iless, and what has been is
without pity; and so remembrance rose at midnight from its cerements,
like a spectre, floating before his covered eyes, wearing the shape of
youth and love, crowned with the splendour of _her_ hair, looking at him
out of those clear, sweet eyes whose gaze was purity and truth eternal.

And truth is truth, though he might lie with hands clinched across his
brow to shut out the wraith of it that haunted him; though he might set
his course by the faith that was in him, and put away the hope of the
world--whose hope is love--the truth was there, staring, staring at him
out of Eileen Erroll's dark-blue eyes.

* * * * *

He had seen her seldom that winter. When he had seen her their relations
appeared to be as happy, as friendly as before; there was no apparent
constraint, nothing from her to indicate that she noticed an absence for
which his continual business with the Government seemed sufficient
excuse.

Besides, her days were full days, consequent upon Nina's goading and
indefatigable activity; and Eileen danced and received, and she bridged
and lunched, and she heard opera Wednesdays and was good to the poor on
Fridays; and there were balls, and theatres, and classes for
intellectual improvement, and routine duties incident to obligations
born with those inhabitants of Manhattan who are numbered among the
thousand caryatides that support upon their jewelled necks and naked
shoulders the social structure of the metropolis.

But Selwyn, unable longer to fulfil his social obligations, was being
quietly eliminated from the social scheme of things. Passed over here,
dropped there, counted out as one more man not to be depended upon, it
was not a question of loss of caste; he simply stayed away, and his
absence was accepted by people who, in the breathless pleasure chase,
have no leisure to inquire why a man has lagged behind.

There were rumours, however, that he had merely temporarily donned
overalls for the purpose of making a gigantic fortune; and many an
envious young fellow asked his pretty partner in the dance if it was
true, and many a young girl frankly hoped it was, and that the fortune
would be quick in the making. For Selwyn was well liked in the younger
set, and that he was in process of becoming eligible interested
everybody except Gladys and the Minster twins, who considered him
sufficiently eligible without the material additions required by their