Far down the corridor of the old hotel, he turned once, looking back furtively over his shoulder....
Vivian reappeared in his office, to be greeted with a grin by Sam O'Neill, who, having just thrown his cigar-end into the ruined fireplace, was ready to go.
"'Nother beggar, hey?"
"No--no ... Oh, no!" said the doctor, hastily. "Just a--ah--sort of a fellow wanted to see me ..."
He halted in the middle of the room; stood absently pushing back his hair; and his gaze, turned toward the window, became introspective, a little dreamy....
"What we were speaking of, Sam.... Just to show you I'm not so opinionated--so eccentric--as you seem to think. I read a great little thing the other day.... In a magazine article, it was, describing one of those so-called public balls--in Chicago, this one was. You know the sort of thing--an orgy: rounders and roués, young cheap sports, old rakes, all the demi-monde, rivers of alcohol.... Drunken women kicking men's hats off and lying where they fell.... Regular bacchanalia. Well, about one o'clock two men in evening clothes came into the gallery and stood looking down into that--maelstrom of infamous faces.... Then one of them said: 'John the Baptist would have 'em all grovelling in three minutes' ..."
He had told his story with a certain youthful expectancy, the air of one who confides, counting upon a delicate understanding. But Sam O'Neill, though perfectly willing to be delicate, could only say, after an anti-climacteric pause: "Is that right? Well, that bunch needed to grovel all right"--which was a little vague, say what you would of it, chilling somewhat....
"Well, what's your coryphées' ball but life?" muttered Vivian, knocking the ashes from the dead pipe he had been holding....
And then, turning away with the fire gone out of him, he added:
"All I say about these people is they'd be so much happier with their shells hammered off. What's getting rich but building a wall between yourself and the great common?... Seems to me God meant us all to be citizens of the world ..."