The Next Morning Suddenly he sat up in bed in his room at the Magnifique, gazing upon a disconsolate Cooley in gray tweeds who sat heaped in a chair at the foot of the bed with his head in his hands.
Mellin's first sensation was of utter mystification; his second was more corporeal: the consciousness of physical misery, of consuming fever, of aches that ran over his whole body, converging to a dreadful climax in his head, of a throat so immoderately partched it seemed to crackle, and a thirst so avid it was a passion. His eye fell upon a carafe of water on a chair at his bedside; he seized upon it with a shaking hand and drank half its contents before he set it down. The action attracted his companion's attention and he looked up, showing a pale and haggard countenance.
"How do you feel?" inquired Cooley with a wan smile.
Mellin's head dropped back upon the pillow and he made one or two painful efforts to speak before he succeeded in finding a ghastly semblance of his voice.
"I thought I was at Madame de Vaurigard's.""You were," said the other, adding grimly: "We both were.""But that was only a minute ago.""It was six hours ago. It's goin' on ten o'clock in the morning.""I don't understand how that can be. How did I get here?""I brought you. I was pretty bad, but you--I never saw anything like you! From the time you kissed Lady Mount-Rhyswicke--"Mellin sat bolt upright in bed, staring wildly. He began to tremble violently.
"Don't you remember that?" asked Cooley.
Suddenly he did. The memory of it came with inexorable clarity, he crossed forearms over his horror-stricken face and fell back upon his pillow.
"Oh," he gasped. "Un-speakable! Un-speakable!""Lord! Don't worry about that! I don't think she minded.""It's the thought of Madame de Vaurigard--it kills me! The horror of it--that I should do such a thing in her house! She'll never speak to me again, she oughtn't to; she ought to send her groom to beat me! You can't think what I've lost--""Can't I!" Mr. Cooley rose from his chair and began to pace up and down the chamber. "I can guess to within a thousand francs of what ~I~'ve lost! I had to get the hotel to cash a check on New York for me this morning. I've a habit of carrying all my money in bills, and a fool trick, too. Well, I'm cured of it!""Oh, if it were only a little ~money~ and nothing else that I'd lost! The money means nothing." Mellin choked.
"I suppose you're pretty well fixed. Well, so am I," Cooley shook his head, "but money certainly means something to me!""It wouldn't if you'd thrown away the most precious friendship of your life.""See here," said Cooley, halting at the foot of the bed and looking at his stricken companion from beneath frowning brows, "I guess Ican see how it is with you, and I'll tell you frankly it's been the same with me. I never met such a fascinating woman in my life: she throws a reg'ler ole-fashioned ~spell~ over you! Now I hate to say it, but I can't help it, because it plain hits me in the face every time I think of it; the truth is--well, sir, I'm afraid you and me have had little red soldier-coats and caps put on us and strings tied to our belts while we turned somersets for the children.""I don't understand. I don't know what you're talking about.""No? It seems to get more and more simple to me. I've been thinking it all over and over again. I can't ~help~ it! See here:
