Lee determined to rise and make his bow, to escape; he was
aware of an indefinable oppression, like that he had often experienced
during a heavy electric storm; he had the absurd illusion that a bolt
of lightning.... Lee Randon didn't stir: he sat listening with a set
smile, automatic small speech, and a heart with an unsteady rising
pound.
The Doctor's stories, he thought, went on unsupportably; his wife was
wise, correct, just, to a hair's breadth. Good God, when would they go?
Now--there was a break in the conversation--he would rise and say good-
night. Probably they wanted to discuss things more personal than his
presence allowed and were waiting for just that. He was aware that Mrs.
Grove's gaze, as though against her resolute effort, was moving toward
him; but, quite desperately, he avoided it; he gazed up at a chandelier
of glittering and coruscating glass and down at a smooth carpet with
Chinese ideographs on a light background. He heard the flexible
vibration of the pleasure traffic on Fifth Avenue; and, perhaps because
it was so different, it reminded him of the ringing milk cans in the
early morning by his house.
Lee Randon made a sharp effort to rouse himself from what threatened to
be a stupor faintly lurid with conceptions of insanity; and the result
of this mental drawing himself erect was even more startling, more
disconcerting, than his previous condition.
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