Once or twice he had caught them
lurking in his brain and thrown them out. To-night they had come with a
soft, invincible persistence, so that he had felt even his will
powerless to strangle them. He was forced to face the truth, that he,
Phineas Duge, the man of many millions, sat there while the minutes fled
past, looking with empty eyes into empty space, thinking of the child
whom he would have given at that moment more than he would have cared to
confess, to have found sitting within a few feet of him, peeling his
walnuts, or pouring out her impressions of this wonderful new life into
which she had come.
Some trifle it was which broke the thread of his reflections. When he
realized what he had been doing, he was conscious of a feeling almost of
shame. In a moment he was himself again. He calmly drank up his wine,
and as he set the glass down held out a cigar from the box to the man
who waited with the cigar cutter in hand. A little silver spirit lamp
burning with a blue flame stood all ready at his elbow. The butler gave
the signal, and his coffee, strong and fragrant, in a little gold cup,
was placed before him.
"You will tell Smedley to be in the study at nine o'clock," he ordered.
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