It was not yet dawn, however, for the clocks were only striking three as the assembly, in winter coats and soft wraps, fluttered out to its carriages, chattering and laughing, with endless good-nights in the languages of France, Germany, and Spain.

The streets were as nearly deserted as they ever are; here and there a lumbering market-wagon from Jersey, an occasional street-car with its tinkling bell, rarer still the rush of a trembling train on the elevated, the voice of a belated reveler, a flitting female figure at a street corner, the roll of a livery hack over the ragged pavement.  But mainly the noise of the town was hushed, and in the sharp air the stars, far off and uncontaminated, glowed with a pure lustre.

Farther up town it was quite still, and in one of the noble houses in the neighborhood of the Park sat Edith Delancy, married not quite a year, listening for the roll of wheels and the click of a night-key.

II

Everybody liked John Corlear Delancy, and this in spite of himself, for no one ever knew him to make any effort to incur either love or hate.  The handsome boy was a favorite without lifting his eyebrows, and he sauntered through the university, picking his easy way along an elective course, winning the affectionate regard of every one with whom he came in contact.  And this was not because he lacked quality, or was merely easy-going and negative or effeminate, for the same thing happened to him when he went shooting in the summer in the Rockies.  The cowboys and the severe moralists of the plains, whose sedate business in life is to get the drop on offensive persons, regarded him as a brother.  It isn’t a bad test of personal quality, this power to win the loyalty of men who have few or none of the conventional virtues.  These non-moral enforcers of justice—­as they understood it liked Jack exactly as his friends in the New York clubs liked him—­and perhaps the moral standard of approval of the one was as good as the other.

Jack was a very good shot and a fair rider, and in the climate of England he might have taken first-rate rank in athletics.  But he had never taken first-rate rank in anything, except good-fellowship.  He had a great many expensive tastes, which he could not afford to indulge, except in imagination.  The luxury of a racing-stable, or a yacht, or a library of scarce books bound by Paris craftsmen was denied him.  Those who account for failures in life by a man’s circumstances, and not by a lack in the man himself, which is always the secret of failure, said that Jack was unfortunate in coming into a certain income of twenty thousand a year.  This was just enough to paralyze effort, and not enough to permit a man to expand in any direction.  It is true that he was related to millions and moved in a millionaire atmosphere, but these millions might never flow into his bank account.  They were not in hand to use, and they also helped to paralyze effort—­like black clouds of an impending shower that may pass around, but meantime keeps the watcher indoors.