terror he reflected that this knowledge of his defeat and fear was now Starwick’s also, and that as long as Starwick lived, he would always know about it, and realize from this alone the full measure of his victory. And this feeling of shame, horror, and abysmal, inexpiable regret persisted even after, with a feeling of sick relief, he saw Starwick’s eyes flutter, open, and after a moment of vague, confused bewilderment, look at him with a quiet consciousness.
Nevertheless, his feeling of relief was unspeakable. He bent, picked up Starwick’s hat and cane, and gave them to him, saying quietly:
“I’m sorry, Frank.”
Starwick put on his hat and took the cane in his hand.
“It doesn’t matter. If that’s the way you felt, you had to do it,” he said in a quiet, toneless and inflexible voice. “But now, before we leave each other, we must see this through. We’ve got to bring this thing into the open, find out what it is. That must be done, you know!” His voice had risen with an accent of inflexible resolve, an accent which the other had heard before, and which he knew no fear of death or violence or any desperate consequence could ever alter by a jot. “I’ve got to understand what this thing is before I leave you,” Starwick said. “That must be done.”
“All right!” Eugene said blindly, desperately. “Come on, then!”
And together, they strode along in silence, along the empty pavements of the Rue St. Honoré, past shuttered shops, and old, silent buildings which seemed to abide there and attend upon the anguish of tormented youth with all the infinite, cruel, and impassive silence of dark time, the unspeakable chronicle of foregone centuries, the unspeakable anguish, grief, and desperation of a million vanished, nameless, and forgotten lives.
And thus, in bitter shame and silence and despair, the demented, drunken, carnal, and kaleidoscopic circuit of the night began.
LXXXIX
About ten o’clock the next morning someone knocked at Eugene’s door, and Starwick walked in. Without referring to the night before, Starwick immediately, in his casual and abrupt way, said:
“Look. Elinor and Ann are here: they came in this morning.”
“Where are they?” Excitement, sharp and sudden as an electric shock, shot through him. “Here? Downstairs?”
