knew he
would never again fling his terrible nets broadcast for vast hauls of
golden fish, knew his days were numbered and that the number was small.
But, instead of this making him feel sympathetic and equal toward his
master, thus unmasked as mere galvanized clay, it filled him with greater
awe; for, to the Vagens, Death seems to wear a special costume and walk
with grander step to summon the rich and the high.

"Yes, I'll go--this very afternoon," said Whitney more loudly, turning
his face toward the door through which came a faint feminine
rustling--the _froufrou_ of the finest, softest silk and finest,
softest linen.

He looked attentively at his wife as she crossed the threshold--looked
with eyes that saw mercilessly but indifferently, the eyes of those who
are out of the game of life, out for good and all, and so care nothing
about it. He noted in her figure--in its solidity, its settledness--the
signs of age the beauty doctors were still almost successful in keeping
out of that masklike face which was their creation rather than nature's;
he noted the rough-looking red of that hair whose thinness was not
altogether concealed despite the elaborate care with which it was
arranged to give the impression of careless abundance. He noted her
hands; his eyes did not linger there, for the hands had the wrinkles and
hollows and age marks which but for art would have been in the face, and
they gave him a feeling--he could not have defined it, but it made him
shudder. His eyes rested again upon her face, with an expression of pity
that was slightly satirical. This struggle of hers seemed so petty and
silly to him now; how could any human being think any other fact
important when the Great Fact hung from birth threateningly over all?

"You feel worse to-day, dear?" said she, in the tones that sound
carefully attuned to create an impression of sympathy. Hers had now
become the mechanically saccharine voice which sardonic time ultimately
fastens upon the professionally sympathetic to make them known and mocked
of all, even of the vainest seekers after sympathy.

"On the contrary, I feel better," he drawled, eyes half-shut. "No pain at
all. But--horribly weak, as if I were going to faint in a minute or
two--and I don't give a damn for anything." There was a personal fling
in that last word, an insinuation that he knew her state of mind toward
him, and reciprocated.

"Well, to-morrow Janet and her baby will be here," said M