Baltazar, left alone, resumed his uninspired reflections. He felt physically and morally weary, a beaten man. He shrank from his Chinese exile with pathetic dread; shrank from the toilsome journeys, the eternal compliments of convention that delayed serious discussion, the perpetual ceremonial, the futile tea-drinking, the mass of tradition and prejudice and ignorance, the smiling craft that used it as a buffer against enlightenment. He looked with dismay on his exclusion from the keen intellectual talk in which he had revelled for the past year, from the brain-thrilling battle of Western Thought. It was a man’s work, his mission; a picked man’s work. Hundreds would have regarded it as a climax of their diplomatic ambition. But to him, who had thrown himself into vast schemes for the reconstruction of the war-torn world, it was exile, defeat. It was not in his nature to regret his sacrifice. What was done was done. The stars in their courses had fought against him individually, even though, in their inscrutable wisdom they fought, as he believed, for his House. No man who has saturated himself for years with Chinese thought can escape the spiritual influence of fatalism. He was a fatalist. It was written that he should fail in every one of his great adventures. Yet the fact of it being written made his lot none the less damnable for the very human and vivid man, once more involved in predestined shipwreck. He smoked many pipes thinking disconnectedly, without method, and feeling old and lonely and broken, and very, very tired. At last his pipe dropped to the floor and he fell asleep. Suddenly the subconsciousness of a presence in the room caused him to awake with a start. He looked up and, bewildered, saw Marcelle standing by his chair. She was crying. He sprang to his feet, passing his hands over his eyes. “You here?” His glance instinctively sought the clock on the mantelpiece. “Why, it’s half-past two in the morning!” She said: “I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t rest. I had to come.” He did not understand. “What is the matter, my dearest? What can I do for you?” “Only go on loving me, and forgive me,” she said desperately. “But I do,” he cried, puzzled. “It’s just hell for me to leave you. But I can’t help it, my dear. My hand has been forced. It’s even harder to leave you than it was twenty years ago. I love you and want you more than ever I did in my life.” “So do I,” she said, in a shaking voice. “That’s why I’m here, at half-past two in the morning.” Baltazar uttered a great triumphant cry and clasped her in his arms. “My God,” said he, “I’ve won after all!” He held her at arm’s length and looked at her exultantly. Thank Heaven she had no suspicion of his sense of downfall. Not Pity, but Love at last awakened, had brought her to him. “Yes,” he repeated. “I’ve won after all.” After a while, when he had almost forgotten his words, she asked him: “What did you think you had lost?”