glittered above the expanse of whirling crinoline and blue coats,
vermilion turbans, gilt feathers and flowered hair. The light fell on
shoulders as white and elegantly sloping as alabaster vases, draped in
rose and citron, in blanched illusion frosted and looped with silver; on
bouquets of camellias swinging from jewelled chains against ruffled and
belled skirts swaying about the revealed symmetry of lacy silk stockings
and fragile slippers. "Ah, Jasper," Stephen Jannan said; "in our time,
what! Do you remember your first Wellington boots? The gambling room and
veranda at Saratoga? Tender eyes, old boy, and little tapering hands."
Jasper Penny replied, "It seems my hair is grey." Silence fell on them
as they entered the dining room. A long table was burdened with
elaborate pagodas of spun barley sugar topped with sprigs of orange
blossom, the moulded creams of a Charlotte Polonaise, champagne jelly
valanced with lemon peel, pyramids of glazed fruits on lacquered plates;
with faintly iridescent Belleek and fluted glass and ormolu; and,
everywhere, the pale multitudinous flames of candles and the fuller
radiance of astral lamps hung with lustres. Jasper Penny idly tore open
a bon bon wrapped in a verse on fringed paper,

"Viens! Viens! ange du ciel, je t'aime! je t'aime!
Et te le dire ici, c'est le bonheur supreme."

Love and the great hour of life! He had missed both; one, perhaps, with
the other. His marriage to Phebe, except for a brief flare at the
beginning, had been as empty as the affair with Essie Scofield. God, how
hollow living seemed! He had missed something; or else existence was an
ugly deception, the false lure of an incomprehensible jest. The music
beat in faint, mocking waves on his hearing, the lights of the supper
shone in the gold bubbles of his wine glass. He drained it hurriedly.
Outside the night, lying cold on deserted squares, blurred with gas