He nodded, turned, and re-entered the ball-room. Mr. Ford, without
trusting himself to further speech, elbowed his way through the crowded
staircase to the street. But even there his strange anger, as well
as the equally strange remorse, which had seized him in McKinstry's
presence, seemed to evaporate in the clear moonlight and soft summer
air. There was the river-bank, with the tremulous river glancing through
the dreamy mist, as they had seen it from the window together. He even
turned to look back on the lighted ball-room, as if SHE might have been
looking out, too. But he knew he should see her again to-morrow, and
he hurriedly put aside all reserve, all thought of the future, all
examination of his conduct, to walk home enwrapped in the vaguer
pleasure of the past. Rupert Filgee, to whom he had never given a second
thought, now peacefully slumbering beside his baby brother, had not gone
home in more foolish or more dangerous company.

When he reached the hotel, he was surprised to find it only eleven
o'clock. No one had returned, the building was deserted by all but the
bar-keeper and a flirting chambermaid, who regarded him with aggrieved
astonishment. He began to feel very foolish, and half regretted that
he had not stayed to dance with Mrs. Tripp; or, at least, remained as
a quiet onlooker apart from the others. With a hasty excuse about
returning to write letters for the morning's post, he took a candle
and slowly remounted the stairs to his room. But on entering he found
himself unprepared for that singular lack of sympathy with which
familiar haunts always greet our new experiences; he could hardly
believe that he had left that room only two hours before; it seemed so
uncongenial and strange to the sensation that was still possessing him.
Yet there were his table, his books, his arm-chair, his bed as he had
left them; even a sticky fragment of gingerbread that had fallen from