a sharp wind nips off a perfect flower.  This new feeling was but a fever, a passionate fancy, a grasping once more at Youth and Warmth.  Ah, well! but it was real enough!  And, in one of those moments when a man stands outside himself, seems to be lifted away and see his own life twirling, Lennan had a vision of a shadow driven here and there; a straw going round and round; a midge in the grip of a mad wind.  Where was the home of this mighty secret feeling that sprang so suddenly out of the dark, and caught you by the throat?  Why did it come now and not then, for this one and not that other?  What did man know of it, save that it made him spin and hover—­like a moth intoxicated by a light, or a bee by some dark sweet flower; save that it made of him a distraught, humble, eager puppet of its fancy?  Had it not once already driven him even to the edge of death; and must it now come on him again with its sweet madness, its drugging scent?  What was it?  Why was it?  Why these passionate obsessions that could not decently be satisfied?  Had civilization so outstripped man that his nature was cramped into shoes too small—­like the feet of a Chinese woman?  What was it?  Why was it?

And faster than ever he walked away.

Pall Mall brought him back to that counterfeit presentment of the real—­reality.  There, in St. James’s Street, was Johnny Dromore’s Club; and, again moved by impulse, he pushed open its swing door.  No need to ask; for there was Dromore in the hall, on his way from dinner to the card-room.  The glossy tan of hard exercise and good living lay on his cheeks as thick as clouted cream.  His eyes had the peculiar shine of superabundant vigour; a certain sub-festive air in face and voice and movements suggested that he was going to make a night of it.  And the sardonic thought flashed through Lennan:  Shall I tell him?

“Hallo, old chap!  Awfully glad to see you!  What you doin’ with yourself?  Workin’ hard?  How’s your wife?  You been away?  Been doin’ anything great?” And then the question that would have given him his chance, if he had liked to be so cruel: 

“Seen Nell?”

“Yes, she came round this afternoon.”

“What d’you think of her?  Comin’ on nicely, isn’t she?”

That old query, half furtive and half proud, as much as to say:  ’I know she’s not in the stud-book, but, d—­n it, I sired her!’ And then the old sudden gloom, which lasted but a second, and gave way again to chaff.

Lennan stayed very few minutes.  Never had he felt farther from his old school-chum.

No.  Whatever happened, Johnny Dromore must be left out.  It was a position he had earned with his goggling eyes, and his astute philosophy; from it he should not be disturbed.

He passed along the railings of the Green Park.  On the cold air of this last October night a thin haze hung, and the acrid fragrance from little bonfires of fallen leaves.  What was there about that scent of burned-leaf smoke that had always moved him so?  Symbol of parting!—­that most mournful thing in all the world.  For what would even death be, but for parting?  Sweet, long sleep, or new adventure.  But, if a man loved others—­to leave them, or be left!  Ah! and it was not death only that brought partings!