mained that prolonged and sullen
diapason, coming from all quarters at once. It was like the breathing of
some infinitely great monster, alive and palpitating, the sistole and
diastole of some gigantic heart. The whole existence of the great
slumbering city passed upward there before him through the still night
air in one long wave of sound.

It was Life, the murmur of the great, mysterious force that spun the
wheels of Nature and that sent it onward like some enormous engine,
resistless, relentless; an engine that sped straight forward, driving
before it the infinite herd of humanity, driving it on at breathless
speed through all eternity, driving it no one knew whither, crushing out
inexorably all those who lagged behind the herd and who fell from
exhaustion, grinding them to dust beneath its myriad iron wheels, riding
over them, still driving on the herd that yet remained, driving it
recklessly, blindly on and on toward some far-distant goal, some vague
unknown end, some mysterious, fearful bourne forever hidden in thick
darkness.

Chapter Fifteen

About a week later Hiram Wade, Ida's father, brought suit against
Vandover to recover twenty-five thousand dollars, claiming that his
daughter had killed herself because she had been ruined by him and that
he alone was responsible for her suicide.

Vandover had passed this week in an agony of grief over the loss of his
art, a grief that seemed even sharper than that which he had felt over
the death of his father. For this last calamity was like the death of a
child of his, some dear, sweet child, that might have been his companion
throughout all his life. At times it seemed to him impossible that his
art should fail him in this manner, and again and again he would put
himself at his easel, only to experience afresh the return of the
numbness in his brain, the impotency of his fingers.

He had begun little by little to pick up the course of his life once
more, and on a certain Wednesday morning was looking listlessly through
the morning paper as he sat in his window-seat. The room was delightful,
flooded with the morning sun, the Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ just touched
with a ruddy light, the Renaissance portraits looking down at him
through a fine golden haze; a little fire, just enough to blunt the
keenness of the early morning air, snapping in the famous tiled and
flamboyant stove. All about the room was a pleasant fragrance of coffee
and good tobacco.

Vando