After a clock had struck many times, "She makes herself too cheap," Mrs. Van Buren said _sotto voce_, and Madame de Lavardens assented by a grimace. The boy overheard, and got up, and wandered away. A new misery tightened his throat, and burned behind his eyeballs. She had been disdained! his world rocked. He was degraded, vicariously--for her sake, degraded that his Ideal should afford these people the opportunity to disparage her. Resentment beat in him; he longed to vindicate, to lay down his life for her--and knew himself a cipher, and that the tempest in his soul would be thought absurd. Disdained! It was paramount, bitterest. The humiliation of neglect dwindled; all his pain, all his consciousness was the hurricane of humiliation that he felt for _her_. "If you weren't so young I should think you were trying to insult me, Conrad. Please don't speak to me any more," she said next morning, when he had made tactless, seventeen-year-old reproaches to her. Her voice and gaze were cold, as if he were a stranger. She rose and left him. The grace of the slender figure had no mercy in it as he watched. The sun was streaming, and the birds chirped loud, and he thought his heart was broken as he watched. He sat looking the way that she had gone for long after the terrace was bare. And heavy hours passed emptily, and he was still bereft. And it was his last day here. Half of it was lost when wretchedness waylaid her at a door. "I'm sorry," he gulped. She bent her head, and moved by him without speaking. In the group about the tea-table she was no gentler. The glare of sunshine mellowed. His father claimed him, and talked with unusual earnestness of ambition and of life; his mother wrapt his arm about her waist, and was pathetic and confident by turn. In the chatter of the salon he heard that Mrs. Adaile was going to the dance. From herself he had still no word or look. The flush in the sky faded. A relentless star peered forth. And it was his last day here. She went. Until the final minutes he could not feel that she would go, could not believe it until he saw her in the triumphant cruelty of her ball gown with the lilies at her dazzling breast--saw her giddily with the long gloves and the fan in her hands. The room was full of animation, of movement. The boy sat mute, his gaze fastened on her face. The fiacre grated to the curb. Miss McGuire asked her if she was ready. "Yes, I'm ready." Colonel Van Buren put the cape about her shoulders. She turned carelessly, her hand outstretched: "Well, I'll say 'good-bye,' Con; you've all my good wishes." "Good-bye, Mrs. Adaile," he faltered. His eyes implored her, but her touch was fleeting. The fiacre rattled--she had gone. And upon the hotel fell a profound and deathly silence. He heard nothing. Damp he was, and blind.