away unopened; he
could not bear to read them now.

The French clock in his bedroom struck eight. He closed and locked
his desk, stood looking at it blankly for a moment; then he squared
his shoulders. An envelope lay open on the desk beside him.

"Oh--yes," he said aloud, but scarcely heard his own voice.

The envelope enclosed an invitation from one, Camilla Lent, to a
theatre party for that evening, and a dance afterward.

He had a vague idea that he had accepted.

The play was "The Seven Sisters" at Laura, Keene's Theatre. The
dance was somewhere--probably at Delmonico's. If he were going, it
was time he was afoot.

His eyes wandered from one familiar object to another; he moved
restlessly, and began to roam through the richly furnished rooms.
But to Berkley nothing in the world seemed familiar any longer; and
the strangeness of it, and the solitude were stupefying him.

When he became tired trying to think, he made the tour again in a
stupid sort of way, then rang for his servant, Burgess, and started
mechanically about his dressing.

Nothing any longer seemed real, not even pain.

He rang for Burgess again, but the fellow did not appear. So he
dressed without aid. And at last he was ready; and went out, drunk
with fatigue and the reaction from pain.

He did not afterward remember how he came to the theatre.
Presently he found himself in a lower tier box, talking to a Mrs.
Paige who, curiously, miraculously, resembled the girlish portraits
of his mother--or he imagined so--until he noticed that her hair
was yellow and her eyes blue. And he laughed crazily to himself,
inwardly convulsed; and then his own voice sounded again, low,
humorous, caressingly modulated; and he listened to it, amused that
he was able to speak at all.

"And so you are the wonderful Ailsa Paige," he heard himself
repeating. "Camilla wrote me that I must beware of my peace of
mind the moment I first set eyes on you----"

"Camilla Lent is supremely silly, Mr. Berkley----"

"Camilla is a sibyl. This night my peace of mind departed for
ever."

"May I offer you a little of mine?"

"I may ask more than that of you?"

"You mean a dance?"

"More than one."

"How many?"

"All of them. How many will you give me?"

"One. Please look at the stage. Isn't Laura Keene bewitching?"

"Your voice is."

"Such nonsense. Besides, I'd rather hear what Laura Keene is
saying than listen to you."

"Do you mean it?"

"In