He was just expecting to be shown into the boudoir when Robin stopped
at a very small door.
"Her ladyship and Mrs. Carlos Smith are out on the roof. This is the
ladder," she said, and illuminated the ladder.
G.J. had no choice but to mount. Luckily he had kept his hat. He put
it on. As he climbed he felt a slight recurrence of the pain in his
side which he had noticed in St. Martin's Street. The roof was a very
strange, tempestuous place, and insecure. He had an impression similar
to that of being at sea, for the wind, which he had scarcely
observed in the street, made melancholy noises in the new protective
wire-netting that stretched over his head. This bomb-catching
contrivance, fastened on thick iron stanchions, formed a sort of
second roof, and was a very solid and elaborate affair which must
have cost much money. The upstreaming light from the ladder-shaft was
suddenly extinguished. He could see nobody, and the loneliness was
uncomfortable.
Somehow, when Robin had announced that the ladies were on the roof he
had imagined the roof as a large, flat expanse. It was nothing of the
kind. So far as he could distinguish in the deep gloom it had leaden
pathways, but on either hand it sloped sharply up or sharply down.
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