"Thanks for all the trouble you have taken to-day,"--I said in a lighter
tone--"Though I shall never be able to express my full gratitude in
words."
"If you wanted to thank anybody, thank God that you have lived through
it!" he replied.
"Why?" I asked, astonished.
"Why? Because life hangs on a thread,--a society crush is the very acme
of boredom and exhaustion,--and that we escape with our lives from a
general guzzle and giggle is matter for thanksgiving,--that's all! And
God gets so few thanks as a rule that you may surely spare Him a brief
one for to-day's satisfactory ending."
I laughed, seeing no meaning in his words beyond the usual satire he
affected. I found Amiel, waiting for me in my bedroom, but I dismissed
him abruptly, hating the look of his crafty and sullen face, and saying
I needed no attendance. Thoroughly fatigued, I was soon in bed and
asleep,--and the terrific agencies that had produced the splendours of
the brilliant festival at which I had figured as host, were not revealed
to me by so much as a warning dream!