looked so solemn, and there is grey in your hair, that all at once you
seemed like an old gentleman. Now Dan Culser," she hesitated, and then
swept on, "he's what you'd name young." At Daniel Culser's age, he told
himself, he, Jasper Penny, could have walked the other blind; and now
Essie Scofield was calling him old; she had noticed the grey in his
hair. He rose to go, and she came close to him, a clinging, soft thing
of flesh faintly reeking with brandy. "I have a great deal to pay, where
money goes I don't know, even a little would be a help." He left some
gold in her hand, thankful to purchase, at that slight price, a
momentary release.

Outside Cherry Street was blackly cold, a gas lamp at the corner shed a
watery, contracted illumination. He made his way back toward the hotel,
but a sudden reluctance to mount to his lonely chambers possessed him.
Before the glimmering marble facade he took out his watch, a pale gold
efflorescence in the gloom, and rang the hour in minute, clear notes.
The third quarter past ten. He recalled the ball, but then commencing,
at Stephen Jannan's; there it would be indescribably gay, a house
flooded with the music of quadrilles, light, polite-chatter; and he
determined to proceed and have a cigar with Stephen.

He walked briskly up Mulberry Street to Sixth and there turned to the
left. Jasper Penny soon passed the shrouded silence of Independence
Square, with the new Corinthian doorway of the State House showing
vaguely through the irregularly grouped ailanthus trees. Beyond, the
brick wall with its marble coping and high iron fence reached, on the
opposite side, to the Jannan corner. The length of the brick dwelling,
with white arched windows and coursings faced the vague emptiness of
Washington Square, closed for the winter.

Inside the hall was bright and filled with the pungent warmth of fat
hearth coal. A servant, with a phrase of recognition, directed him
above, to a room burdened with masculine greatcoats and silk hats. There
an attendant told him that Mr. Jannan was below. Jasper Penny had no
intention of becoming a participant in the hall, but neither did he
propose to linger among wraps, listening to the supercilious chatter of
young men in the extreme mode of bright blue coats, painfully tight
black trousers with varnished pumps and expanses of ankle in grey silk.
One, inspecting him through an eyeglass on a woven hair guard, expressed
a pointed surprise at Jasper Penny's