observation, he could both hear and see the merriment that was now at
its height within. A soft, sleepy sort of breeze was blowing from the
water, and now and then heated participators of the dance drew near the
little windows to catch the cool breath of heaven as it stole in.

Guy sat silently and pensively smoking his expensive cigars, planning
and plotting all sorts of things to the accompaniment of bewitching
strains of twittering waltz music and peals of merry laughter from
within. He became distracted now and then in spite of himself, wandering
away from his important mental problems to yield to the influence of
association and remembrance which stole over him in a sad sort of
pleasant way. Here was just the kind of evening he had _once_ enjoyed
immensely, and might possibly enjoy again; there were all the same faces
he had seen countless times upon countless occasions before laughing and
chatting merrily. One or two couples out of the crowd who had been in
the first grade of love-sickness when he last saw them, now seemed to
belong more emphatically to one-another than before, and the sadder but
wiser looking fellows who followed some of these developed ladies about
gallantly, were loaded with satchels and shawls and other feminine
tackle which strangely became them in Guy's eyes; they danced less,
flirted less than they used in Guy's days, but then matrimony has its
martyrs and its sacrifices, like every other institution, and the thorns
and roses grow on the one branch. Some are unfortunate enough indeed in
culling the matrimonial nosegay, for very soon the over-mature rose
falls in withered beauty to the ground, leaf by leaf, and the
disconsolate admirer stands open-mouthed and sorry, with a bare stalk of
healthy thorns between his finger and thumb, but it is mostly his own
doing, for even if his fair enchantress has spared him the disagreeable
necessity of "popping the question," she had left him the power to
decline.