And now the chance had come at last, in the dead of winter; but the prospect of escape to Geraldine brightened the whole world for him and gilded the snowy streets of the city with that magic radiance no flaming planet ever cast. He had already shipped a crate of canvases to Roya-Neh; his trunk had gone, and now, checking with an amused shrug a natural impulse to hail a cab, he swung his suit-case and himself aboard a car, bound for the Patroons Club, where he meant to lunch before taking the train for Roya-Neh. He had not been to the club since the catastrophe and his father's death, and he was very serious and sombre and slightly embarrassed when he entered. A servant took his coat and suit-case with marked but subdued respect. Men whom he knew and some men whom he scarcely knew at all made it a point to speak to him or bow to him with a cordiality too pointed not to affect him, because in it he recognised the acceptance of what he had fought for--the verdict that publicly exonerated his father from anything worse than a bad but honest mistake. For a second or two he stood in the great marble rotunda looking around him. In that club familiar figures were lacking--men whose social and financial position only a few months before seemed impregnable, men who had gone down in ruin, one or two who had perished by their own hand, several whose physical and financial stamina had been shattered at the same terrible moment. Some were ill, some dead, some had resigned, others had been forced to write their resignations--such men as Dysart for example, and James Skelton, now in prison, unable to furnish bail. But the Patroons was a club of men above the average; a number among them even belonged to the Pyramid; and the financial disasters of that summer and winter had spared no club in the five boroughs and no membership list had been immune from the sinister consequences of a crash that had resounded from ocean to ocean and had set humble and great scurrying to cover in every Bourse of the civilised world. * * * * * As he entered the dining-room and passed to his usual table, he caught sight of Delancy Grandcourt lunching alone at the table directly behind him. "Hello, Delancy," he said; "shall we join forces?"