ctric rain, a pointed
clock-tower spiking the upper night-gloom, the faint halitus of musk
from a downy theater-wrap--fluttered about him. But all seemed far away,
hackneyed, shop-worn, as banal as the scenery of an opera.

He began to walk up and down the floor, teasing pricks of restlessness
urging him. He opened the door and passed into the unlighted
dining-room. On the sideboard sat a silver loving-cup that had arrived
the day before in a huge box with his books and knick-knacks. He had won
it at polo. He lifted it, fingering its carved handles. He remembered
that when that particular score had been made, Katharine Fargo had sat
in one of the drags at the side-line.

But the memory evoked no thrill. Instead, the thought of her
palely-cold, passionless beauty called up another mobile thoroughbred
face instinct with quick flashings of mirth and hauteur. Again he felt
the fierce clutch of small fingers, as they fought with his in that
struggle for his life. Each line of that face stood before him--the
arching brows, the cameo-delicacy of profile, the magnolia skin and hair
like a brown-gold cloud across the sun.

A soft clicking patter trailed itself over the polished floor and the
bulldog's nose was thrust between his knees. He bent down and fondled
the satiny head to still the sudden surge of loneliness that had
overflowed his heart--an ache for he knew not what. A depression was on
him, he knew not why--something that had a keen edge of longing like
physical hunger.

He set back the loving-cup and went out to the front porch to prowl
aimlessly up and down past the great gray-stained Ionic columns. It was
not late, but the night was very still. The Virginia creeper waved
gently to and fro in a soundless breeze that was little more than a
whisper. The sky was heavily sprinkled with stars whose wan clustering
was blotted here and there by floating shreds of cloud, like vaporous,
filmy leaves stripped by some upper gale from the Tree of Heaven. The
lawn lay a mass of mysterious shadow, stirring with faint chirps and
rustles and laden with the poignant scent of the garden honeysuckle. He
could hear the howl of a lonesome hound, a horse neighed impatiently on
a distant meadow, and from far down the Red Road, beyond the gate, came
the rude twitter of a banjo and the voice of the strolling darky player:

"All Ah wants in dis creation--
Pretty yellah gal, en er big plantation!"

When the twangling notes died