and viciousness and my
stupidity and my money at my heels. I tell you, Kathleen, this is no
good. There's a stench of money everywhere; there's a staler aroma in
the air, too--the dubious perfume of decadence, of moral atrophy, of
stupid recklessness, of the ennui that breeds intrigue! I'm deadly tired
of it--of the sort of people I was born among; of their women folk,
whose sole intellectual relaxation is in pirouetting along the danger
mark without overstepping, and in concealing it when they do; of the
overgroomed men who can do nothing except what can be done with money,
who think nothing, know nothing, sweat nothing but money and what it can
buy--like horses and yachts and prima donnas----"

She uttered a shocked exclamation, but he went on:

"Yes, prima donnas. Which of our friends was it who bought that pretty
one that sang in 'La Esmeralda'?"

"Duane!" she exclaimed in consternation; but he took her protesting
hands in his and held her powerless.

"You happen to be a darling," he said; "but you were not born to this
environment. Geraldine was--and she is a darling. God bless her. Outside
of my sister, Naida, and you two--with the exception of the newly
fledged and as yet mercifully unregurgitated with vicious wisdom--who
are all these people? Ciphers, save for their balances at their banks;
nameless, save for the noisy reiteration of their hard-fisted forebears'
names; without any ambition, except financial and social; without any
objective, save the escape from ennui--without any taste, culture,
inspiration, except that of physical gratification! Oh, Lord, I'm one of
them, but I resign to-night."

"Duane, you're quite mad," she said, wrenching her hands free and gazing
at him rather fearfully.

"I think he's dead sensible," said a calm voice at her elbow; and Scott
Seagrave appeared, twirling his mask and blinking at them through his
spectacles.

Duane laughed: "Of course I am, you old reptile-hunting,
butterfly-chasing antediluvian! But, come on; Byzantium is gorging its
diamond-swathed girth yonder with salad and champagne; and I'm hungry,
even if Kathleen isn't----"

"I _am_!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Scott, can't you find Naida and
Geraldine? Duane and I will keep a table until you return----"

"I'll find them," said Duane; and he walked off among the noisy,
laughing groups, his progress greeted uproariously from table to table.
He found Naida and Bunbury Gray, and they at once departed for th