Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/118

 *ing yearning, that it is necessary I get very tipsy to-night, and strive to forget that I, too, might have lived cleanlily."

And Kennaston, as he spoke thus, engulfed in darkness, knew it was a noble sorrow which possessed him—a stingless wistful sorrow such as is aroused by the unfolding of a well-acted tragedy or the progress of a lofty music. This ruffian longing, quite hopelessly, to be made clean again, so worshipful of his loved lady's purity and loveliness, and knowing loveliness and purity to be forever unattainable in his mean life, was Felix Kennaston, somehow What was it Maugis d'Aigremont had said?—"I have been guilty of many wickednesses, I have held much filthy traffic such as my soul loathed; and yet, I swear to you, I seem to myself to be still the boy who once was I." Kennaston understood now, for the first time with deep reality, what his puppet had meant; and how a man's deeds in the flesh may travesty the man himself.

But the door opened. Confusedly Kennaston was aware of brilliantly-lighted rooms beyond, of the chatter of gay people, of thin tinkling music,