coldly. "There was no
time. But"--and she lowered her voice--"he wants to speak to me alone
presently. I'm going to him in the library after this dance."

She passed on, and Mrs. Sorrel, heaving a deep sigh, drew out a black
pocket-fan and fanned herself vigorously. Wreathing her face with social
smiles, she made her way slowly out of the supper-room, happily unaware
that Helmsley had been near enough to hear every word that had passed.
And hearing, he had understood; but he went on talking to his friends
in the quiet, rather slow way which was habitual to him, and when he
left them there was nothing about him to indicate that he was in a
suppressed state of nervous excitement which made him for the moment
quite forget that he was an old man. Impetuous youth itself never felt a
keener blaze of vitality in the veins than he did at that moment, but it
was the withering heat of indignation that warmed him--not the tender
glow of love. The clarion sweetness of the dance-music, now pealing
loudly on the air, irritated his nerves,--the lights, the flowers, the
brilliancy of the whole scene jarred upon his soul,--what was it all but
sham, he thought!--a show in the mere name of friendship!--an ephemeral
rose of pleasure with a worm at its core! Impatiently he shook himself
free of those who sought to detain him and went at once to his
library,--a sombre, darkly-furnished apartment, large enough to seem
gloomy by contrast with the gaiety and cheerfulness which were dominant
throughout the rest of the house that evening. Only two or three shaded
lamps were lit, and these cast a ghostly flicker on the row of books
that lined the walls. A few names in raised letters of gold relief upon
the backs of some of the volumes, asserted themselves, or so he fancied,
with unaccustomed prominence. "Montaigne," "Seneca," "Rochefoucauld,"
"Goethe," "Byron," and "The Sonnets of William Shakespeare," stood forth
from the surrounding darkness as though demanding special notice.

"Voices of the dead!" he murmured half aloud. "I should have learned
wisdom from you all long ago! What have the great geniuses of the world
lived for? For what purpose did they use their brains and pens? Simply
to teach mankind the folly of too much faith! Yet we continue to delude
ourselves--and the worst of it is that we do it wilfully and knowingly.
We are perfectly aware that when we trust, we shall be deceived--yet we
trust on! Even I--old and frail and about to di