“Have you reached it?”
“I'm going to, on the other side.”
And Clayton had smiled.
“You are going to reach it,” he said. “We are always going to find it, Nolan. It is always just ahead.”
And Nolan had given him one of his quick understanding glances.
There could be no Golden Age for him. For the Golden Age for a man meant fulfillment. The time came to every man when he must sit at the west window of his house of life and look toward the sunset. If he faced that sunset alone—
He heard Madeleine carrying down Natalie's dinner-tray, and when she left the pantry she came to the door of the library.
“Mrs. Spencer would like to see you, sir.”
“Thank you, Madeleine. I'll go up very soon.”
Suddenly he knew that he did not want to go up to Natalie's scented room. She had shut him out when she was in trouble. She had not cared that he, too, was in distress. She had done her best to invalidate that compact he had made. She had always invalidated him.