That hour of revolt was the bitterest in Power's existence. Like Jacob, he wrestled with a too potent adversary, and, refusing to yield, asked for a curse rather than a blessing; for he thought he was striving against a fiend. Fortunately, he underestimated his own strength. Some men, he knew, would have tossed every record of the past into the fire, and married the woman of their choice without other than a momentary qualm of conscience. That course, to him, was a sheer impossibility. While the dead Nancy and her living child stood in the gates of Eden, and option lay only between wedding Marguerite Sinclair and blowing out his brains, he would die unhesitatingly. But, if he continued to live, what was the outlook? Wine, women--debauchery, lewdness? His soul sickened at the notion. He laughed, with bitter humor, while picturing himself a roué, a "sport", an opulent supporter of musical comedy--especially with regard to its frailer exponents--a lounger in "fashionable" resorts. No; that was not the way out of the maze, if ever a way might be found. It was a sign of returning sanity that he should fill his pipe. As the German proverb has it, "God first made man, and then He made woman; then, feeling sorry for man, He made tobacco". Power continued to sit there smoking, lost in troubled but more humbled thought, until a chambermaid entered the room. He had kept no count of time, and had evidently passed many hours in somber musing; for the apartment was in semidarkness, and the girl started when she caught sight of the solitary figure sunk in the depths of an armchair. "My land!" she cried, "but you made me jump!" Then, aware that this was not precisely the manner of address expected by patrons of the Waldorf-Astoria, she added hurriedly, "I beg your pardon, sir. I didn't know you were in. Shall I switch on the light?" "Can you?" he said. "Why, of course, I can. There you are!" The room was suddenly illuminated. Power rose and stretched his limbs--he felt as if he had marched many miles carrying a heavy load. "Like others of your sex, you work miracles, then," he said. One glance at his face, and the housemaid regained confidence. "Yes, if it is a miracle to touch a switch," she answered pertly. "Nothing more wonderful was done when the world was created. 'Let there be light: and there was light.' You have read the first chapter of Genesis, I am sure?" "Yes, and the second." "Good! Stop there, if you would rest thoroughly content. The serpent lifts his head in the third. Will you kindly send the valet?" The girl confided to her fellow-servants in the service-room that the gentleman in Number So-and-so was very nice, but slightly cracked. He seemed to have been upset by a lot of old letters--and it was an odd thing that among all the rich people who lived in the hotel none seemed to be really happy. Now, if she, deponent, only possessed a fraction of their wealth, she would enjoy life to the limit.