"They don't want to go to bed." "Put 'em to bed!" said Cortlandt in a stem voice.

"No business wand'ring 'round here this time of night!" So Berkley escorted Cortlandt to bed, bowed him politely into his room, and turned out the gas as a precaution.
Returning, he noticed the straggling retreat of cavalry and artillery, arms fondly interlaced; then, wandering back to the other room in search of his hat, he became aware of Letty Lynden, seated at the table.
Her slim, childish body lay partly across the table, her cheek was pillowed on one outstretched arm, the fingers of which lay loosely around the slender crystal stem of a wine-glass.
"Are you asleep ?" he asked.

And saw that she was.
So he roamed about, hunting for something or other--he forgot what--until he found it was her mantilla.

Having found it, he forgot what he wanted it for and, wrapping it around his shoulders, sat down on the sofa, very silent, very white, but physically master of the demoralisation that sharpened the shadows under his cheek-bones and eyes.
"I guess," he said gravely to himself, "that I'd better become a gambler.

It's--a--very, ve--ry good 'fession--no," he added cautiously, "_per_--fession--" and stopped short, vexed with his difficulties of enunciation.
He tried several polysyllables; they went better.