The sun had set and he had turned none of the lights on. The gloom of dusk settled, blanketing his body with darkness and his mind with despair.
If Fran—If. A meaningless word now. If Fran had only accepted him—if he could control his own emotions as easily as the magic-show flames he had donned! But he had feared to surrender himself to any emotion, he had given too little of himself to Fran—and when the moment of his need came, she had nothing of him that could call him back safe from the borderland of bleak despair.
He wasn't fit. Like a baby given a straight razor, he could not cope with his gift, and the outcome was inevitable. There was only one answer.
Best do it now.
Suddenly the darkness was pierced by flames, a flickering, growing fire which enveloped and covered his body. His clothes vanished in a flare of flame, spreading to and attacking the soft upholstery of the chair.
A small thing to salvage, his ego. But this was the grandiose way, the big way—for the big failure.
He sat for long moments, crowned in golden flames, lost in contemplation of the streams of superheated glowing ions radiated from the burning carbon. Then the chair shifted as cloth burned through, fibre straps released their hold on the metal springs of the seat.
Time.
Deliberately, without emotion, he released his hold on the lines of force which demarcated the limits of his body.