Jimmy moved, lay on his back and groaned.  His eyelids fluttered.  Something from without, something from a distance, was pulling at him, and the hands of sleep, too inert, perhaps, for any conflict, relaxed their hold upon him.  Thoughts from two minds in a dark pavilion were stealing upon him, were touching him here and there, were whispering to him.

Another layer of sleep was softly removed from him.

He clenched his large hands—­he had already the hands and feet almost of the man he would some day grow into—­and his eyes opened wide for a moment.  But they closed again.  He was not awake yet.

At three o’clock he woke.  He had slept for six hours in the villa and for two hours in the forest.  He lay still in the dark for a few minutes.  A faint memory of his dream hung about him like a tattered mist.  He felt anxious, almost apprehensive, and strained his ears expectant of some sound.  But the silence of the airless night was deep and large all about him.  He began to think of his mother.  What had been the matter with her?  Who, or what, had persecuted her?  He realized now that he had been dreaming, said to himself, with a boy’s exaggeration, that he had had “a beastly nightmare!” Nevertheless his mother still appeared to him as the victim of distresses.  He could not absolutely detach himself from the impressions communicated to him in his dream.  He was obliged to think of his mother as unhappy and of Dion Leith as not wholly friendly either to her or to himself.  And it was all quite beastly.

Presently, more fully awake, he began to wonder about the time and to feel tremendously thirsty, as if he could “drink the jug.”

He stretched out a hand, found the matches and struck a light.  It went out with a sort of feeble determination.

“Damn!” he muttered.

He struck another match and lit the candle.  His silver watch lay beside it, and marked five minutes past three.  Jimmy was almost angrily astonished.  Only that!  He now felt painfully wide awake, as if his sleep were absolutely finished.  What was to be done?  He remembered that he had slept in the forest.  He had had his eight hours.  Perhaps that was the reason of his present wakefulness.  Anyhow, he must have a drink.  He thrust away the sheet, rolled out of bed, and went to the washhand-stand.  There was plenty of water in his bottle, but when he poured it into the tumbler he found that it was quite warm.  He was certain warm water wouldn’t quench his ardent thirst.  Besides, he loathed it.  Any chap would!  How beastly everything was!

He put down the tumbler without drinking, went to the window and looked out.  The still hot darkness which greeted him made him feel again the obscure distress of his dream.  He was aware of apprehension.  Dawn could not be so very far off; yet he felt sunk to the lips in the heavy night.

If only he could have a good drink of something very cold!  This wish made him think again of his mother.  He knew she did not require much sleep, and sometimes read during part of the night; he also knew that she kept some iced lemonade on the table beside her bed.  Now the thought of his mother’s lemonade enticed him.