"I know something of your sloppy record," he continued, still shaking him; "I know about your lap-dog fawning around Miss Seagrave. It is generally understood that you're as sexless as any other of your kind. I thought so, too. Now I know you. Keep clear of me and mine, Dysart.... And that will be about all."
He left him planted against a tree and walked toward the lights once more, breathing heavily and in an ugly mood.
On the edge of the glade, just outside the lantern glow, he stood sombre, distrait, inspecting the torn lace on his sleeve, while all around him people were unmasking amid cries of surprise and shouts of laughter, and the orchestra was sounding a march, and multicoloured Bengal fires rolled in clouds from the water's edge, turning the woods to a magic forest and the people to tinted wraiths.
Behind him he heard Rosalie's voice, caressing, tormenting by turns; and, glancing around for her victim, beheld Grandcourt at heel in calflike adoration.
Kathleen's laughter swung him the other way.
"Oh, Duane," she cried, the pink of excitement in her cheeks, "isn't it all too heavenly! It looks like Paradise afire with all those rosy clouds rolling under foot. Have you ever seen anything quite as charming?"
"It's rotten," said Duane brusquely, tearing the tattered lace free and tossing it aside.
"Wh-what!" she exclaimed.
"I say it's all rotten," he repeated, looking up at her. "All this—the whole thing—the stupidity of it—the society that's driven to these kind of capers, dreading the only thing it ever dreads—ennui! Look at us all! For God's sake, survey us damn fools, herded here in our pinchbeck mummery—forcing the sanctuary of these decent green woods, polluting them with smoke and noise and dirty little intrigues! I'm sick of it!"
"Duane!"