So completely did this mood absorb him that he started nervously to find Jules Thessaly standing beside his chair. Thessaly had walked in from the garden and he carried a flat-crowned black felt hat in his hand.
"If I have intruded upon a rich vein of reflection forgive me."
Paul turned and looked at the strong massive figure outlined against the bright panel of the open window. The influence of that mood of age lingered; he felt lonely and apprehensive. He noticed a number of empty flower vases about the room. Yvonne used to keep them always freshly filled. He wondered when she had ceased to do so and why. "You have rescued me from a mood that was almost suicidal, Thessaly. A horrible recognition of the futility of striving oppresses me this morning. I seem to be awaiting a blow which I know myself powerless to avert. If we were at your place I should prescribe a double 'Fra Diavolo' but, failing this, I think something with a fizz in it must suffice. Will you give the treatment a trial?"
"With pleasure. Let it be a stirrup-cup, or, as our northern friends have it, a doch-an-dorroch."
Paul stood up and stared at Thessaly. "Do I understand you to mean that you are about to set out upon a journey?"
"I am, Mario. Like Eugene Sue's tedious Jew, I am cursed with a lack of repose. I sail for New York to-morrow or the following day."
"Shall you be long absent?"
"I cannot say with any certainty. There seems to be nothing further for me to do in England at present. I feel that England has ceased to be the pivot of the world. I am turning my attention to America, not without sparing a side glance for the island kingdom of the Mikado. You know how unobtrusive I am, Mario; I am taking no letter of introduction to President Wilson, nor if I visit Japan shall I trouble official Tokio. Mine is a lazy life, but not an idle one. I am an enthusiastic onlooker."
Paul gazed at him reproachfully. "You never even warned me of your projected journey, Thessaly. Do you leave all your friends with equally slight regret?"
Thessaly gazed into the peculiar hat, and something in the pose of his head transported Paul to the hills above Lower Charleswood, where, backed by the curtain of a moving storm, he seemed to see Babylon Hall framed in a rainbow which linked the crescent of the hills. "You misjudge me," replied Thessaly. "What I have said is true, but I go in response to a sudden and unforeseen summons. Death and a frail woman have tricked me, and at one stroke have undone all that I had done. I am compelled to go."