“I was in great trouble,” he said hoarsely. “And then the heat--an empty stomach--a few glasses knocked me over.”
“Explain that upstairs,” replied the other. “Bless you, it ’ll be all square.”
Brought before the Inspector, he pulled himself together and pleaded his cause with an intensity that amused the officials. They could see nothing tragic in a “drunk and incapable.”
“Very well,” said the Inspector at last. “I see it was an accident. Call it heat-apoplexy. I sha’n’t charge you. You had better get home to bed.”
Joyce grew faint with the revulsion of feeling, and steadied himself by the iron railing. One of the men took him to the door, hailed a passing cab and helped him in. At first, ill and dizzy as he was, he felt the animal’s instinctive joy in suddenly regained liberty. The non-fulfilment of his agonising forebodings filled him with a wondering sense of relief. But this did not last long. Despair and self-abhorrence resumed their hold upon him, causing him to shiver in the cab as with an ague.
He crawled upstairs to his attic, and after having procured some food, of which he ate as much as he could swallow, he went to bed and fell into a heavy sleep. In the middle of the night he woke with a start. The recollection of his engagement with Yvonne Latour had penetrated through the sub-consciousness of half-awakening. He uttered a cry of dismay.
All the previous evening and all that morning he had thought of the promised visit. To sit in a lady’s room, to live for a moment a bit of the old life, to forget his pariahdom in Yvonne’s welcoming smile, to have the comfort of her exquisite pity--the prospect had rendered him almost buoyant during the early part of his round. But the pain and fever of after-events had driven her from his mind. Now, in his suffering state, it seemed as if he had lost an offered corner of Paradise, rejected the one hand that was stretched out to save him from perdition. He lay awake many hours. At last, toward dawn, he fell asleep again and did not wake till mid-day.
He rose, rang for his breakfast, which was brought him, as usual, on a tray, by the slatternly maid-of-all-work. He was still feeling prostrated in mind and body. Having eaten what he could, he drew up the blind to look at the day. The fine weather was still lasting. But he felt no desire to go out. What was the use? Judging by the lesson of yesterday it would be futile to continue his search for employment. As he turned away from the window, he caught sight of his white haggard face and bloodshot eyes in the mirror, and he shrank back, as though it revealed to him the miserable weakness of his soul. Then he threw himself half-dressed upon the bed, and there he remained, abandoning himself to the hopeless inaction of defeat, and eating his heart out in remorse for the shipwreck he had made of his life.