and small the evidence, it essentially fitted in. It had for my
imagination a value, for my theory a price, and it in fact constituted
an impression under the influence of which this theory, just impatiently
shaken off, perched again on my shoulders. It was of the deepest
interest to me to see Long in such detachment, in such apparent
concentration. These things marked and presented him more than any had
yet done, and placed him more than any yet in relation to other matters.
They showed him, I thought, as serious, his situation as grave. I
couldn't have said what they proved, but I was as affected by them as if
they proved everything. The proof simply acted from the instant the
vision of him alone there in the warm darkness was caught. It was just
with all that was in the business that he _was_, that he had fitfully
needed to be, alone. Nervous and restless after separating, under my
eyes, from Mrs. Briss, he had wandered off to the smoking-room, as yet
empty; _he_ didn't know what to do either, and was incapable of bed and
of sleep. He had observed the communication of the smoking-room with the
terrace and had come out into the air; this was what suited him, and,
with pauses and meditations, much, possibly, by this time to turn over,
he prolonged his soft vigil. But he at last moved, and I found myself
startled. I gave up watching and retraced my course. I felt, none the
less, fairly humiliated. It had taken but another turn of an eye to
re-establish all my connections.

I had not, however, gone twenty steps before I met Ford Obert, who had
entered the corridor from the other end and was, as he immediately let
me know, on his way to the smoking-room.

"Is everyone then dispersing?"

"Some of the men, I think," he said, "are following me; others, I
believe--wonderful creatures!--have gone to array themselves. Others
still, doubtless, have gone to bed."

"And the ladies?"

"Oh, they've floated away--soared aloft; to high jinks--isn't that the
idea?--in their own quarters. Don't they too, at these hours, practise
sociabilities of sorts? They make, at any rate, here, an extraordinary
picture on that great staircase."

I thought a moment. "I wish I had seen it. But I do see it.
Yes--splendid. Is the place wholly cleared of them?"

"Save, it struck me, so far as they may have left some 'black plume as a
token'----"

"Not, I trust," I returned, "of any 'lie' their 'soul hath spoken!' But
not one of them lingers?"