I looked again. The President was explaining that he had intended no discourtesy to Sir Thomas Lipton by declining to attend the Seawanhaka-Corinthian Yacht Club dinner; Major Delmar had failed to beat Lou Dillon's time, on the same track; the National Dressmakers' Association had declared that the kangaroo walk and Gibson shoulders would shortly be eschewed by all really fashionable women; and these matters were more interesting, of course, but certainly no cause for excitement. Well, I reflected, no news was good news proverbially; and I was content to let the axiom pass. In fine, there was nothing to worry over anywhere. And the book was going to be good, quite astonishingly good.... And yonder Bettie waited for me, and I could hear the piano that proclaimed she was not idle. I was ineffably content; and at ease within a rather kindly universe, taking it by and large.... "Quite a nice Setebos, after all! a big, fine generous-hearted fellow, who doesn't bother to keep accounts to the last penny. I heartily approve of Setebos, and Bettie ought not to rag Him so. She would think it tremendously nice and boyish of me if I were to go impulsively and tell her something like that--" So I decided I had worked quite long enough. 3 But as I reached out toward the portieres, a man came into the room, entering from the hall-way. And I gave a little whistling sound of astonishment and hastened to him with extended hand. "My dear fellow," I began; "why, have you dropped from the moon?" "They--they told me you were here," said Jasper Hardress, and paused to moisten his lips. "My wife died, yonder in Montana, ten days ago last Thursday,--yes, it was on a Tuesday she died, I think." And I was silent for a breathing-space. "Yes?" I said, at last; for I had seen the shining thing in Jasper Hardress's hand, and I was wondering now why he had pocketed the toy, and for how long. "It was of a fever she died. She was delirious,--oh, quite three days. And she talked in her delirium." I began to smile; it was like witnessing a play. "Yonder is Bettie and my one chance of manhood; and blind chance, just the machination of a tiny microbe, entraps me as I tread toward all this. I was wrong about Setebos. Heine was right; there is an Aristophanes in heaven." I said, aloud: "Well, Hardress, you wouldn't have me dispute the veracity of a lady?"