He reached that city in due time, and was at once immersed in the rush and go of its restless life. The streets were all alight, the open windows of hotels and restaurants displaying brightly dressed groups within, to whom the chief aim of existence for the hour was apparently, the excellence of a favourite ice, or the proper quality of the champagne _frappé_. Along the side-walks a varied crowd was constantly passing; shop-girls mostly, in large hats and pretty frocks, whose tired faces were flushed and eager, or pale and weary, according as they walked alone, or kept company with some smart young male assistant. Philip noticed with a half wonder, that each of these work-girls wore long gloves half-way up their arms, and that their low shoes were "dressy" to a degree, with patent tips and abnormally high heels, on which they limped along with heroic courage. The theatres were not out as yet; but Delmonico's and the Brunswick, were in the full swing of early evening traffic, and many were the envious glances cast by the weary pedestrians upon the more favoured few of fortune within those hospitable walls.
As Mr. Tremain let himself into his rooms with a pass key, he could not but feel how dreary and un-homelike was such a return. He had not telegraphed word of his arrival, and so found himself the sole occupant of the dark building; his servant and the care-taker were evidently enjoying life abroad this fine evening, and apparently the other _habitués_ of the place were similarly employed.
He threw open the door of his sitting-room and entered; the room was in semi-darkness, the only light being a reflected one from the street lamps, and the moon which shone through the unsheltered windows. The furniture looked ghostly in the chintz over-coverings, and the faint gleam of gilded picture-frames and mirrors only added a further touch of unreality. On the writing-table he could just distinguish a pile of letters and newspapers--the accumulation of four weeks' absence; they seemed to him as the hand of civilisation, stretched out across the month of isolation and solitude, which separated him from the world of yesterday and to-day.
Striking a match he lit two of the wax candles in a small girandole; but they served only to make the darkness more apparent, and he was turning impatiently towards his bedroom, still holding the lighted taper, when the sound of quick hurrying feet, coming rapidly up the stone staircase, arrested his attention.