e saw it all crash. It will be a thousand years before the
world will be ready for another."

And later,

"I suppose every life has its Golden Age. Generally we think it is
youth. I'm not so sure. Youth is looking ahead. It has its hopes and its
disappointments. The Golden Age in a man's life ought to be the age of
fulfillment. It's nearer the forties than the twenties."

"Have you reached it?"

"I'm going to, on the other side."

And Clayton had smiled.

"You are going to reach it," he said. "We are always going to find it,
Nolan. It is always just ahead."

And Nolan had given him one of his quick understanding glances.

There could be no Golden Age for him. For the Golden Age for a man meant
fulfillment. The time came to every man when he must sit at the west
window of his house of life and look toward the sunset. If he faced that
sunset alone--

He heard Madeleine carrying down Natalie's dinner-tray, and when she
left the pantry she came to the door of the library.

"Mrs. Spencer would like to see you, sir."

"Thank you, Madeleine. I'll go up very soon."

Suddenly he knew that he did not want to go up to Natalie's scented
room. She had shut him out when she was in trouble. She had not cared
that he, too, was in distress. She had done her best to invalidate that
compact he had made. She had always invalidated him.

To go back to the old way, to the tribute she enforced to feed her
inordinate vanity, to the old hypocrisy of their relationship, to live
again the old lie, was impossible.

He got up. He would not try to buy himself happiness at the cost of
turning her adrift. But he must, some way, buy his self-respect.

He heard her then, on the staircase, that soft rustle which, it seemed
to him, had rasped the silk of his nerves all their years together with
its insistence on her dainty helplessness, her femininity, her right to
protection. The tap of her high heels came closer. He drew a long breath
and turned, determinedly smiling, to face the door.

Almost at once he saw that she was frightened. She had taken pains to
look her best--but then she always did that. She was rouged to the eyes,
and the floating white chiffon of her negligee gave to her slim body the
illusion of youth, that last illusion to which she so desperately clung.
But--she was frightened.

She stood in the doorway, one hand holding aside the heavy velvet
curtain, and looked at him with wide, penciled eyes.

"Clay?"

"Yes.