his
corridor was lighted by glowing sparks, which hung on yellow cords from
the central line of the ceiling; underfoot was a heavy but narrow
crimson patterned carpet with a strip of polished oak parquet on either
side of it. Exactly along the central line of the carpet Nina tripped,
languorously, like an automaton, and exactly over her head glittered the
line of electric sparks. The corridor and the journey seemed to be
interminable, and Nina on some inscrutable and mystic errand. At length
she moved aside from the religious line, went into a service cabinet,
and emerged with a small bunch of pass-keys. No. 107 was Lionel
Belmont's sitting-room; No. 102, his bedroom, was opposite to 107. No.
108, another sitting-room, was, as Nina knew, unoccupied. She
noiselessly let herself into No. 108, closed the door, and stood still.
After a minute she switched on the light. These two rooms, Nos. 108 and
107, had once communicated, but, as space grew precious with the growing
success of the Majestic, they had been finally separated, and the door
between them locked and masked by furniture. By reason of the door, Nina
could hear Lionel Belmont moving to and fro in No. 107. She listened a
long time. Then, involuntarily, she yawned with fatigue.

'How silly of me to be here!' she thought. 'What good will this do me?'

She extinguished the light and opened the door to leave. At the same
instant the door of No. 107, three feet off, opened. She drew back with
a start of horror. Suppose she had collided with her father on the
landing! Timorously she peeped out, and saw Lionel Belmont, in his
shirt-sleeves, disappear round the corner.

'He is going to talk with his friend Mr. Pank,' Nina thought, knowing
that No. 120 lay at some little distance round that corner.

Mr. Belmont had left the door of No. 107 slightly ajar. An unseen and
terrifying force compelled Nina to venture into the corridor, and then
to push the door of No. 107 wide open. The same force, not at all
herself, quite beyond herself, seemed to impel her by the shoulders into
the room. As she stood unmistakably within her father's private
sitting-room, scared, breathing rapidly, inquisitive, she said to
herself:

'I shall hear him coming back, and I can run out before he turns the
corner of the corridor.' And she kept her little pink ears alert.

She looked about the softly brilliant room, such an extravagant triumph
of luxurious comfort as twenty years ago would have