Hamil, who, chair pushed back, had been listlessly watching the orchestra, roused himself and turned to his aunt and Wayward.

“You want to go, Garry?” said Constance calmly.  “I’ll walk a little with James before I compose my aged bones to slumber....  Good night, dear.  Will you come again soon?”

He said he would and took his leave of them in the long corridor, traversing it without noticing which direction he took until, awaking from abstraction, he found himself at the head of a flight of steps and saw the portico of the railroad station below him and the signal lamps, green and red and white, burning between the glistening rails.

Without much caring where he went, but not desiring to retrace his steps over half a mile or so of carpet, he went out into the open air and along the picket fence toward the lake front.

As he came to the track crossing he glanced across at the Beach Club where lights sparkled discreetly amid a tropical thicket and flowers lay in pale carpets under the stars.

Portlaw had sent him a member’s card; he took it out now and scanned it with faint curiosity.  His name was written on the round-cornered brown card signed by a “vice-president” and a “secretary,” under the engraved notice:  “To be shown when requested.”

But when he ascended the winding walk among the palms and orange blossoms, this “suicide’s tag,” as Malcourt called it, was not demanded of him at the door.

The restaurant seemed to be gay and rather noisy, the women vivacious, sometimes beautiful, and often respectable.  A reek of cigarette smoke, wine, and orange blossoms hung about the corridors; the tiny glittering rotunda with its gaming-tables in a circle was thronged.

He watched them lose and win and lose again.  Under the soft tumult of voices the cool tones of the house attaches sounded monotonously, the ball rattled, the wheels spun.  But curiosity had already died out within him; gain, loss, chance, Fate—­and the tense white concentration of the man beside him no longer interested him; nor did a sweet-faced young girl in the corridor who looked a second too long at him; nor the handsome over-flushed youth who was with her and who cried out in loud recognition:  “Gad, Hamil; why didn’t you tell me you were coming?  There’s somebody here who wants to meet you, but Portlaw’s got her—­somewhere.  You’ll take supper with us anyway!  We’ll find you a fair impenitent.”

Hamil stared at him coolly.  He was on no such terms with Malcourt, drunk or sober.  But everybody was Malcourt’s friend just then, and he went on recklessly: 

“You’ve got to stay; hasn’t he, Dolly?—­Oh, I forgot—­Miss Wilming, Mr. Hamil, who’s doing the new park, you know.  All kinds of genius buzzes in his head—­roulette wheels buzz in mine.  Hamil, you remember Miss Wilming in the ‘Motor Girl.’  She was one of the acetylenes.  Come on; we’ll all light up later.  Make him come, Dolly.”