"Say no more, Mortimer," begged Lord Standon, with mock grief. "Your
days are numbered. Already I see myself enacting the part of chief
mourner--I should say, best man--if you will allow me."
Shelton rose, laughing good-humouredly.
"Thanks, I'll remember--when it comes to that!"
"You're incorrigible, Stan," said Leroy, as his guests were taking their
leave. "You'd better settle down yourself first, and leave Shelton
alone."
When they had all gone, the host stood looking at the empty chairs. They
seemed, as it were, typical of the weary, empty hours of his life, and
for the first time a wholesome distaste of it all swept over him. Day
in, day out, an everlasting whirl--wherein he and his companions turned
night into day and spent their lives in a hollow round of gaiety, in
which scandal, cards, women and wine were chief features. And, at the
end! What would be the end?
Then he shook himself from his unaccustomed reverie; Adrien Leroy, the
popular idol of fashionable society, was not given long to
introspection.
"What next?" he asked himself.
It was Norgate who answered the unspoken query, by announcing that the
motor was at the door.
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