* * *

The vision passed--music ceased--the dance was ended. Sentiment
vanished--reason reigned once more.

He was a fool! a fool! to think of her, to dream of the past, even. But
it is pleasant, sometimes, to be a fool--where a beautiful woman is
concerned, and only one's self to pay the piper.

XIV

THE SYMPHONY IN BLUE

Macloud arrived the next day, bringing for his host a great batch of
mail, which had accumulated at the Club.

"I thought of it at the last moment--when I was starting for the
station, in fact," he remarked. "The clerk said he had no instructions
for forwarding, so I just poked it in my bag and brought it along.
Stupid of me not to think of it sooner. Why didn't you mention it? I
can understand why you didn't leave an address, but not why I shouldn't
forward it."

"I didn't care, when I left--and I don't care much, now--but I'm
obliged, just the same!" said Croyden. "It's something to do; the most
exciting incident of the day, down here, is the arrival of the mail.
The people wait for it, with bated breath. I am getting in the way,
too, though I don't get much.... I never did have any extensive
correspondence, even in Northumberland--so this is just circulars and
such trash."

He took the package, which Macloud handed him, and tossed it on the
desk.

"What's new?" he asked.

"In Northumberland? Nothing--beyond the usual thing. Everybody is
back--everybody is hard up or says he is--everybody is full of lies,
as usual, and is turning them loose on anyone who will listen,
credulous or sophisticated, it makes no difference. It's the telling,
not the believing that's the thing. Oh! the little cad Mattison is
engaged--Charlotte Brundage has landed him, and the wedding is set for
early next month."

"I don't envy her the job," Croyden remarked.

"It won't bother her!" Macloud laughed. "She'll be privileged to draw
on his bank account, and that's the all important thing with her. He
will fracture the seventh commandment, and she won't turn a hair. She
is a chilly proposition, all right."

"Well, I wish her joy of her bargain," said Croyden. "May she have
everything she wants, and see Mattison not at all, after the wedding
journey--and but very occasionally, then."

He took up the letters and ran carelessly through them.

"Trash! Trash! Trash!" he commented, as he consigned them, one by one,
to the waste-basket.

Macloud watched him, languidly, behind his cigar