atmosphere of the room had by no means
attained the level reached by Leigh and Emmet alone, not only because
of the restless presence of Cobbens, which refused to harmonise with
the idea of sublimity, but also because, in any such gathering, the
tendency is downward toward the plane of the most frivolous and
common-place person present. The jest about the class, intermittently
revived, had reduced the stars to pretty baubles or, at most, to the
fairy lamps of fanciful verse, in spite of figures of distance that
grew more and more stupendous. But now a sudden hush fell upon them;
it might have been a tardy appreciation, or the mere emotional reaction
from little talk. For the moment Leigh forgot that they were not
alone, and almost unconsciously he spoke the thought that had flashed
from her eyes to his: "A thousand years in thy sight are but as
yesterday, seeing that it is past as a watch in the night."

The situation had grown suddenly and unexpectedly dramatic. It was as
if a troupe of revellers had torn aside a curtain in their mad rush,
and had come face to face with the silence and blackness of an abyss.
Miss Wycliffe rose from the chair as if starting back from such a
vision, and though her tone, when she spoke, was light, it was
apparently so by design.

"If you insist upon quoting from the Burial Service, Mr. Leigh, I shall
take it as a hint to go home at once."

"And it's time we did," Cobbens put in. "We 're much obliged to you,
sir. We 've had a charming time, and owe you a vote of thanks."

When Leigh had lighted them downstairs, he ascended once more to his
cabin, tortured by an acute self-consciousness. The evening had been
far from satisfactory; never had the difference between anticipation
and realisation been more impressively illustrated. In his afternoon
dreams he had not considered Miss Wycliffe's companions, except as
shadows, and it was they who had disturbed what would otherwise have
been a charmed atmosphere. His quotation would have been natural had
he been alone with the woman he loved, but in that company it seemed
inept and melodramatic, deserving the rebuke she so easily
administered. In his humiliation he thought that he must have appeared
extremely youthful in her eyes, one who could not conceal his emotions
before the gaze of the curious and shallow. Could he have overheard
the conversation which took place between Cobbens and Miss Wycliffe on
their way home, his distress