He did not know exactly what he was going to do as he stood there watching her. He did not try to see beyond the fact that some time in the night when she had fallen asleep he would steal away from her, and would dress and pack and go off to catch the steamer in the morning. What happened after that would depend on what Dr. Alleyne had to say.
He came back to thinking of the picture she made at the piano. He wished now he had taken her hair down so that she would look what he had often called her, a goddess in lapus lazuli and gold. He had to smile a little sadly to himself. He was incurably a lover of colour and light. And she was colour and light. He suddenly remembered the hours were going. He went up the steps and in to her and flung his arms about her.
“Don’t play any more. I want you,” he said, taking her face in his hands.
IV
Dane managed to get an appointment the day after he arrived in Auckland with Dr. Alleyne, a fine and sensitive London surgeon who had come to the colonies for his own health a few years before.
“Where’s the trouble, Barrington?” he asked as soon as Dane sat down, for he could give him only ten minutes that day.
“It’s probably cancer of the stomach.”
The doctor raised his eyebrows at the man who said this as if it were a matter of no concern.
“What makes you think that?”
His patient told him all he knew about it.
“Good heavens, man! Why haven’t you come to me before?”
