Louis looked fagged and worn. She re-dipped
sheets in cold water and hung them up to cool the room a little; her
hair was damp, the atmosphere of the room quite motionless.
"Do you think I could smoke tea?" said he, plaintively. "I believe
people do sometimes."
He took the tea from the caddy, rubbed a little in his palm and made a
cigarette with it. It drew with difficulty; after the first bitter whiff
he threw it away impatiently and sat on the edge of the bed, his face
buried in his hands.
She dashed out of the room and went down to the dining-room. Four of the
"young chaps" were playing their interminable game of cards at the
table. A three months' old niece of Mrs. King, whose mother was sitting
with her sister in the bedroom talking, lay in a dressbasket on the
table being guarded by the men.
She blinked knowingly at Marcella, who bent over her. Two men lay asleep
on chairs, one on the couch. They were all in various stages of undress,
and had towels round their necks with which they mopped their damp
foreheads. They looked up and greeted her as she came in.
"Have a game, ma?" asked Dutch Frank.
"No, thank you. I've come to beg, borrow or steal. Can someone lend or
give me a few cigarettes? My poor man has run short. It's too hot to go
out. At least, I'm going to stay in."
They all had any amount of cigarettes; the piles of ends in the hearth
made her think contemptuously of Louis scrabbling in the dust for them.
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