The Breaking Point

Chapter XXX

David was enjoying his holiday. He lay in bed most of the morning, making the most of his one after-breakfast cigar and surrounded by newspaper and magazines. He had made friends of the waiter who brought his breakfast, and of the little chambermaid who looked after his room, and such conversations as this would follow:

"Well, Nellie," he would say, "and did you go to the dance on the pier last night?"

"Oh, yes, doctor."

"Your gentleman friend showed up all right, then?"

"Oh, yes. He didn't telephone because he was on a job out of town."

Here perhaps David would lower his voice, for Lucy was never far away.

"Did you wear the flowers?"

"Yes, violets. I put one away to remember you by. It was funny at first. I wouldn't tell him who gave them to me."

David would chuckle delightedly.