At least a minute--fully a minute--must have passed, a minute in which the brown shadows of the library, held back for now this long while by the weaving magic of the voice, stepped forward once more into their places, while Mr. Vandusen waited for the voice to continue. Then the spell broke like a shattered globe, and, with a sudden realization of many things, he leaned forward and felt the chair to the right of him. There was no one there. He paused with his hand still on the leather seat. "Would you mind telling me," he asked, and he found that he was speaking with some effort and with great precision, "if any of you know the gentleman who has just left?" "Left?" said Tomlinson sharply. "Yes--left." Tomlinson's voice was incredulous. "But he couldn't have," he insisted. "From where I am sitting I would have seen him as he reached the door. Although, if he really is gone, I can say, thank the Lord, that I think he's a faker." On silent feet young Wheeler had departed for the hall. Now he returned. "It may interest you to know," he said, "that I have just interviewed the doorman and the boy who is stationed at the steps leading back, and they both say no one has come in or out in the last half-hour." Suddenly his careful voice rose to a high note. "What the devil--!" he sputtered. He strode over to the electric switch. "For Heaven's sake, let's have some light," he said. "Why do we always insist upon sitting in this confounded darkness?" THE WEDDING JEST[9] [Note 9: Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920, by James Branch Cabell.] BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL From _The Century_ I. CONCERNING SEVERAL COMPACTS It is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, telling how love began between Florian de Puysange and Adelaide de la Foret. They tell also how young Florian had earlier fancied other women for one reason or another; but that this, he knew, was the great love of his life, and a love which would endure unchanged as long as his life lasted. And the tale tells how the Comte de la Foret stroked a gray beard and said: "Well, after all, Puysange is a good fief--" "As if that mattered!" cried his daughter, indignantly. "My father, you are a deplorably sordid person." "My dear," replied the old gentleman, "it does matter. Fiefs last." So he gave his consent to the match, and the two young people were married on Walburga's eve, on the last day of April. And they narrate how Florian de Puysange was vexed by a thought that was in his mind. He did not know what this thought was. But something he had overlooked; something there was he had meant to do, and had not done; and a troubling consciousness of this lurked at the back of his mind like a small formless cloud. All day, while bustling about other matters, he had groped toward this unapprehended thought. Now he had it: Tiburce.