But Treadwell did not answer at once. He had turned in surprise to the rear of the box, where a youth in a grey silver-buttoned uniform had parted the curtains. The messenger was looking at Brent, who rose and went to him. "I beg pardon, sir," the boy said in a low voice, "but they told me at the box-office you were here. Will you please come over to the club? Something is the matter. Perhaps Mr. Sevier will come too." Brent looked at him--there was agitation in the youthful face. He turned. "Will you ladies excuse Sevier and me for a few minutes?" he said. "I dare say we shall be back before the curtain goes up again." At the words Harry had risen also, with a quick relief at this summons, whatever it was, that offered the instant escape. Though his bow took in Echo, he did not look at her, as turning, he followed Brent quickly from the box. CHAPTER XL GENTLEMEN ALL Chisholm Allen had come to the end of a long tether. He was drunk. Not with the amiable jollity of the youthful tippler, nor with the heavy, fatuous oblivion of the sot, but with the drunkenness that marks the vicious rebellion of the nerve-cell against the prolonged excitation of an intoxicant--the dreadful revenge wherein the outraged brain summons the distorted imagination to fill the victim's landscape with uncouth and demoniacal visitants. For a long fortnight, at the Springs, with a couple of cronies, he had defied convention and strained the tolerance, which had countenanced past escapades because he was an Allen, to the breaking-point. Only when revelry had sunken to deep debauch had friends been able to bring him to the city, where he had been bestowed in a room at the club to await returning soberness. That night, however, when the friendly guard had relaxed, Chilly had awakened to horrid visions. At first he had known them for creations of his drunken fantasy, but they had multiplied in numbers and horror till they had broken down the frail bulwark of remaining reason and obsessed him with the sense of reality--uncanny nightmares from some formless abysm, shuddering mistakes of nature, mingling in a monstrous extravaganza that crowded about to menace him. With a scream Chilly burst from the room and ran along an upper corridor to the brightly-lighted reading-room. It was deserted at that hour--but not for him, for the visitants from which he fled pursued him there! They ringed him about, clutching at him. Livid and shaking, he seized a heavy iron poker from the hearth and crouching in a corner, beat off the imaginary assailants. It was upon this spectacle that the agitated steward had come, called by a frightened bell-boy, and as the theatre stood opposite, he had hastily sent thither, as the likeliest spot in which to find some _habitué_ of the Club who might assume charge of the situation.