coxcombry resumed
its sway. "You see," said he, with a consummate air of reserve, "you
know nothing about the affair at all, Randolph."

"You'd much better drop the subject, Thorpe," I remarked: "I assure you
it's much safer let alone."

I contrived to live through the long hours of the day. At sunset we
drove back to the Point, I giving up my seat in Mrs. Woodruff's barouche
to a lady and joining Frank Woolsey and Thorpe in a dog-cart. We none of
us spoke, but smoked incessantly, our eyes upturned to the sky, which
was lovely, mystical, wonderful, with the pale after-glow thrilling it
with the most beautiful hues. Before we had reached the town a strange
yellow moonlight had crept over the landscape, making the trees gloom
together in solemn masses, while the sea glimmered in a thousand lines
of trembling light away, away into remote horizons. We all enjoyed the
drive, although none of us spoke until we got down from the cart at the
steps of the hotel.

"That was the best part of the day," observed my cousin Frank. "What
good times we fellows might have if there were no women to disturb us!"

Thorpe growled some inarticulate assent or dissent, as the case might
be, and went up to his room, while Frank and I had our cigars out on the
piazza.

A dance at Mrs. Woodruff's was to follow the picnic, and thither we
resorted about ten o'clock and found the chairs placed for a German.
Georgy Lenox was there, radiant in a ravishing toilette, waiting for
Frank to lead the cotillon with her. She nodded to me pleasantly as she
took her seat. I was angry with myself for my disappointment, doubly
angry with her for causing it. It cost me my self-respect to be so
utterly at her mercy. What did I gain by following her into this gay
coterie but pang upon pang of humiliation and pain? Why did I come,
indeed? It was not the first time she had broken her promises to me. Yet
what could I expect of her? Bright, gay, dazzling creature that she was,
warm and eager in her love of vigorous life, could she sit down with me
in a corner and talk while the rest of the world palpitated and glowed
and whirled around her to the music of the waltz, which stirred even my
crippled limbs with a wild wish for voluptuous swaying motion in rhythm
with the melodious melancholy strain? No, I could not blame her: I was
merely out of my place. Let me go home and remember what a gulf of
disparity separated me from my fellows.

So I walked out of the house