“What”--said she, all nerves--“what has happened?” “An accident At your home, Sue. They believe that your father is dying. He has asked for you. It was a neighbor who called--a Mr. Deems--and from what little he could tell me I should say that you are needed there.” Her hands moved nervously; she threw them out in the quick way she had and started to speak; then giving it up let them drop and pushed back her chair. For the moment she seemed to see neither man: her gaze went past them; her mouth twitched. Zanin sat back, smoked, looked from one to the other. He was suddenly out of it. He had never known a home, in Russia or America. There was something between Henry Rates and Sue Wilde, a common race memory, a strain in their spiritual fiber that he did not share; something he could not even guess at. Whatever it was he could see it gripping her, touching and rousing hidden depths. So much her face told him. He kept silent. She turned to him now. “You'll excuse me, Jacob?” she said, very quiet. “You're going, then?” said he. He was true to his creed. There was no touch of conventional sentiment in his voice. He had despised everything her father's life meant; he despised it now. “Yes,” she said, and nodded with sudden nervous energy--a rising color in her cheeks, her head erect, shoulders stiffened, a flash in her eyes--such a flash as no one had seen there for a long time--“Yes, I'm going--home.” Zanin sat alone, looking after them as they walked quietly out of the restaurant. He lighted a fresh cigarette, deliberately blew out the match, stared at it as if it had been a live thing, then flicked it over his shoulder with a snap of his thumb. CHAPTER XXIX--AT THE CORNER OF TENTH |PETER sat alone in the corner room downstairs. Mechanically he turned the pages of _Le Sourire_--turned them forward and back, tried to see what lay before his eyes, tried indeed, to appear as should appear that well-known playwright, “Eric” Mann. “I must think objectively,” he told himself. “That's the great thing--to think objectively.” Time was passing--minutes, hours, years. He was trying to think out how long it had been since the Worm went up-stairs. “Was it one minute or ten?” There was a sudden new noise outside--a voice. He listened intently. It was Hy Lowe's voice; excited, incoherent, shouting imprecations of some sort. Somebody ought to take Hy home. On any occasion short of the present crisis he would do it himself. Gradually the voice died down. He heard the side-street door open and close. Some One had entered the barroom. He tipped back and peered out there. He could see part of a bulky back, a familiarly bulky back. It moved over a little. It was the back of Sumner Smith. Peter got up, turned, then stood irresolute. It was not, he told himself, that he was afraid of Sumner Smith, only that the mere sight of the man stirred uncomfortable and wild emotions within him.