known it; but he was able to appreciate what it might be in
a man's life. He no longer scorned love, or the woman he was able to
imagine--a tender loveliness never out of a slightly formal beauty.
For her the service parts of the house would have no existence; and,
strangely, he gave no consideration to children.

It wasn't that he minded loneliness; that was not an unmixed evil,
especially for a man whose existence was chiefly spun from memories,
speculations, and conditioned by the knowledge that he had had the
best of life, its fullest measure, at the beginning. He had never
again seen a woman like La Clavel, a friend who could compare with
Andres, wickedness such as Pilar's, days and players as brilliant as
those of Havana before, well--before he had passed fifty. If the trade
winds still blew, tempering the magnificence of the Cuban nights, they
no longer blew for him. But Havana, as well, had changed.

The piano next door took up, where it had been dropped, the jota from
Liszt's Rhapsody Espagnol. It rippled and sang for a moment and then
ended definitely for the night. Other dancers, Charles reasonably
supposed, continued the passionate art of that lyric passage; he read
of them, coming from Spain to the United States for no other purpose.
He had no doubt about their capability, and no wish to see them. They
would do for Howard Gage. What if he, instead of Charles Abbott, had
been at the Tacon Theatre the night Andres had died? That was an
interesting variation of the old question--what, in his predicament,
would Howard Gage have done? Walked away, probably, holding his
purpose undamaged! But Andres could never have loved Howard Gage;
Andres, for his attachment, required warmth, intensity, the ornamental
forms of honor; poetry, briefly. That lost romantic time, that day in
immaculate white linen with a spray of mimosa in its buttonhole!

There were some flowers, Charles recalled, standing on the table in
the hall, dahlias; and he walked out and drew one into the lapel of
his coat. It was without scent, just as, now, life was unscented; yet,
surveying himself in the mirror over the vase, he saw that the
sombreness of his attire was lightened by the spot of red. Nothing,
though, could give vividness to his countenance, that was dry and
dull, scored with lines that resembled traces of dust. The moustache
across his upper lip was faded and brittle. It was of no account; if
he had lacked ultimately the courage, the