ut a sudden impulse made Corliss
step up to her. It was wholly unpremeditated; he had not dreamed of
doing it.

"I am very sorry," he said.

Her eyes flashed angrily as she turned upon him.

"I mean it," he repeated, holding out his hand. "I am very sorry. I
was a brute and a coward. Will you forgive me?"

She hesitated, and, with the wisdom bought of experience, searched him
for the ulterior motive. Then, her face softened, and she took his
hand. A warm mist dimmed her eyes.

"Thank you," she said.

But the waiting men had grown impatient, and she was whirled away in
the arms of a handsome young fellow, conspicuous in a cap of yellow
Siberian wolf-skin. Corliss came back to his companion, feeling
unaccountably good and marvelling at what he had done.

"It's a damned shame." The colonel's eye still followed Lucile, and
Vance understood. "Corliss, I've lived my threescore, and lived them
well, and do you know, woman is a greater mystery than ever. Look at
them, look at them all!" He embraced the whole scene with his eyes.
"Butterflies, bits of light and song and laughter, dancing, dancing
down the last tail-reach of hell. Not only Lucile, but the rest of
them. Look at May, there, with the brow of a Madonna and the tongue of
a gutter-devil. And Myrtle--for all the world one of Gainsborough's
old English beauties stepped down from the canvas to riot out the
century in Dawson's dance-halls. And Laura, there, wouldn't she make a
mother? Can't you see the child in the curve of her arm against her
breast! They're the best of the boiling, I know,--a new country always
gathers the best,--but there's something wrong, Corliss, something
wrong. The heats of life have passed with me, and my vision is truer,
surer. It seems a new Christ must arise and preach a new
salvation--economic or sociologic--in these latter days, it matters
not, so long as it is preached. The world has need of it."

The room was wont to be swept by sudden tides, and notably between the
dances, when the revellers ebbed through the great doorway to where
corks popped and glasses tinkled. Colonel Trethaway and Corliss
followed out on the next ebb to the bar, where fifty men and women were
lined up. They found themselves next to Lucile and the fellow in the
yellow wolf-skin cap. He was undeniably handsome, and his looks were
enhanced by a warm overplus of blood in the cheeks and a certain mellow
fire in the eyes. He was not techn