the bundles taken there, went to his own quarters, reemerged shortly fresh as paint, hungry as a wolf.
It was high noon. From beyond drifted the sound of cries, the smell of smoke, the commotion of flight. The Rockingham had gone, the adjacent shops and bath houses with it; the Casino had fallen. Hurrying to the railway station beyond came people with handbags, wagons with trunks. From the air the caress had passed. There was panic in it.
But presently the flames showed less voluminous. After devouring all that they conveniently could they were subsiding. It was apparent that the worst was over. Then at last Fanny and her mother drove up.
From the veranda where he stood Annandale ran down to meet them. “I have your things,” he cried. “I have rooms for you also.”
“Hobson is not in it with you,” said Fanny, when the tale of the bundles had been told. “I could kiss you. I would if mamma were not here.”
For that, ordinarily, Fanny would have been promptly sat upon. But here was the exceptional. Mrs. Price recognized it or appeared to. Instead of rebuking the girl and snubbing the man, Mrs. Price condescended to tell Annandale that he was “too good.”
This was very nice. Annandale felt over-rewarded. Then, shortly, the midday meal ensuing, he conducted mother and daughter to the restaurant, sat with them at table, ordered Ruinart cup and assumed family airs. Later, in a motor, he took Fanny to view the ruins, hummed her over the country and later still procured for her a lemon squash with plenty of raspberries in it, which she consumed on the porch, to the sound of the waves, by the light of the stars.
Meanwhile she had changed her pastel frock for another, which, if a bit rumpled in transit, became her wonderfully well.
Annandale commented on it. “By the way,” he suddenly interrupted himself to remark, “I have more of your things. I stuffed them in my pocket and forgot them entirely. I will go and fetch them now.”
“Don’t bother. Tomorrow will do. What are they, do you remember?”
“Money and jewelry. Rings and pins, I think. I am sure there were pins. One of them stuck in me.”
“Any clothes?”
“Clothes!” Annandale echoed in surprise. “Why, no, are any missing?”
“My mother’s. They were in the room next to mine.”
“The Lord forgive me, I never thought of it.”
“It does not really matter. Only we will have to go to town tomorrow. Mamma has not a stitch.”
“The devil!” muttered Annandale in fierce self-reprobation. “Hang my stupidity. I am a fool.”
“You are nothing of the kind. If it were not for you I would not have a stitch either.”
“That is all very well. But I have bungled matters dreadfully. I don’t know what your mother can think of me. I do know, though, that I wish she would let me replace the things which she has lost through my fault.”
In the sky a star was falling, swiftly, silently, like a drop of water on a windowpane. Fanny watched it. She had been lolling back in a chair. But at Annandale’s suggestion she sat up. “That is absurd,” she announced.
“Well, then, it would be only nice and fair of you to put me in a position where, without offense, I could do so.”
But Fanny was rising. “It is late,” she announced. “I must go.”
Annandale caught at her. “Say ‘Yes,’ ” he implored. “Or at least don’t say ‘No.’ Say something.”
“Something, then. There, let me be.”
At that Annandale, who still held her, held her yet tighter. “You are the dearest girl in all the world.”
Fanny gave him a little shove. “Don’t do that, anyone might see you.”
“Yes, and see too that you belong to me.”
“I am not so sure.”
“You shan’t go then till you are.” Annandale, as he spoke, planted himself uncircuitously before her.
“Oh,” said Fanny, in a little sugary, demure voice, “if you are going to use brute force—”
“I am.”
“Then I give in.”
“For keeps?”
“Don’t, there’s my mother.”
In the doorway beyond, Mrs. Price had loomed. Fanny joined her. Annandale followed, denouncing himself to the lady for the oversight that noon. Yet, whether because of that oversight of his or because of some foresight of her own, so grim was Mrs. Price that Annandale, concluding that it would be more cheerful elsewhere, turned tail, ambled out to the road and across it to the sea wall, where he sat and kicked his heels and told himself that he was engaged.
In the telling he lost himself in impossibilities and wondered how it would fare with him and how with Sylvia could the past be mended and the old plans mature. For though Fanny allured, Sylvia enchained. Fanny was delicious. But he fancied that other men had found her so. He fancied that her heart had been an inn, and he knew that Sylvia’s was a home. Yet from that he was barred. To those that lack homes hotels are convenient.
Across the way meanwhile
