sent for him by messenger earlier in the evening. Simmy was reluctant
about going down to the house off Washington Square; he was constituted as
one of those who shrink from the unwholesomeness of death rather than from
its terrors. He was fond of Anne, but in his soul he was abusing her for
summoning him to bear witness to the final translation of old Templeton
Thorpe from a warm, sensitive body, into a cold, unpleasant hulk. He had
no doubt that he had been sent for to see the old man die. While he would
not, for the world, have denied Anne in her hour of distress, he could not
help wishing that she had put the thing off till to-morrow. Death doesn't
appear so ugly in the daytime. One is spared the feeling that it is
stealing up through the darkness of night to lay claim to its prey.

Simmy shivered a little as he stood in front of Sherry's waiting for his
car to come up. He made up his mind then and there that when it came time
for him to die he would see to it that he did not do it in the night. For,
despite the gay lights of the city, there were always sombre shadows for
one to be jerked into by the relentless hand of death; there was something
appalling about being dragged off into a darkness that was to be
dissipated at sunrise, instead of lasting forever.

He left behind him in one of the big private diningrooms a brilliant,
high-spirited company of revellers. One of Mrs. Fenwick's guests was Lutie
Tresslyn. He sat opposite her at one of the big round tables, and for an
hour he had watched with moody eyes her charming, vivacious face as she
conversed with the men on either side of her. She was as cool, as self-
contained as any woman at the table. There was nothing to indicate that
she had not been born to this estate of velvet, unless the freshness of
her cheek and the brightness of her eye betrayed her by contrast with the
unmistakable haggardness of "the real thing."

She was unafraid. All at once Simmy was proud of her. He felt the thrill
of something he could not on the moment define, but which he afterwards
put down as patriotism! It was just the sort of thrill, he argued, that
you have when the band plays at West Point and you see the cadets come
marching toward you with their heads up and their chests out,--the thrill
that leaves a smothering, unuttered cheer in your throat.

He thought of Anne Tresslyn too, and smiled to himself. This was Anne
Tresslyn's set, not Lutie's, and yet here she was, a trim