"_You_ are among your own people, anyhow!" * * * * * His own people! The impatient tenderness of his sister's words had been sounding in his ears all through the evening.

They rang out clear and insistent amid the gay tumult of the dinner; he heard them in the laughing confusion of youthful voices; they stole into the delicate undertones of the music to mock him; the rustling of silk and lace repeated them; the high heels of satin slippers echoed them in irony.
His own people! The scent of overheated flowers, the sudden warm breeze eddying from a capricious fan, the mourning thrill of the violins emphasised the emphasis of the words.
And they sounded sadder and more meaningless now to him, here in his own room, until the monotony of their recurrent mockery began to unnerve him.
He turned on the electricity, shrank from it, extinguished it.

And for a long time he sat there in the darkness of early morning, his unfilled pipe clutched in his nerveless hand..