Nervous Party. "Yes—but shall I be here to-morrow?"
Epitaph for a Professor of Tango:
"Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit."
THE CAGE.
He stood in the packed building, a small lonely figure, pathetic in the isolation that shut him off from the warm humanity of the watching crowd.
He felt weak, ill, but he struggled to bear himself bravely. He could not move his eyes from the stern white face that seemed to fill all the space in front of him. About that cold minatory figure, which was speaking to him in such passionless even tones, clung an atmosphere of awe; the traditional robes of office lent it a majesty that crushed his will.
He knew he was being addressed, and he strove to listen. His brain was a torrent of thoughts. And so his life had come to this. It was indeed the final catastrophe. That was surely what the voice meant—that voice which went on and on in an even stream of sound without meaning. Why had he come to this—in the flower of his life to lose its chiefest gift, Liberty?
Up and down the spaces of his brain thought sped like fire. The people behind—did they care? A few perhaps pitied him. The others were indifferent. To them it was merely a spectacle.