I ran into Strickland's room and asked him whether he was ill and had been
calling for me. He was lying on the bed half-dressed, with a pipe in his mouth.
"I thought you'd come," he said. "Have I been walking around the house at all?"
I explained that he had been in the dining-room and the smoking-room and two or
three other places; and he laughed and told me to go back to bed. I went back
to bed and slept till the morning, but in all my dreams I was sure I was doing
some one an injustice in not attending to his wants. What those wants were I
could not tell, but a fluttering, whispering, bolt-fumbling, luring, loitering
some one was reproaching me for my slackness, and through all the dreams I
heard the howling of Tietjens in the garden and the thrashing of the rain.
I was in that house for two days, and Strickland went to his office daily,
leaving me alone for eight or ten hours a day, with Tietjens for my only
companion. As long as the full light lasted I was comfortable, and so was
Tietjens; but in the twilight she and I moved into the back veranda and cuddled
each other for company. We were alone in the house, but for all that it was
fully occupied by a tenant with whom I had no desire to interfere.
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