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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beauty, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Beauty
+
+Author: Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
+
+Illustrator: Will Grefe
+
+Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37549]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               THE BEAUTY
+
+                        _By_ MRS. WILSON WOODROW
+
+                 _Author of_ The Silver Butterfly, etc.
+
+
+    WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+    WILL GREFÉ
+
+    INDIANAPOLIS
+    THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+    PUBLISHERS
+
+    COPYRIGHT 1910
+    THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+
+    PRESS OF
+    BRAUNWORTH & CO.
+    BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
+    BROOKLYN, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Perdita]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I A BACHELOR'S BRIDE                               1
+
+      II A FAR WORLD OF DREAMING                         14
+
+     III PINK AND WHITE EXISTENCE                        35
+
+      IV OUR LOVING FRIENDS                              55
+
+       V PERDITA'S TALISMAN                              64
+
+      VI SIROCCO                                         75
+
+     VII THE GIFT OF FREEDOM                             84
+
+    VIII FOOLS' LAUGHTER                                 98
+
+      IX A TELEPHONE CALL                               114
+
+       X OUT OF THE GILDED CAGE                         125
+
+      XI A DOLL OR A BOX OF CANDY                       137
+
+     XII FUSCHIA FLEMING                                150
+
+    XIII SHOCKING THE HEWSTONS                          165
+
+     XIV PUBLICITY                                      175
+
+      XV A WIDOW'S SMILE                                192
+
+     XVI FATHER AND DAUGHTER                            206
+
+    XVII DO YOU LOVE ME?                                219
+
+   XVIII PLAYING THE GAME                               231
+
+     XIX HE CALLS ON HIS WIFE                           243
+
+      XX THE MAGIC WORD                                 256
+
+     XXI TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS                              268
+
+    XXII HEPWORTH MISUNDERSTANDS                        278
+
+   XXIII ITS ANCIENT CHARM                              289
+
+    XXIV WAITING FOR PERDITA                            305
+
+     XXV WITH MY HEART'S LOVE                           316
+
+
+
+
+THE BEAUTY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A BACHELOR'S BRIDE
+
+
+If the proper statistics of bachelorhood were accurately tabulated they
+would show that at certain fixed and recurring periods, a confirmed old
+bachelor, say one in every ten, casts his dearly-bought experience, his
+hard-won knowledge of the world and women to the four winds of heaven,
+and chooses for himself a wife; and, as his friends and relatives
+invariably protest, a bungling job he makes of it. He may, before the
+world, walk soberly, discreetly, advisedly and in the fear of God in
+every other respect, but when it comes to selecting a companion for the
+rest of his life, he follows, apparently, a predestined leading, some
+errant and tricksy impulse, and from a world of desirable and waiting
+helpmates, eminently suitable, he will, in nine cases out of ten, fix
+his heart upon the one inevitable She who can keep the pot of trouble
+ever boiling for him.
+
+This, according to Mr. Cresswell Hepworth's old and intimate friends,
+was exactly the course which he had followed; nor was even one voice
+upraised in dissent from this opinion, as they frankly discussed the
+matter over their champagne and truffled sweetbreads at the breakfast
+following the wedding.
+
+It was but natural that they who were rarely in complete agreement on
+any subject which commended itself for discussion among them, should
+hold a unanimous opinion on this matter which involved the happiness of
+their lifelong friend. But although the opinion was unanimous, it was
+not unprejudiced. Hepworth had had his distinct niche in their homes and
+hearts for many years, and now as they gazed metaphorically at the empty
+space, it struck a chill to their affections.
+
+Nevertheless they did not, could not fail to join in the little gasp of
+admiration which breathed through the church as the bride swept up the
+aisle on the arm of Mr. Willoughby Hewston, the well-known banker and
+intimate friend of the bride-groom. She had been stopping, it was
+understood, with Mrs. Wilstead, another friend of Hepworth's, for
+several weeks.
+
+There were those in the large audience who saw a certain pathos in the
+fact that she was given away by one of Hepworth's friends, thus exposing
+the lack of either relatives or friends of her own, but there was
+nothing in her bearing to indicate that she was conscious of her
+isolated position as she advanced, leaning lightly on Mr. Hewston's arm.
+
+The world, Hepworth's world, and it was a large one, was tingling with
+curiosity. He was a great figure, looming immense upon the financial
+horizon; but no one had ever heard of the bride. The invitations to the
+wedding were the first intimation of his impending marriage, and the
+bride's name, Perdita Carey, conveyed nothing to anybody. By dint of
+careful collection of scraps of information, it gradually became known
+that she was young, of southern birth and extremely pretty. Bare facts.
+No more.
+
+It was also considered rather an odd reading of the customary
+conventions on Hepworth's part, this crowded church wedding exposing the
+bride's poverty in relatives, the breakfast to follow, at his town
+house, thus making equally plain her homeless state; but when this view
+was set before him, sighingly, by Isabel Hewston, and vivaciously by
+Alice Wilstead, he became obstinate in the insistence of his plans. He
+seemed possessed of some masculine idea of getting things over, of
+having all his friends meet his wife en masse, so to speak, and having
+the matter settled.
+
+And so it was, "Nice customs curtsy to great kings"--or millionaires.
+The audience then of his friends--there was none of hers present, if
+indeed she possessed any--sat with heads turned at an aching angle and
+awaited, with concealed impatience, the choice of Cresswell Hepworth.
+
+The weight of opinion leaned to a sunburst of a woman, darkly splendid,
+opulently graceful, and instead, when the stately strains of the
+wedding-march echoed through the church, the guests lifted their
+astonished eyes to a brown and slender girl; but no matter what the
+expectation had been, each realized that he gazed on a more poetic
+loveliness than he had dreamed.
+
+Another unhesitating mental admission. Obscure, unknown she might have
+been, but she could never be considered ordinary. It had taken
+generations of cultivation to give that pose of the head and shoulders,
+that arch of the instep, that taper to her slender wrist. And what
+intimation of individuality! Few women could have borne more regally the
+weight of heavy and lusterless satin or a diadem of flashing jewels; but
+this girlish bride of a millionaire had insisted on being married in the
+white muslin her own scanty purse had furnished; and wore as if it were
+a crown of diamonds the wreath of white jasmine flowers which held her
+long tulle veil close about the cloudy masses of her hair.
+
+For once the entire interest of any occasion which he happened to grace
+was not centered on Hepworth, who, with his usual invincible composure,
+awaited the bride at the altar, fortified by his best man, Wallace
+Martin.
+
+But the owner of millions--unctuous sound--is worth more than a mere
+dismissing word. Let the bride continue to advance, he to await her,
+while he is presented in a lightning sketch.
+
+Cresswell Hepworth was far from old, not fifty. He had more than three
+generations of cultivated ancestry behind him. In type he was American,
+approaching the Indian; tall, slightly aquiline of feature, somewhat
+granitic and imperturbable. His hair, which had been brown, was almost
+white, his eyes were gray, trained to express nothing, but startlingly
+penetrating when he chose to lift rather heavy lids with a peculiarly
+long droop at the corners.
+
+Emerson says somewhere that "a feeble man can see the farms that are
+fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the
+possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun
+breeds clouds."
+
+Hepworth was a strong man. He saw possible houses and farms,
+externalized them and became the acquirer of vast and profitable
+tracts of land--a fair map blackly dotted with mines and scrawled
+with the angular lines of intersecting railroads. In this yellow
+triangle, a great wheat farm. Here, in this square of living green,
+irrigated and profitable ranches. He stood, this "Colossus of
+Finance"--journalese--with his feet planted firmly on this solid
+map-basis, and, with a golden rake, drew toward him from countless
+clutching hands securities, stocks, bonds, curios, pictures (he was an
+ardent collector), loot of every description, and, it was even whispered
+through the church, his young and lovely bride.
+
+But now he stepped forward to meet her with a smile that enlivened his
+whole face, even his eyes. The service flowed on. With that air of sulky
+geniality which represented his most urbane manner, Willoughby Hewston
+gave away the bride. The responses were duly made, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Cresswell Hepworth turned to walk through an aisle of smiling and
+nodding friends.
+
+At that moment the mellow October sunlight fell through the stained
+windows enwrapping Perdita in a regal and impalpable vesture of scarlet
+and gold; and again a murmur of admiration rippled and echoed at this
+fresh revelation of her beauty. She had been pale as she walked up the
+aisle, but now her color had risen and the crimson on her brown cheek
+was the hue of a jacqueminot rose. Her hair, a deep chestnut at the
+temples, flowed into copper, dark in the hollows, gold where it caught
+the light. Her coloring was a harmony of all soft, warm, dusky shades,
+and one looked to the eyes to focus these tints in light or darkly rich
+topaz; but Perdita's eyes were gray, handed down perhaps from those
+Irish kings to whom her father had laughingly traced his descent.
+
+"Lucky girl!" murmured Alice Wilstead an hour later to the group of
+Hepworth's intimate friends who sat together at one table during the
+breakfast that followed the wedding. "Just think of it. He has no family
+encumbrances. Never an 'in-law' will she have to cope with."
+
+It never struck her that Hepworth's little circle of close friends had
+gradually assumed about all of the intrusive and proprietary
+prerogatives of the nearest and most affectionate relatives.
+
+Alice Wilstead was a widow, dark, slender, piquant, versed in the
+secrets of grace and the art of wearing her jewels so that they
+accentuated her sparkling eyes and her one precious dimple without
+eclipsing them. Warmly sympathetic and impulsive, she had been overcome
+by the vision of Perdita's isolation as the girl walked up the aisle on
+the grudging arm of Willoughby Hewston; and had pressed her
+handkerchief lightly to her eyes, a moment of emotion viewed with
+callous interest by a misinterpreting world which regarded it as a last
+tear shed for a lost opportunity, a shattered hope.
+
+"Well," said Hewston, finishing his sweetbreads and preparing to begin
+on the next course, "it went off very well. I was all right, wasn't I?"
+
+"You were perfect, dear," his wife hastened to assure him, "and it was a
+beautiful wedding."
+
+Mrs. Hewston was gray and pink and plump like her husband; and this
+morning her grayness and pinkness and plumpness were underlined, thrown
+into high relief by a violet gauze gown, heavily spangled in silver.
+Isabel Hewston resembled nothing so much as a comfortable, placid,
+fireside cat, purry and complacent. If she possessed claws, which is
+doubtful, they were always well concealed.
+
+"Yes, a beautiful wedding and a beautiful bride," she murmured, with a
+little sighing inflection habitual to her, "so young, so--"
+
+"Humph!" interrupted her husband, with as much of a snort as a mouthful
+of game would permit, "I tell you it's a pretty tough thing for all of
+us to see old Hepworth looking so happy." He thrust out his lower lip
+and wrinkled up his eyes until he bore a grotesque likeness to a baby
+about to cry. "Hepworth's my best friend, and to see that look of almost
+boyish joy on his face was pretty hard. There are some things you can do
+and some you can't; now one of these things that no man can afford to do
+is to marry outside his own class. I could have told Cress so."
+
+The other members of this intimate little coterie of friends, five in
+all, looked at one another and burst into involuntary laughter.
+
+Wallace Martin, an old young man, a magazine writer, who would fain be a
+playwright, gave the single bark of mirth which served him for an
+explosion of laughter. It sounded particularly derisive now.
+
+"I would give my little all to have the new Mrs. Hepworth hear you say
+that," he chuckled. "Dear old Hewston, she would not in a thousand years
+consider any of us in her class. She belonged, let me inform you, to one
+of the oldest of southern families. Her mother was a cotton princess of
+the loveliest and haughtiest variety. One of the famous belles of her
+day. Her father, too, was of the old South."
+
+"Why, what are you talking about?" growled Hewston irascibly. "She
+hadn't a dime--was a beautiful cloak model or something of that kind."
+
+"She painted dinky things for a living, if you mean that," said Martin
+carelessly, "lamp-shades and menu cards and such."
+
+"If she only had some friends, even one relative," deplored Mrs.
+Hewston, "it would look so much--er--nicer, you know. Relatives do add a
+background." She shook her head regretfully.
+
+"We'll have to be her relatives," said Maud Carmine, a niece of Mrs.
+Hewston and a plain rather faded young woman of pale and indefinite
+tints and many angles. Her claim to distinction rested on the fact that
+she was a drawing-room musician of--strange anomaly--real musical
+feeling. It was her misfortune always to be explained by those who found
+her tact, good nature and practical common sense useful, and who drew
+heavily on them, as, "not attractive looking, you know; but pure gold,
+and one of the most dependable persons," and this damning tribute of
+friendship served as an admirable check to further curiosity concerning
+her. "Yes, we must be her background." Her glance lingered for a moment
+on Wallace Martin, but he returned it briefly and indifferently.
+
+"A young woman who has just married millions needs no family group,"
+remarked Alice Wilstead lightly. "The most effective background is her
+husband."
+
+"Gad!" Mr. Hewston put down his knife and fork to glare at her. "The
+idea of looking at Hepworth as a background. He who has always been in
+the front of everything. A background! And for a snub-nosed chit of a
+girl!"
+
+"Oh, Willoughby, dear, not snub-nosed," expostulated his wife mildly.
+
+"Snub-nosed, I said," insisted Willoughby. "Didn't I walk up the aisle
+with her?"
+
+"Hush, dear, hush," murmured his wife. "Here she comes now."
+
+The bride was leaving. Passing through the handsome, stiff apartments
+like a white cloud, to make ready for the journey before her, she
+stopped a moment for a word or two with Maud Carmine as she paused at
+that table.
+
+Hewston rose reluctantly to his feet. "I once heard of a wedding," he
+said confidentially and hopefully to Wallace Martin, "where the bride
+went up to change her gown, and never showed up again."
+
+"Where did she go?" asked Wallace with interest.
+
+"Dunno," returned Willoughby. "Old lover. Fourth dimension.
+Unexplainable, but fact, I assure you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A FAR WORLD OF DREAMING
+
+
+The bride had passed through the admiring groups with a smile here, a
+word there and was already half up the stairway, above the voices, the
+heavy flower scents, the sentimental melodies which stole from the
+musicians' bower. On, a white, mystic figure, her veil floating behind
+her; on, without undue haste, but most eagerly, as if she climbed some
+mount which led from the world to a desired solitude.
+
+On the first landing she paused, leaning for a moment, Juliet-like as
+from a balcony, and looked down on the moving mosaic of color beneath,
+the gay, light tones of the women's gowns thrown into relief by the dark
+coats of the men. The gazers paid her the tribute of involuntary "Ohs,"
+and barely restrained themselves from applause as if at the appearance
+of their favorite actress. As usual Perdita had made a picture of
+herself, an involuntary and unpremeditated picture; but in effect beyond
+the calculations of the most vigilant stage manager.
+
+She stood with one arm lightly upraised holding her bouquet of white
+jasmine above her laughing face. Behind her, a stained glass window,
+before her the marble balustrade. Then the bouquet, its white ribbons
+waving and circling, whirled through the air, over the sea of upturned
+faces and white clutching hands and straight into Alice Wilstead's arms.
+
+With the laughter and clamor of voices ringing in her ears, Perdita,
+hidden from sight now by a turn of the staircase, followed, with
+unconcealed haste, the crimson velvet pathway which led to solitude.
+
+At the top of the stairs she hesitated briefly, glancing right and left.
+She had been in the house but twice before, both times under the
+chaperonage of Mrs. Hewston, and she was not sure of the exact
+geographical position of her own suite of apartments.
+
+At this moment her maid, engaged from that morning, stepped forward and
+threw open a door. Perdita smiled approval. It would have been
+difficult to withhold it. Olga, a paragon of maids, if references and
+experience count, showed no signs of the wear and tear of previous
+mistresses. She was delightful in appearance, rosy-cheeked, amiable,
+immaculate, with that air of trained capability which invites
+confidence.
+
+Perdita paused before entering. "Are all my traveling things out?" she
+asked.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Very well, I shall not need you for a few moments. Remain here and when
+I want you I will ring."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Perdita drew a breath of relief as the door was closed gently behind
+her. At last she was alone, away from eyes, eyes that were everywhere.
+She had felt all morning as if she were encompassed by them, appraising
+eyes, envious eyes, unfamiliar, inquisitive eyes.
+
+She looked slowly about her. And these were her own apartments, these
+beautiful, cold, unlived-in rooms, as empty of life or individuality as
+a shell.
+
+Yesterday she had walked through them with Isabel Hewston, pleased,
+admiring, but a little overawed. She had not realized before what a
+wizard's wand Cresswell wielded. He had but waved it and great
+architects and decorators, their disciplined and cultivated imaginations
+stimulated by the prospect of unlimited expenditure had devised for her,
+penniless Perdita Carey, all this beauty and luxury. She had only
+stipulated timidly that she might be environed in her favorite rose
+color, a mere suggestion for those who had the matter in charge. It was
+enough. Her bed chamber bloomed with the pale but vivid flush of pink
+roses, La France, accentuated with cool, suave, silver notes, like the
+delicate, contrasted phrasing of a musical theme. The result of color
+and arrangement was youthful, joyous, spacious. Beyond a softly falling
+curtain, she caught a glimpse of her sitting-room. American beauty, a
+radiant spot with delicious water colors on the walls, bowls of roses,
+the sunshine falling through the windows, and shelves of books, each
+volume bound in creamy vellum.
+
+In one of the long mirrors which reflected her graceful figure from
+every angle she saw through an opposite door her dressing-room and
+bath, with its elaborate appointments, more inviting and luxurious than
+any of which the proudest Roman beauty could have dreamed. She looked
+about her with a faint, strange smile. What a contrast were these cold
+and splendid rooms, not yet animated by her personality, to that little
+apartment with its two or three tiny chambers, high up under the roof,
+where she had lived and worked!
+
+Then she turned back to her reflection in the mirror. It was extremely
+becoming to her, all this background of rose and silver. Perdita
+realized that as she unfastened the white flowers from her hair and let
+her long veil fall like a cloud about her. With a deft movement she
+caught it and tossed it on a chair for Olga to fold later. She slipped
+out of her wedding-gown next and laid it more carelessly still upon a
+couch. Then she leaned forward, her elbow on the dressing-table, her
+chin on her hand, and regarded herself steadily, that faint, strange
+smile still on her lips.
+
+Well, she had fulfilled her destiny, justified Eugene Gresham's
+prophecy. She heard his words to her, spoken the last time she had seen
+him, three months before, as plainly as if his voice still rang in her
+ears.
+
+"Perdita, your destiny is written on your face. It includes marrying a
+millionaire and having your portrait painted by me."
+
+Fateful words! She had just married the millionaire, but even here, upon
+the threshold of this new life, she was constrained to halt a moment and
+cast one backward glance, "just for the old love's sake."
+
+It was the night before Eugene Gresham sailed for Europe to paint the
+portraits of "Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin." Again she
+awaited him. Again she heard his step on the stair without, a quick,
+light step with an odd halt in it.
+
+He was coming, and her heart beat. How it beat as she stood there
+breathless beside the window!
+
+"Perdita!" Eugene's voice. He was across the room in a flash, both her
+hands in his. "Here, let me see you in the light." He drew her toward a
+lamp. "Two years, two years since we have met, and me wasting time
+painting in the desert places when I might have been with you. Time is
+not in the Far East. Ah, my cousin!" (the relationship was remote) he
+sighed. "Why, as I live," with a quick change of tone, "you've got
+another dimple, and that makes you a new and lovelier Perdita."
+
+She flushed adorably. "How nice and southern," she cried with an attempt
+at lightness, "and how exactly like you, just like the old 'Gene."
+
+"The old 'Gene," his eyes still holding hers, "has never changed."
+
+"How--how--are the pictures going?" withdrawing her hands from his.
+
+"Beautifully!" he said carelessly. "The glassy eyes of the millionaires
+are all turning toward me, and I have more commissions to make beautiful
+on canvas their pug-nosed, fat-faced wives than I care to accept. Those
+ladies hail me as a great psychological artist. Their mirrors are so
+cruel to them that when my brushes flatter them they say that I paint
+their souls; strip away the husk of the flesh and reveal enduring
+loveliness."
+
+He struck a match to light a cigarette and then hastily shielded it with
+his cupped hand from the breeze which blew through the open window. The
+light flared into his down-bent face, bringing out its dissonances
+almost grotesquely in that small, momentary flash. Pick Gresham to
+pieces and he was incontrovertibly convicted of sheer ugliness, but the
+fact bothered him not at all. He knew that few ever arrived at the cool,
+dispassionate frame of mind regarding him where they were capable of
+that exhaustive analysis known as picking to pieces. He was slender and
+rather small of stature, not more than medium height. One shoulder was
+noticeably higher than the other and he walked with a slight limp, the
+result of an injury received in boyhood. Coarse, blue-black hair with a
+sort of crinkle in it stood out from his head like a cloud. His skin was
+swarthy, his features irregular, even his eyes, dark eyes, were only
+occasionally brilliant. But he might have been appreciably uglier,
+almost as hideous as the Yellow Dwarf or Beauty's Beast,--it would have
+mattered no more than his present lack of beauty, and well he knew it.
+His was the magic gift of glamour, and all the dissonances and
+inharmonies of appearance as well as of character seemed but the
+italics emphasizing his charm. His mind was supple and flexible, his
+wits nimble, even subtle. He was as vivid, as veering, as fascinating as
+flame.
+
+His match, the third he had struck, blew out before it had lighted his
+cigarette, and he threw it away with a petulant gesture. He did not
+answer her, as he was again attempting to light his cigarette, this time
+with success. Then he began to saunter about the room.
+
+In spite of her penury Perdita had yet managed to invest her little
+workshop with both daintiness and charm. The walls were hung with pink
+and white chintz and here and there were bits of fragile china and rare
+old silver on claw-legged mahogany tables, while from dim canvases in
+tarnished silver frames smiled the sweet, dark eyes of haughty southern
+beauties of a generation unused to life's struggles.
+
+"You really saved some of the best things from that hideous auction,
+didn't you?" picking up a bit of china to scrutinize it more carefully.
+"I was horrified when I heard of it across the world, several months
+after it was all over. If I'd only been there to buy the whole lot in.
+Plucky little girl you were, Perdita, to come on here and manage to keep
+the gaunt, gray wolf at bay."
+
+"What else was there for me to do?" she asked without turning her head.
+"Aunt died, the place had to go. As for the wolf, if you look sharp,
+Eugene, you may see his paws thrusting under this door."
+
+In the center of the room was a large table covered with paint brushes,
+colors, a litter of candle shades, cotillion favors and cards in various
+stages of completion. Eugene carefully cleared a space on that edge of
+the table nearest Perdita's chair, and perched upon it, looking down at
+her with a smile.
+
+"My stars, Dita!" he cried with the truest conviction, "you are a
+beauty! The moment I return, I mean to paint you again. And this time
+I'll set the world afire. Do you remember how many portraits I have made
+of you? Why, just to see you brings back my boyhood,--the hopes, the
+struggles, the effort, the haunted days, the feverish nights. I used to
+think, 'If I can just learn how to get this effect, I'll know the whole
+secret.' I've got past that now. There's always a new and more
+difficult riddle every day. But Dita, Dita, the dreams of my youth you
+recall!"
+
+The smile died from her face. Her eyes grew wistful. "The dreams of our
+youth," she repeated. "I'm young yet; but they haunt me. They were
+beautiful dreams down there on that gray, old river. Can't you shut your
+eyes, Eugene, and see the terraces sloping down to the water, the
+lovely, neglected garden with its tangle of roses and jasmine?"
+
+"Do I remember?" His eyes looked deep into hers. "I swear I never smell
+jasmine without thinking of the old place and you. Perdita, do you ever
+think what life might have been for us if it hadn't been for our
+accursed poverty? If we'd only had just a little between us. It's a
+question of courage. If we'd only had the courage to face things hand in
+hand we'd have got along somehow, I dare say. But we didn't have that
+quality, did we? We didn't believe enough in our dreams. That's the
+worst of life. She won't let you."
+
+"Oh, the dreams!" she scoffed. Her color remained high, her eyes
+glittered, but with irritation, not tears. She suffered from an old
+laceration of the heart, the more wounding in that, for pride's sake,
+she must ever deny it expression. Eugene always took the attitude as if
+they together had renounced a mutual love, and often implied, without
+rancor, but with a forgiving, almost understanding tenderness, that the
+responsibility of their marred lives lay on her shoulders.
+
+Perdita was of the twentieth century, but she was also a southern woman
+of many traditions, and she could not say the words which rose to her
+defensive lips: "Eugene, you have never asked me to face life hand in
+hand with you." He would with a glance, she could see it, feel it,
+convict her of blunted intuitions, of an inability to discern exquisite
+shades of emotion; and then he would express his love for her in
+glowing, passionate phrases, confusingly evasive, elusive beyond
+definition, committing himself to nothing.
+
+And if this shifting of responsibility on her, this ardent skirting of a
+definite issue were premeditated or his unavoidable, temperamental way
+of viewing the matter, she could not tell. Conjecture was idle. Her
+knowledge of his character, her ready mental accusations and equally
+ready excuses, these comprising the sole weight of evidence, merely held
+the scales steady.
+
+Eugene began to pick up, first one, then another, of the favors on the
+table, a smile, tender yet humorous, about his lips.
+
+"By Jove, these are not so bad! They are rather stunning. You always did
+have a lot of feeling for form and color, Dita, but you wouldn't work.
+You weren't willing to drudge and to starve if necessary. That was
+because you lacked the clear vision. It wasn't always before you, a
+pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." None might doubt
+his sincerity or conviction now. It was mounting as flame. "Artistic and
+appreciative you are, Dita. All this trash shows it, but you lack the
+creative impulse. You were never meant to be a barefooted, tattered
+follower of the vision, a lodger in a new palace of dreams each night.
+You should build your house on the rock of substantial things,
+bread-and-butter facts.
+
+"Oh, do not toss up your head in that wounded-stag manner. Good Lord!
+Isn't it enough that you are beautiful? And how beautiful! I'm almost
+tempted to cancel my passage and, instead of sailing to-morrow morning,
+stop here and paint you again. Really, I am. But what would it profit
+me? I'd just be sowing the seed for a new harvest of heartaches.
+Perdita, your destiny is written on your face." It was as if he willed
+to speak lightly. "It includes marrying a millionaire, and having your
+portrait painted by me. You'll never have an international reputation as
+a beauty until you do both." But in spite of his smile and his flippant
+words there was bitterness in his eyes.
+
+She did not see that, but the lightness of his words and tone pricked
+her to an immediate decision, a decision which she had, unconsciously,
+postponed until she had seen him. Her face paled, her lips folded in a
+tight line.
+
+"I am going to marry the millionaire," she said firmly enough, although
+there was a slight tremor in her voice. "It depends on you whether or
+not there is a portrait of Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth by Gresham." There
+was triumph in her eyes and voice as thus she lifted her pride from the
+dust.
+
+"Cresswell Hepworth!" His astonishment was unbounded. "Perdita! I throw
+my hat at your feet. Cresswell Hepworth! The pick of the bunch.
+Wonderful! But," looking at her curiously, "how on earth did you meet
+him?"
+
+"He heard of my amulet through a man I met at old Mrs. Huff's, Mr.
+Martin. He has a wonderful collection of amulets, and he wanted to buy
+it of me."
+
+"But you didn't sell it?" he said quickly. "No, of course not. H'm-m.
+That old amulet. You laugh at my superstitions, Dita, but you must admit
+that it's queer the way it's interwoven with the history of our family."
+
+He began to roll cigarettes and lay them with neat and exquisite
+regularity on the table beside him. His eyebrows were raised, his mouth
+twisted in a sort of rueful yet whimsical grimace. When he had finished
+rolling the sixth cigarette, he laid it in line with the others, an
+exact line, his eye was so true. Then at last he looked at her, and his
+cynical, earnest, mocking, enthusiastic face softened. His eyes
+enveloped her with tenderness. There was a heart-break in his smile.
+
+"Ah, star-eyed Perdita, how shall I give you up? The only woman!" He
+mused a moment, and then repeated: "The only woman! If we had but had
+the courage to take the bitter with the sweet, Perdita."
+
+Unwitting goad! It struck too deep for her to conceal the wound.
+
+"You do not say 'can,' I observe, Eugene," she said laughingly, but
+there was an edge to her voice like that on finely tempered steel.
+
+"No," he returned, his fingers busy with a rearrangement of the
+cigarettes; "you see it involves you and me. Not John Jones and Jane
+Smith, but you and me. Do you know what that means? Well, it means that
+it involves the inheritance and training of a good many generations. Do
+you think I do not know how you loathe all this?" He flicked with his
+fingers the dainty trifles on the table. "I know well the craving of
+your nature for splendor and beauty, how necessary they are to you, and
+how dinkiness and makeshifts irritate and depress you, take the heart
+out of you. That is one you, one Perdita. There is another. I saw her
+when I came in to-night. God, I wish I hadn't!" His voice dropped on
+this exclamation and she did not hear it. "She is young. Her beautiful,
+dark eyes ask love and give it. Her heart dreams of it. It is in every
+tone of her voice. These two are at war, the natural woman and the woman
+with her inherited love of ease and luxury and cultivated, artificial
+desires. Which is the stronger? Why, to-night"--he picked up one of the
+cigarettes and prepared to light it; his hands trembled, his face was
+white--"the woman who is ready to love. She would listen to
+me--to-night. I would hold her. Oh, what's the use?" He twisted his
+shoulders impatiently. Then he bent forward and tapped the table lightly
+but emphatically, as if to add weight to his words. "You'd listen to me
+to-night, I know that; but as sure as to-morrow's dawn I'd get a little
+note from you saying that the morn had brought wisdom. But, oh, I am
+glad I'm sailing to-morrow."
+
+"So am I," she flashed out. "You think--you take too much for granted,
+Eugene."
+
+"I dare say." His voice sounded flat. "No one ever appreciates
+renunciation. Well, it's out into the night in more senses than one." He
+rose and looked at her as she sat with downcast eyes, and half stretched
+out his arms toward her. Then as she too rose, he clasped his fingers
+about the back of her head and drew her face toward him, although she
+strove to avert it from him. "Good-by, sweetheart." Even she must
+believe in the ardor and sincerity of his tones. "Good-by, Perdita of
+the South." He kissed her lightly on one cheek and then the other.
+"Good-by, my jasmine flower."
+
+He hesitated a moment in leaving the room, as if to turn and clasp her
+to him and bear her away; then he shut the door gently behind him and
+she heard his halting, hurried step upon the stair. She sat listening
+until its last echoes had died away, and then, casting her outstretched
+arms on the table, sending the favors and menus and candle-shades in a
+shower to the floor, she burst into a storm of tears.
+
+There was a low, discreet, respectful knock, Olga's knock on the door
+leading into Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth's splendid apartments. Perdita
+started violently and came back to the present from her far world of
+dreaming. She had not even begun to dress, but still was sitting, chin
+on hand, gazing with apparent intentness at her image in the mirror.
+
+"It is almost time for Madame to start," Olga smiled from the doorway,
+"so I ventured to remind."
+
+"Yes," Perdita spoke hurriedly, rising at the same time. "Get me into my
+gown quickly, please, and tie my shoes."
+
+Olga was deft and practised, and Perdita's dressing was the work of a
+few minutes.
+
+"My veil now," said the new Mrs. Hepworth, "and--oh, I almost forgot."
+She turned to lift from her dressing-table an exceedingly quaint and
+striking ornament, depending from a long, thin chain. It was a square of
+crystal about an inch and a half in diameter, set curiously in strands
+of silver and gold, twisted and beaten together, and, as must be
+apparent to even the casual observer, was of ancient and unique
+workmanship. This was Perdita's amulet, the old charm, which Eugene with
+his superstitious fancies had always longed to possess, and which had
+excited also the desire of the collector in Hepworth; but in spite of
+many temptations to part with it, Dita had always retained possession of
+it. It was her one link with the past, a personal link, but also a
+traditional and hereditary one. She wound the chain several times about
+her neck, and the crystal pendant gleamed dully against the dark blue
+cloth of her gown.
+
+"You also are ready, Olga?" she said as she passed through the door.
+
+"Yes, Madame."
+
+Hepworth was waiting for Perdita at the head of the stairs. He was in
+his heavy motoring coat, his cap in hand.
+
+He smiled as he saw her. "Just in time," he said. "I'm afraid we will
+have to make haste, rather. Ah," as his eye caught the talisman, "you
+are wearing the amulet, are you not? Blessed old thing. If it had not
+been for that, I should never have met you."
+
+"I believe you only married me to get it," she replied with an answering
+smile, "you are such an insatiable collector."
+
+"Do you believe that? Do you?" he asked. "Because if you do, you are as
+stupid as you are pretty, and you have no idea what that implies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PINK AND WHITE EXISTENCE
+
+
+So Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth whirled away in the big motor and for
+the next few months wandered about the globe. Perdita, who had seen
+nothing but an old southern plantation and New York, the latter from the
+curb, as it were, must see everything; so in pursuit of this aim, the
+Hepworths were constantly stepping from huge, magnificent boats to huge,
+magnificent motors, thence to huge, magnificent hotels. And cities, the
+open country, villages, mountain peaks, strange peoples, were as debris
+strewing the pathway of Perdita's avid flight through new experiences.
+It was tremendously stimulating, even heady, she found, to hold the
+world between one's thumb and finger, and turn it this way and that to
+catch the light. Headier still to discover that to wish is to realize,
+but proportionately a shock to find that the life of infinite variety
+may only be lived within circumscribed boundaries. What is more
+disillusionizing than to learn that money has its limitations? It can
+merely buy the very best of things, the superlatives of the commonplace,
+but these, in the last analysis, remain food, lodgings, clothes,
+conveyances, ornaments, no more. Money can not buy stars or dreams, or
+love or happiness.
+
+Perdita's soaring youth resented it. But she was adaptable, enormously
+interested and the ground within the boundaries was new, affording daily
+opportunities for fresh exploration. And she, quick to observe and
+compare, had profited by her new experiences. Money became to her merely
+the medium of exchange for any beautiful thing she might want. Speedily
+she lost her first, fresh pleasure in making it flutter its little
+golden wings and fly; but her love of art deepened and strengthened, and
+at many famous shrines she offered her heart's homage. She took up the
+study of designing, and worked at it systematically with an ardor and
+intensity which at first amused and then puzzled her husband.
+
+On their return from their travels Perdita occupied herself in
+altering, refurnishing and redecorating one or two of Hepworth's country
+places and his town house. She worked in consultation with a great firm,
+and succeeded in changing the weary acquiescence of "our Mr. So and So"
+to interest and an astonishment bordering on enthusiasm. She was not the
+average rich woman who had gone in for being artistic, with a head full
+of glaringly impossible ideas and a flow of helpful suggestions which
+set the professional teeth on edge.
+
+On the contrary, this girl, Mrs. Hepworth, really knew a few things and
+was willing to learn more. She was a student. "The only woman," murmured
+dazedly "our Mr. Smith-Jones," "the only woman I ever met who realizes
+that decoration must conform to architecture, not defy it. You usually
+have to fracture their skulls to make them understand that pompadour
+prettinesses are not suitable in a Gothic chapel."
+
+But when she had finished the houses, and designed more costumes than
+she could wear, she looked about her for fresh worlds to conquer, and
+discovered that she was up against the boundaries. Walls everywhere!
+She could do anything she chose, travel, buy clothes, motors, an
+aëroplane if she wanted it, only she did not. She next went through a
+phase when she decided that the people with whom she was thrown were
+intolerable, representing a frivolous and empty-headed society. Her
+imagination dwelt on the class who "did things," "the dreamers," she
+called them to herself, who adorned a brilliant, picturesque,
+delightfully haphazard Bohemia, where, at feasts, principally of red
+wine and bloomy, purple grapes, laughter pealed to the rafters, and the
+conversation sparkled as if sprinkled with stardust. She strove to enter
+this Olympian vagabondia, and found herself entangled in the nets of
+many fowlers, sycophantic, impecunious, and, unsated of their many
+banquets, physically hungry.
+
+She began to have seasons of ennui and depression, increasing in
+frequency. What was the matter with her world? Nothing, she would hasten
+to assure herself, it was the best of all possible worlds, and she, a
+darling of fortune--once, unforgetably, the waif of chance--was the most
+contented of women. Only--what was the matter with this perversely
+empty and uninteresting world?
+
+It was not always so. It was once invested with wonderful things, and
+such simple things, too. She remembered how she used to stand at the
+window of her little work-room watching the day fade, marveling at the
+miracle of the twilight. While the sun was high, she had seen only
+commonplace, dusty streets, crowded with people, and had heard only a
+crazy, creaking old piano-organ grinding away on the pavement beneath,
+but in the soft indefiniteness of twilight these solid houses and
+buildings would become unsubstantial, mere shadowy arabesques on the
+spangled gloom of night. There were purple vistas, glittering lights and
+fairy towers. She would hold her breath, almost expecting to hear a
+nightingale. It was all mystery and magic, life and romance, that
+eternal romance her starved youth asked. How she used to dream of the
+unexpected, the dazzling unexpected!
+
+And then Cresswell had come, and, as she thought, offered it to her. To
+do Perdita justice, she had not married Hepworth merely because of his
+great wealth. She was incapable of such sordid and callous calculation.
+But Cophetua had met this beggar maid at her most disheartened and
+despairing moment, and without difficulty had succeeded in first winning
+her interest and then enchaining her imagination.
+
+In her two years of struggle to earn her livelihood Eugene had become
+more or less a memory, and, in spite of the fascination and interest he
+had always had for her, she did not blind herself to certain erratic
+tendencies of his. He might appear at any moment, so she judged him,
+with vows of eternal love, and straightway, if the mood seized him,
+begin a new picture and forget her. And so she married Hepworth largely
+that life might become a successive series of introductions to an ever
+varying unexpected. Instead, although her quest was feverish, she
+encountered only the commonplace. She was like a mouse which has
+discovered the inadequacy of cheese to quench its soul-yearnings. What
+remained?
+
+The truth of the matter was that Perdita's world, which seemed so
+hopelessly askew to her, had an architectural defect. It lacked that
+sure antidote to ennui--a Bluebeard's closet.
+
+Now Perdita was young and healthy. She had great curiosity, and a
+certain insatiable mental quality which would have successfully riveted
+her interest to life, but for one fact, her heart was as ardent and
+insatiable as her intelligence--and her husband bored her. There is no
+record of Bluebeard boring any of his wives.
+
+She became more and more conscious of a continual little plaint running
+always through her consciousness, like the sad, monotonous murmur of an
+ever-flowing stream, a little unceasing plaint against life in the
+abstract and life in its personal application.
+
+"There must be as many worlds as there are points of view," so ran the
+stream, "but my life's like a wedding-cake, all white and sparkling and
+overdecorated, and absolutely insipid. Candy! That's what it is ... my
+rooms are all pink and white, and I'm crusted over with pink sugar."
+Perdita always thought in color. "I'm tired of all this pink and white
+and baby-blue existence. I'd welcome a little scarlet and black sin for
+a change. Oh, it's just your corsets over again. You're put in them when
+you're about fifteen and you never get out of them again. We women think
+in corsets, breathe in them. We live in them mentally, and accept all
+their constrictions and restrictions as a matter of course. We take in
+drafts of air, and expand our lungs and say we're emancipated, but we
+only expand as much as the corsets allow. We've put our world in
+corsets, to confine us still more ... mine used to be mended, frequently
+washed, with some of the bones broken; now I have many pairs, brocade,
+satin--cloth of gold, if I want them--but they are the same thing,
+corsets, corsets on our bodies and brains and lives.
+
+"Look at Cresswell. He doesn't wear corsets. He has an interesting,
+absorbing, unfettered life. He's using the muscles of his
+brain--strengthening them on some resisting substance. He's in the thick
+of it.... What fun! Planning, visioning things in his mind, and seeing
+them take form in the external. He's a builder. He wears an
+imperturbable mask. That's for defense; but behind it I sometimes see
+keen, powerful, calculating gleams in his eyes, and I want to know about
+them, but I can't.... I can't talk to him about any but surface things.
+I can't show him what is in my heart.... The corsets are between us.
+He's one of the great powers, and he's mine, a possession like the
+Kohinoor, but I do not fancy that the Kohinoor constitutes the queen's
+happiness.
+
+"What are Cresswell and I to each other, anyway? Why, he's my Kohinoor,
+a possession of great price which endows me with distinction, and runs
+my credit up into the millions. He's as brilliant and cold and secretive
+as his prototype. And I--I'm his doll, a very jewel of a doll. One of
+the prettiest in the world, wonderfully dressed, exquisitely marceled,
+faultlessly manicured. I can smile enchantingly, and open and shut my
+mouth to ask for what I want and what I don't want, particularly the
+latter, and lisp 'thank you' when he drops a diamond necklace or a ruby
+tiara into my lap.
+
+"I hate a man that puts me on a pedestal. Any woman does. He thinks I'm
+sugar and salt and will melt and break. I wish he'd come to me, just
+once, with some enthusiasm and hug me breathless. I'm tired of his
+everlasting chivalry and deference.... When he begins to treat me with
+reverence and guards my youth and all that, I'd like to swear at him
+like the disreputable parrot of a drunken sailor.... Wouldn't I surprise
+him? I wonder what he would do if I'd cut loose? Oh, dear, I wish he'd
+come home drunk some night and smash up some of this junk and--what is
+that phrase of Wallace Martin's--swipe me one; and then be penitent and
+remorseful and ashamed and human--instead of always being like a darned
+old statue of the American statesman with one hand thrust in the bosom
+of his frock-coat.
+
+"I wonder--I wonder--what kind of a husband Eugene would have made. Not
+one of the amiable, benign, deferential ones, anyway. What were those
+lines 'Gene used to say?
+
+    "'Each life's unfulfilled, you see,
+        And both hang patchy and scrappy.
+      We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
+        Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy!'
+
+"That's it--that's it--that's life. To sigh deep--to laugh free; to
+make your bed in hell, and then soar on the wings of the morning.... I'm
+young, beautiful. I have everything but experience. I mean to have
+it.... No wonder Eve took the apple the serpent offered, if she was as
+bored in the Garden of Eden as I am. I'd have bitten more than one,
+though. What is the use of living if you don't live?"
+
+And while Perdita raged in inward rebellion, the world, viewing things
+from the outside, took an entirely different view of her matter.
+
+Popular opinion inclined to the belief that the good fairies had too
+heavily dowered this young woman at her cradle, and consequently a
+readjustment was inevitable, probably by the gracious means of ennobling
+tribulation. The dramatic event was rather eagerly anticipated. Not that
+envy had any part in it or that any of Perdita's friends or
+acquaintances wished to see a fellow being punished for the liberality
+of Providence. On the contrary. It was merely a sane desire to mark the
+balances of the universe in faultless equilibrium and to have the
+comforting assurance that the mills of the gods still ground with the
+proverbial exactness.
+
+Youth, health, wealth, beauty, happiness, all unlimited! An exasperating
+spectacle! How could all be right with the world as long as Hebe
+continued to pour most of the nectar into one glass, while so many
+thirsty, deserving souls were denied even a sip?
+
+And Perdita went her way and smiled alike on those who caviled and those
+who applauded. She had accepted her husband's friends as her own with a
+sort of careless, indifferent good nature and the relations existing
+between herself and the closely cemented little group were sufficiently
+harmonious under the circumstances. Maud Carmine and she had struck
+"leagues of friendship" at once, and Maud's prediction that Hepworth's
+friends would have to serve as Perdita's relatives would seem to have
+been verified.
+
+And Maud, through constant association, appeared to have reflected some
+of Dita's beauty, for there was evidenced the most remarkable change in
+the plain Miss Carmine, her name no longer prefaced by that deplorable
+adjective, however. Alice Wilstead explained it by frankly giving the
+credit to Perdita. It was she, Alice asserted, who had had the faith and
+the courage to take Maud vigorously in hand and make of her a new
+creature as far as the outward presentment was concerned. The results
+had been so mutually satisfactory as to rivet the friendship between the
+two; for Dita had proved by her works her belief that there was not the
+faintest necessity for any such creature as an unattractive woman; and
+Maud, having lost all faith in the willingness of nature to better her
+original handiwork, had turned hopefully to art, with the result that
+she was now one of the most talked-of women in town. By men, because she
+had recently grown attractive enough for them to discover that she was
+also extremely agreeable and sympathetic. By women, because they ached
+to discover her secret. They remembered as easily as the men forgot that
+for twenty-eight years of her life Maud had been as a weed by the wall,
+a lank and sallow weed, oppressed by the sparseness of her leaves and
+the entire absence of either flowers or fruit, and suddenly she had
+acquired an art, an air, the trick of dress so subtle that it imparted
+distinction even to her worst points.
+
+But when Perdita proceeded to verify, a little tardily, it is true, the
+hope of Mrs. Willoughby Hewston, sighingly expressed at the wedding
+breakfast, and furnished herself with a relative, the coterie gasped. It
+was not perhaps just the selection Mrs. Hewston would have made for her,
+but, nevertheless, Perdita had produced a relative, although, it must be
+confessed, of a rather dubious and indefinite nearness.
+
+If Mrs. Hewston had been questioned on the subject she might have
+confessed that the relative she had in mind, as presenting an admirable
+background for a young and lovely girl, was either a silver-haired
+mother with a white lace cap, and a hair brooch fastening the snowy lawn
+collar of her black gown; or, in lieu of her, a maiden aunt. Indeed, had
+Mrs. Hewston been given free choice, she would have inclined toward the
+latter. Unquestionably, a maiden aunt is the best possible promoter of
+that nice sense of the proprieties, those right feelings and carefully
+graduated moral sentiments which are indispensable to a homeless,
+penniless young woman scrambling for a living. But Perdita, in
+presenting her relative, had almost flippantly disregarded these
+considerations involving a sense of universal fitness. It was a far cry,
+really an almost revolutionary distance, one felt, from the
+silver-haired mother or rather acid maiden aunt to Eugene Gresham.
+Eugene Gresham! Fancy!
+
+For Eugene had returned to his native land with the recognition of Paris
+and London, even their acclaim--golden bay leaves and purple cloaks.
+Therefore was he thrice welcomed of New York. Therefore, the next
+presumption followed as naturally as the first. It was out of the
+question that Mrs. Hepworth, whose beauty was a matter of international
+comment, should lack a Gresham portrait, a distinction now unattainable
+save to those upon the mountain peaks of noble birth, enormous wealth,
+great achievement, remarkable beauty or superlative notoriety.
+
+As Alice Wilstead pointed out, no one could cavil at any relative Mrs.
+Hepworth chose to set up, however regretable might be Perdita Carey's
+claim of kinship with this particular person, and she had certainly, as
+far as one knew, been discreet enough not to flaunt him during her
+scrambles. Now, as Mrs. Hepworth's cousin (how many times removed,
+dear?) he was one more jewel in her crown.
+
+Mrs. Hewston sighingly acquiesced. "Yes, really. As Mrs. Hepworth's
+relative, yes. But hardly as the guide, philosopher and friend of youth,
+feminine youth, anyway." Only the happily married might safely claim
+him, for Gresham, with his fame as a painter of beautiful women and his
+almost equal reputation as a fascinating person, would not have been
+commended by any maiden aunt for either right feelings, nice moral
+sentiments or a discriminating taste for the proprieties.
+
+As for Cresswell Hepworth, he looked after his vast and varied
+interests, kept up his collections, especially his collection of
+amulets, in which he was greatly interested, and occupied his leisure in
+seeing that his wife was sufficiently entertained and amused to gratify
+the requirements even of her eager youth.
+
+Did she hint a longing for the Roc's egg? It was cabled for within the
+hour. Did she breathe a desire for the moon? Orders were given that an
+aëronautic expedition capable of securing it be manned at once.
+
+And yet in spite of all this obvious contentment and happiness, Mr.
+Willoughby Hewston in the rôle of raven had never ceased to flap his
+wings and croak. He was particularly in this favorite vein of his one
+afternoon when he shuffled into his wife's sitting-room, where she and
+Alice Wilstead sat over their tea-cups. They heard him sighing heavily
+as he came.
+
+"No, I don't want any tea," he said, letting himself down slowly into an
+easy chair, "you know I never touch it.
+
+"Poor old Cress!" He shook his head gloomily at a spot in the carpet.
+"Well, it's just as I predicted. That wife of his is the talk of the
+town!"
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed his wife. She, loyal soul, never failed him as
+audience. A quick glance passed between Mrs. Wilstead and herself, as if
+he had mentioned the subject uppermost in their minds, and, no doubt, in
+their conversation.
+
+"Oh, come now, Willoughby," said Alice, instinctively choosing the best
+method of drawing him out, "you know it's nothing like so bad as that."
+
+Hewston scowled heavily and laid one hand gingerly upon his rheumatic
+knee, which gave him an especially sharp twinge at the moment. "It's
+probably worse," he replied with even more than his customary acerbity,
+"worse than we, any of us, know. Didn't I see them walking up Fifth
+Avenue together this afternoon, and didn't a fellow speak of it to me?
+And Cress out of town!"
+
+"Well, let me tell something, dear," said his wife soothingly. "Cress
+will very soon be in town again, for here are invitations to a dinner
+the Hepworths are having next week. Quite an informal affair. Perdita
+writes me, 'Just the little group of Cresswell's best friends, which I
+hope I may also claim as mine,'" reading from the note she had picked up
+from the table. "Very sweet of her."
+
+"A dinner, eh," growled Hewston, "with all of us, and I suppose that
+painter fellow. Well, I only hope it will not fall to me to open poor
+Cresswell's eyes."
+
+"Oh, Willoughby!"
+
+"I'll not shirk my duty if it does. You can understand that. What
+evening is this dinner? Next Thursday! Humph! Who is that?" as the
+curtain before the door was pushed aside and some one entered.
+
+"I!" said Wallace Martin, "only poor little me. They told me to come up.
+What's happening next Thursday?"
+
+"The Hepworths' dinner. There is probably an invitation awaiting you at
+home."
+
+"No, there is not," he said. "It's in my pocket now. I picked it up as I
+was leaving. From what Maud Carmine has just told me, I imagine it's a
+touching family group composed of ourselves and Eugene Gresham."
+
+"Dear me," deplored Mrs. Hewston, "I do wish she would consider
+Willoughby more. She must know that he can not endure the sight of Mr.
+Gresham."
+
+"It is not her fault," said Martin quickly, "as far as I can make out
+from what Maud told me. Cress became imbued with the idea that he
+wanted his dear old friends clustering about the board, and made out
+the list himself."
+
+"How like a man!" remarked Alice Wilstead gloomily. "But why, just now?"
+
+"Oh, he's been adding to that pet collection of amulets of his, and he
+wanted to show us his new acquisitions. That's the root of it, I fancy.
+I don't imagine the lovely Perdita pined for us. She has been a creature
+of moods lately. Very hotty-like with me."
+
+"She was actually almost impertinent to Willoughby the other day." Mrs.
+Hewston spoke with a hushed mournfulness. "I'm afraid all this luxury
+and adulation has turned her head, and Willoughby spoke so gently to
+her, too, did you not, dear?"
+
+"Ugh! Humph!" quoth Willoughby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+OUR LOVING FRIENDS
+
+
+AS it chanced the Hepworths were not particularly fortunate in their
+choice of an evening for the dinner so gloomily anticipated by their
+guests. The weather was unpropitious. All day rain had threatened, and
+the air had been almost sultry, a parting word flung over her shoulder
+to autumn by a mischievous July who should long ago have vanished. As
+the evening wore on clouds banked more densely upon the horizon,
+occasionally muttering thunder, and this electric hint of storm in the
+air had in some way communicated itself to the mental atmosphere. A
+sense of foreboding, a consciousness of discord, seemed to swell
+ominously now and again beneath the smooth and colorful surface of the
+dinner. Even the dullest of the guests felt that, and to the intuitive,
+the stately progress of the meal was nerve-racking.
+
+When the hostess rose, every individual sigh of relief involuntarily
+exhaled became a chorus, shocking in volume.
+
+They winced nervously, but in spite of it, each guest stood by his guns.
+They had, apparently with one mind, and certainly with one voice,
+decided against bridge. The ordeal of dinner bravely borne, licensed
+them, they felt, even bestowed the accolade of privilege on them, to
+escape the prevalent atmosphere of unrest as quickly as possible.
+
+In the brief time they had allotted themselves to remain, barely
+skirting the limits of conventional decency, Alice Wilstead, Isabel and
+Willoughby Hewston and Wallace Martin had elected to take their coffee
+and cigarettes on a small balcony opening from the drawing-room by long
+French windows and giving upon a garden, quite half of a city block,
+with thick, close-cropped lawn, and black masses of dense shrubbery
+permeating the damp and sultry air with the mingled fragrance of earth
+and leaves and some late-blooming flowers. Maud Carmine, good-natured as
+usual, had seated herself at the piano, across the length of the room
+from the balcony, to play a ballad of Chaminade's at her host's
+request.
+
+Hepworth, who alone appeared to be oblivious of the sinister atmospheric
+influences, leaned his elbows on the piano and listened, occasionally
+unhesitatingly breaking the flow of the music with conversation.
+
+With their friend and host thus comfortably within sight, yet out of
+earshot, the group on the balcony felt at liberty to speak with freedom;
+no danger of sudden appearances, consequent jumps and hot wonder at what
+might have been overheard.
+
+"Gad!" said Mr. Hewston, more gray and pink, puffy and heavily financial
+than ever, "when will people learn to eat and drink without flowers on
+the table?"
+
+"No flowers!" repeated Alice Wilstead. "It would look dull, would it
+not?" From her tone it was evident that she had paid little heed to his
+words.
+
+"What difference does that make?" he argued irritably. "You don't go to
+dinner to look at the table decorations. But if they must have 'em, why
+can't they have the artificial kind or those paper things. Anything but
+the beastly, smelly, live ones."
+
+"Don't you really care for them?" she asked, laughing. "I thought every
+one loved flowers. To tell the truth, they were about all that made that
+unending dinner bearable to me. They were so exquisitely arranged."
+
+"Oh, that," in grudging admission, "goes without saying in this house,
+but," fretfully, "they were all the loud smelling kind."
+
+"She always arranges them herself," said Mrs. Wilstead, "she has
+wonderful taste, wonderful. Her house, her clothes, even down to the
+smallest detail of the table. Marvelous!"
+
+"Humph! she doesn't show the same taste in men," grunted Hewston. "No
+brains at all."
+
+Mrs. Wilstead leaned forward to tap his arm with her fan.
+
+"Do not make any mistake on that score," her voice was emphatic, "she
+has plenty of brains."
+
+"Humph!" more scornfully than before. "Then I wish they'd keep her from
+making the fool of herself that she is doing now."
+
+"Hs-s-sh," Alice looked as if she would like to thrust a handkerchief
+into his mouth. "Ah!" glancing up with relief as Isabel and Wallace
+Martin turned from their contemplation of the garden over the balcony
+railing. "Sit down here," she motioned to two chairs beside her.
+
+"Dear me, Alice," said Martin, "isn't your face tired with the effort of
+keeping the corners of your mouth turned up and the sparkle in your
+eyes? The only person who seems calm and serene this evening is dear old
+Hepworth. What do you think it is on his part, the quintessence of pose
+or simple, uncomprehending, fatuous ignorance?"
+
+"My God!" growled Hewston explosively. His wife started nervously.
+
+"Oh Willoughby dear, not so loud! Wallace," in what was as near a tone
+of reproof as she could achieve, "I do wish you wouldn't say those
+reckless things before Willoughby. You know how emotional he is."
+
+Alice also shook her head impatiently. "Don't you think we are a lot of
+old gossips magnifying matters enormously? You may expect so beautiful a
+young woman as Dita Hepworth to be more or less talked about; but there
+is probably a perfect understanding between herself and Cress. Lord
+help her if there isn't," she added almost under her breath, "I've known
+him many a year."
+
+"'When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect?'"
+quoted Martin impressively. As a would-be playwright he had the
+dramatists at his finger-tips.
+
+"Wallace, you are too bad," expostulated Mrs. Wilstead. "No wonder you
+quote from _The School for Scandal_. Here we are a lot of old wreckers
+doing our best to shatter a reputation. Why Dita Hepworth and Eugene
+Gresham have known each other ever since they were children. Naturally,
+she shows her pleasure in his society."
+
+"Oh pish!" scoffed Wallace Martin, "those unconcealed glances she
+bestowed on him at dinner spoke not of sisterly affection, and how we
+all squirmed under them and wondered miserably if Hepworth was seeing
+them too."
+
+"He always did see everything without appearing to," murmured Mrs.
+Wilstead gloomily.
+
+"Now merely as a sporting chance, which would you bet on," said Martin,
+drawing his chair a bit nearer, "the rich, middle-aged husband, or the
+fascinating artist, the painter of beautiful women, in the zenith of his
+fame? It is the same old plot you know, and the oft-told tale may have
+just two endings. First, she goes off with the artist, lives a squalid
+and miserable life abroad, falls ill, and dies, holding the hand and
+imploring the forgiveness of her husband, who conveniently and
+miraculously appears. In the second ending, she makes all preparations
+to flee and then something occurs which causes her to see the
+sculpturesque nobility of her husband's character and the curtain
+descends to slow sweet music while they stand heart to heart in the
+calcium light of a grand reconciliation scene."
+
+"Oh, Wallace, do forget for once that you are trying to be a playwright.
+Forget the shop." Mrs. Wilstead was irritable. "I do wish she would join
+us," looking about her nervously, "I want to go home. Is she utterly
+careless?"
+
+"Only absorbed," returned Martin calmly. "Didn't you hear her ask him
+before they left the room, to come and look at the picture gallery where
+he is to paint her portrait? She wanted him to judge of the lighting--a
+night like this. I thought I saw the flutter of her white gown in the
+garden yonder a bit ago."
+
+"Oh do, for goodness sake, change the subject," said Alice Wilstead
+hurriedly. "I am sure Cresswell must think it queer the way we are all
+sitting out here with our heads together, in the teeth of that
+approaching storm."
+
+"Not at all," Martin reassured her. "Don't you see that Maud is doing
+her duty heroically? Maud isn't the wife's confidante and dearest friend
+for nothing."
+
+"Isn't it perfectly wonderful about Maud?" commented Mrs. Hewston. "You
+all know what a plain, angular creature she was, nothing really to
+recommend her but her music and she always spoiled that by playing with
+her shoulder blades."
+
+"She's an extremely stunning woman," said Wallace Martin shortly.
+
+"And all due to Dita Hepworth," announced Mrs. Wilstead. "Wonderful! I
+never saw a woman with such a genius for dress and decoration. If her
+beauty wasn't such an obvious quality, I should think it was due to her
+almost uncanny knowledge of what is becoming and--Ah, thank Heaven, here
+she is!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PERDITA'S TALISMAN
+
+
+Perdita Hepworth had entered the room, with Eugene Gresham just a step
+or two behind her, and, after a glance in the direction of Maud Carmine
+and her husband, had moved toward the little group on the balcony.
+Gresham was used to any amount of attention and admiration, but the
+adulatory interest which he may have merited and had, in fact, grown to
+regard as his due, was always conspicuously lacking when he appeared
+with Perdita.
+
+"The picture gallery is the chosen spot," she announced as if bearing
+some intelligence for which they had long been waiting, "and the
+sittings are to be begun at once. I remember when I first knew Maud
+Carmine, she said to me, 'Fancy what it must be like to have your
+portrait painted by Eugene Gresham!'" Her low laughter rang with a sort
+of triumphant amusement. "'Dear child,' I answered, 'I have had my
+portrait painted by him so many times that there would be no novelty
+whatever in the experience.' You know," to Mrs. Hewston, who looked
+faintly puzzled, "'Gene and I have always known each other." She looked
+over at Gresham who was seated on the arm of a chair talking to Maud
+Carmine and Hepworth. "Has Maud been playing for Cresswell?" she asked
+suddenly. "He is so fond of her music."
+
+"Yes, she has been playing delightfully," answered Mrs. Wilstead, "and
+she looks charming to-night. Maud who was always regarded as an ugly
+duckling has suddenly become a swan."
+
+"Ah, why not?" said Perdita carelessly. "Maud hadn't the faintest idea
+how to make the most of herself. She gave the effect of hard lines and
+angles, and hair and eyes and skin all cut from the same piece, a dingy
+dust color. Like every other woman of that type she has a perfect
+passion for mustard colors and hard grays. Ugh!" she shivered. "The only
+thing to do with Maud was to make her realize that she must look odd and
+mysterious, you know. That was all. Oh, she is beckoning to me. They
+want something."
+
+She crossed the room with that grace of bearing which nature had
+bestowed upon her and with the added poise and assurance gained within
+the last two years. She still gave the effect of extreme simplicity in
+dress but it was retained as by a miracle, for although she wore no
+jewels her white gown was of the most exquisite and costly lace. But her
+head was undeniably carried a trifle higher than usual, and a very close
+observer might have read boredom in her eyes, defiance in her chin,
+rebellion in her shoulders. As she turned from the little group on the
+balcony, she bit her lip irritably, before she again composed her
+features to the conventional smile of hostess-like cordiality.
+
+Alice Wilstead followed her with puzzled eyes.
+
+"It is very difficult to understand a beauty," she said plaintively to
+Martin.
+
+"Put it more correctly," as he blew a cloud of smoke. "Say, it's
+difficult to understand a woman."
+
+"But I do not find it so," she smiled. "I'm one myself. I'm on to all
+our various vagaries, but Dita Hepworth puzzles me. Look at this house.
+There are effects here in decoration, so beautiful and unusual that
+every one says Eugene Gresham directed them. I know he did not. Look at
+Maud Carmine, and yet Dita herself usually wears the plainest of gowns."
+
+"I must confess," said Martin, "that I do not follow you."
+
+"Perhaps not," she mused, then with more animation. "Come, Wallace, tell
+me exactly how she impresses you."
+
+"That is easy," he replied. "She is one of the prettiest women I ever
+saw in my life."
+
+"Ah, of course," in annoyance, "but I didn't mean that. That is no
+impression of character."
+
+"Mm," he pondered. "It isn't much of one, no."
+
+Alice leaned back in her chair. "I seem to discern depths in her that
+the rest of you refuse to see. You stop at her beauty and are content
+with never a peep beneath the surface."
+
+Martin tossed his cigarette over the railing into the garden. "Frankly,
+I think that you are searching for something that isn't there," he said
+abruptly. "The gods never bestow all their gifts on one person. Since
+you profess to know your own self so well you should realize that women
+so very pretty as Mrs. Hepworth are rarely clever. Why should they be?
+It is enough of an excuse for existence that they are beautiful."
+
+"It is indeed," growled Hewston, who had been absorbed in sulky
+meditation for some time. "I'd be contented if I thought she had enough
+head on her shoulders to keep straight and not involve good old Hepworth
+in God knows what."
+
+Wallace laughed. "I'll lay you a wager, Mrs. Wilstead," he whispered,
+tapping her fan with his finger-tips, "that the way things are going now
+there will be a split in the Hepworth household within three months."
+
+"Do not say it," she cried quickly. "I can not bear to think of such a
+thing."
+
+"I'll give you heavy odds, too," he went on cynically, leaning forward
+to regard the group at the piano. "I'll make it a bracelet against a box
+of cigars, provided I'm allowed to choose the brand of cigars."
+
+"You might as well put in another provision then," she retorted,
+"provided I am allowed to choose the bracelet. My taste in ornaments,
+dear Wallace, is both unique and expensive. I like only odd jewelry."
+
+"Odd jewelry! That is an old fad of yours, Alice," said Hepworth's voice
+behind her.
+
+She started slightly, she had not noticed his approach. "And your own,"
+she smiled up at him. "Have you secured any new amulets lately,
+Cresswell?"
+
+"Yes, one. It is a beauty, a scarab. I must show it to you; also
+another, a carved bloodstone set in very curiously wrought iron. I got
+that from a Gipsy woman. It is an old Romany talisman."
+
+"Do let us see them," pleaded Mrs. Hewston.
+
+"Certainly, I shall be delighted to. Excuse me a few moments. I will get
+the box myself. Naturally I would not trust it to the servants." He
+smiled at his weakness.
+
+"Naturally," said Hewston. "Come, let us all get into the drawing-room
+to look at them. It is beginning to rain anyway."
+
+It was only a few moments before Hepworth returned bearing a large,
+black leather box. He placed it on a table just under the light and then
+choosing a key from a ring, fitted it into the lock.
+
+"I hold one key," he said to the group pressing about him as he lifted
+the lid, "and Perdita the other. That is in case she may want to wear
+any of these trinkets."
+
+Alice Wilstead had been looking at Mrs. Hepworth at the moment her
+husband entered the room and she alone had noticed that Dita started
+violently when her eyes had fallen on the box and that all the rich
+color had fled her cheek, leaving her, for a second or two, white as a
+ghost.
+
+The box held a series of trays, each padded and velvet lined and upon
+these were fastened Cresswell Hepworth's noted collection of amulets.
+Most of these talismans were very ancient, many of them revealed the
+most beautiful workmanship. All of them were distinctive. Each one,
+almost without exception, had a history, strange, romantic or sinister,
+and these were all duly catalogued, but it was never necessary for
+Hepworth to refer to this written history. He had not only the symbolic
+significance of his favorite toys, but also the vicissitudes through
+which they had passed, at his finger ends.
+
+The top trays held scarabs, one of the most remarkable collections of
+them extant, commemorating certain mighty and fallen dynasties; or this
+reign or that of remote Egyptian rulers long crumbled to dust, and
+Hepworth lifted them lovingly from their trays and turning them deftly
+in his fingers explained their histories and expatiated on their beauty.
+
+Beneath the scarabs lay the jade talismans exquisitely carved and handed
+down from distant centuries. The hearts that had once beat beneath them
+had long been dust, but the talismans, with no stain of time upon them
+to dim their luster, would still serve as emblems of good luck to future
+generations. Then there were quaint amber charms preserving the warmth
+and flooding radiance of the sunlight that sparkles on sea foam in their
+depths, and opals delicately clouded with mystery, their "hearts of fire
+bedreamed in haze," carbuncles, jasper and hyacinth, all in their time
+the almost priceless possessions of their owners because of the mystic
+significance attaching to them. And then there were trays containing a
+somewhat heterogeneous collection of old pieces of beaten silver and
+iron with odd characters on them, representing periods of even greater
+antiquity than scarab or jade.
+
+These amulets were in many instances the memorials of bitter feuds and
+hot duels, fought on the moment, at the gleam of a talisman which both
+contestants claimed. More than one had been hastily rifled from the
+dead, and more than one had been bestowed by a great lady on an untitled
+lover of empty purse to aid him in winning fame and fortune.
+
+"By the way, Alice," said Hepworth suddenly, "you have seen Dita's
+amulet, have you not? It is almost, if not quite the gem of the
+collection."
+
+"No, I have never seen it," Mrs. Wilstead's whole piquant face was alive
+with interest. "But I have heard of it. It was through it that you met,
+was it not?"
+
+Dita nodded. The color had come back to her face. "It was that old
+talisman he was really interested in," she said. "I always tell him he
+married me to get it."
+
+Hepworth laughed. "It is well worth any one's interest. It has been in
+her family for generations, and there are all sorts of legends and
+traditions connected with it. It is said to give his heart's desire to
+whomever possesses it, isn't it, Dita?"
+
+"More than that," she replied, a little strangely, or at least so it
+seemed to Alice Wilstead. "He to whom it is given--and it can not be
+bought or bartered, it must always be bestowed--must sooner or later
+reveal himself in his true character, either his baseness or his
+nobility."
+
+"Fascinating!" cried the women in chorus. "What is it like?"
+
+"It is a square of crystal set in silver and gold. About the silver is
+twined one of those old Celtic chains which can only be seen with a
+microscope, where the links are so tiny that we have no instruments
+delicate enough to fasten them together and which were believed to have
+been made by the fairies. And now for a sight of it."
+
+He was about to lift the next tray, when Dita laid a detaining hand on
+his arm. "It isn't there, Cresswell," she said in a quick, low voice.
+
+As if he had not heard her or had not taken in the full import of her
+words, he laid the tray carefully upon the table, disclosing the one
+beneath. Like the others, it too was full of curious amulets, but one
+space was empty. Perdita's talisman was indeed missing.
+
+"Why, Dita!" he exclaimed. "You did not mention to me--"
+
+She shot a quick, unmistakable glance at Gresham. "Didn't I?" she
+interrupted before he could go further. "It's being mended."
+
+"Ah, those antique bits, they are always coming to pieces, at least I
+know mine are," said Mrs. Wilstead with hasty fluency. "But, Cresswell,
+there is still another tray, and I must see its contents before I go
+home."
+
+"Make it a month," said Martin in her ear. "I said three, didn't I?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SIROCCO
+
+
+"Good night, Hewston, good night, Alice. Don't go yet, Gresham."
+Hepworth laid a detaining hand on the artist's arm. "Sit down and smoke.
+We haven't had a moment to discuss this portrait matter yet."
+
+"I think," said Dita, moving toward the door, "that I shall leave you
+two to discuss it and go to bed."
+
+"Oh, my dear," her husband detained her with the same light touch with
+which he had held Gresham. He pushed an easy chair forward so that she
+should be seated between Eugene and himself. "We are going to get all
+the details of the portrait settled to-night. A portrait of you and
+painted by Gresham is sure to bloom and be admired for a century or two
+at any rate."
+
+Dita looked at him quickly as if suspecting him of some intention
+beyond the discussion of the contemplated portrait, but meeting the
+smiling blankness of his expression, turned away, not in the least
+reassured, but more puzzled than ever, and sinking listlessly into the
+chair sat staring moodily before her with veiled eyes and compressed
+lips.
+
+Eugene glanced at her uneasily, a frown between his brows. He knew her
+like a book. She had always, always from childhood, been a creature of
+moods. He was perfectly familiar with the various stages of the sirocco,
+as he had long ago named her outbursts. She would become restless,
+abstracted, absent, and then she would sit and brood as she was doing
+now, until finally the sullen and threatening atmosphere would be
+cleared by a burst of storm, a swift cyclone of anger.
+
+Gresham gave the faintest of sighs and an almost imperceptible shrug of
+the shoulders. This was a situation which he foresaw would require all
+his tact and ingenuity.
+
+"Is the picture gallery all right? Did you find it satisfactory?" asked
+Hepworth.
+
+"Excellent!" Eugene's brow cleared. He spoke with enthusiasm. "Yes, I
+told Perdita that the lighting there will be perfect. I've about decided
+to paint her in white. Yes," scrutinizing the indifferent object of the
+discussion narrowly and yet remotely, as if he were visualizing his
+finished portrait of her, "white velvet, I think, and rather a blare of
+jewels. You see I want to bring out the dominating quality of her
+beauty, harp on it, you know, so I want to present her eclipsing and
+reducing to their proper places all the splendid accessories with which
+we can surround her."
+
+Her husband nodded approvingly. "What do you think, Dita?"
+
+"Oh, by all means," she roused herself to answer, but making no effort
+to conceal the irony of her tones. "Let Eugene give me all the
+distinction and grace he is noted for bestowing on, you observe I do not
+say perceiving in, his clients, or patients, or patrons, whatever he may
+call them. Make the stones of my tiara and necklace even bigger and
+whiter and more sparkling than they are, Eugene. Or better still, I'll
+wear my diamond collar and my string of rubies and my rope of sapphires,
+all shouting hurrah at once, three cheers for the red, white and blue!
+Make me all glittery, Eugene, throw my sables over my shoulders."
+
+"By Jove!" cried Gresham, interrupting her, a white flash of enthusiasm
+across his face, "you may not dream it, Dita, but that's it exactly.
+You've hit it."
+
+"Yes," she went on satirically, "and present me in the middle of all
+this splendor, overcome by the 'burden of an honor into which I was not
+born.'"
+
+"But you were born to it," interposed her husband quickly, "no one more
+so."
+
+"Perhaps," she sighed a little, her eyes and voice grew softer, "but at
+a time when the outward manifestation had vanished."
+
+The glow had lingered, even become intensified in Gresham's face. "By
+Jove!" he cried again, "you were trying to be sarcastic and all that,
+Dita, but it was a great idea of yours just the same. I will paint your
+portrait and it shall be hung side by side with my working girl. They
+shall be companions of contrast. You see," explaining his idea to
+Hepworth, "I am going to paint my working girl in the city streets just
+at twilight on a winter evening, hastening home after the day's long
+toil. The lights and colors of the shop windows dance and glitter about
+her, blurred by the falling snow. Everything, lights, buildings,
+passers-by, are all in that blurred, indistinct atmosphere, and she,
+herself, is a part of the blur, looking through it, with her young, worn
+face and wistful eyes, craving the beauty and the joy of life."
+
+"No, no!" cried Dita suddenly. Rising, she moved rapidly up and down the
+room, her head bent, her finger at her lip. "No!" she cried again, her
+voice deeply vibrating. "I reckon you've just missed it, Eugene, it's
+too--too conventional. I can imagine something truer than that. My
+working girl, if I were painting her, should not be born to toil, not
+always have regarded it as the great fact of existence, an inevitable
+portion of her days and years from which she has never dreamed of
+escape. No, I would picture her delicate, highly nurtured, with
+traditions of race and breeding behind her; but poor, oh, very poor. And
+she shouldn't look out on life with resigned, wistful eyes, but with
+passionate, demanding ones, rebelling that her youth, her wonderful,
+beautiful, dreaming youth was passing in a tomb of tradition, a green
+and flowery tomb perhaps, maybe an old southern garden, but nevertheless
+a place of dead lives, dead memories, dead customs. And she, this girl,
+hates it, the dust and must of it. She hears always in her ears the
+surges of that mighty ocean of life. And she can't resist it. She can't.
+Then because her heart is set on it, she comes to a great city like
+this, comes with all her high hopes and her untarnished confidence in
+herself; and all this magnificent swirling tide of life, with its
+mingled and mingling streams, seems to bear her onward to the highest
+crest of the highest wave. Then she begins to hear, at first faintly and
+then ever louder and more menacing, the voice of New York, with its
+ceaseless reiteration of one theme, 'pay, pay, pay.' She turns
+desperately to her little accomplishments, those little, untrained,
+unskilful things that she can do, straws on that ocean; and expects them
+to save her.
+
+"Ah!" she drew her hand across her brow, her face contracting a moment.
+"Then comes the grind between the millstones, the continual
+disappointments, the terror by day and night, the rent, that rolls like
+a snowball, the dreary evenings which she must spend alone in the dreary
+little room, while all the time she hears the mocking invitation of the
+great, glittering city to partake of her many feasts.
+
+"And she," again Dita sighed deeply, "she begins to believe herself
+doomed to dash her youth and beauty against the walls of a tomb. And she
+has to learn so many things, among them the hideous accomplishment of
+making both ends meet. What does she know of the use and value of money?
+Oh, of course all kinds of cheap, left-handed pleasures are offered her,
+because people consider her pretty, but it is an impossibility for her
+to accept them. She has been born in the traditions of real lace and
+real jewels. And the panic-fear! Ah!--" she broke off abruptly.
+
+"Dear me, Dita. You should have been an orator." For the past five
+minutes Eugene had been scarcely able to conceal his irritation,
+frowning, biting his lips, twisting in his chair and casting furtive
+glances at Hepworth. "I remember you used to be given to those bursts of
+eloquence now and then."
+
+"And what finally becomes of her?" asked Hepworth of his wife, ignoring
+Eugene's interruption. His voice was low, expressing nothing more than a
+polite interest.
+
+"I don't know," said Dita wearily. "A number of things. She may
+comfortably die, or marry, poor thing, any one who will have her."
+
+"Very dramatic," said Gresham dryly. "You always did have histrionic
+talent, Dita. I've often wondered that you did not attempt the stage."
+
+Perdita opened and closed her eyes once or twice as if she had just
+returned from a far country.
+
+"I certainly wasn't much of a success at painting lamp-shades and menus,
+was I, Eugene, in spite of your early training?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders without answering, made a slight, disclaiming
+gesture with one hand and rose to his feet. "What!" listening intently
+as a clock chimed somewhere. "I had no idea it was so late." His face
+cleared. He was evidently relieved at his chance of escape. He shook
+hands with Hepworth and then turned to Dita. "Remember that the first
+sitting will be at twelve o'clock Wednesday morning, and please don't
+keep me waiting. That is a fact that I have to impress on these charming
+women," he turned laughingly to Hepworth, "that I am neither their
+manicure nor hair-dresser. I am accustomed to keep them waiting if I
+choose."
+
+"I'll be ready," she said indifferently, but Eugene noticed with
+apprehension, even alarm, that those deep vibrations which spoke of
+barely controlled emotion were still existent in her tones. "I'll be
+ready, velvet, diamonds, hurrah of jewels, if you wish, sables and all."
+
+Again a gust of wind swept through the room and Hepworth went over to
+close a window.
+
+Eugene took quick advantage of the occasion. "For Heaven's sake," he
+whispered, "pull yourself together."
+
+His words were too late. Too late by half an hour. The sirocco had done
+its work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE GIFT OF FREEDOM
+
+
+With the departure of a third person the situation immediately changed
+complexion. It became more intimate and therefore more embarrassing.
+With Eugene had departed the audience and the stimulus of playing to it.
+The star and the stage manager were left alone. Untrammeled emotional
+expression no longer seemed an heroic necessity. Under the calm,
+unreadable, steady regard of her husband's eyes it held its elements of
+banality and of sensationalism, of pseudo-emotion. Dita became sullen.
+"I think I shall go to bed," she said abruptly and for the second time
+and then turned to the door.
+
+"Wait a moment." His voice was courteous, pleasant, but it would have
+been a dull ear which could not have discerned the tone of command
+beneath its even modulations.
+
+It was new to Dita and arresting, and she paused, wavered a moment and
+came back to the chair she had left and folding her arms upon its high
+cushioned back, stood with still, sullen mouth and downcast eyes,
+exhaling reluctance. She was feeling the reaction from her late mood of
+exaltation, of dramatic visioning of poignant past experiences.
+
+He waited a second or so, and then said, "Your working girl was a far
+more dramatic conception than Gresham's. It might not lend itself so
+much to pictorial representation. It might be more literary." He
+appeared to give this question some consideration. "However," he
+dismissed it with a wave of the hand, "that is neither here nor there.
+What counts is this, were you the girl whose life you described so
+feelingly and dramatically?"
+
+There was silence between them for a moment. Dita's first impulse was to
+maintain it indefinitely; ignore this question with barely suggested
+contempt; with a faint gesture of dissent, signify that she considered
+it a crudity, almost a vulgarity, and lightly, languidly, indifferently
+dismiss the whole subject and leave the room. She knew how,
+intuitively. Behind her were generations who understood how to flick an
+unpleasant situation from the tips of their fingers, who would ignore
+and dismiss with amused disdain an invitation to exculpate themselves or
+explain, when to explain meant practically to retract. But false as she
+felt, with waves of shame, she had been to her traditions and upbringing
+in revealing her emotion, she was no coward. She lifted her head and met
+his eyes. Gray eyes faced gray eyes--but with a difference. Hers were
+the passionate, emotional Irish gray--with black beneath them, and the
+long curling black lashes, but his were like mountain lakes, reflecting
+a gray and steely sky. Hers revealed all the secrets she might wish to
+hide; his concealed all his secrets admirably--discreet windows,
+revealing nothing but what their owner desired they should reveal.
+
+"Yes," she said with defiant brevity.
+
+He appeared again to give this reply due consideration. He had risen now
+and was walking up and down the floor. "What an impression it must have
+made on you!" he said at last, very gently.
+
+She plaited the lace of her sleeve. "You knew about me before we were
+married," she said. "Why--?"
+
+"Quite true, but sometimes something is said, it may be only a word, and
+one's eyes become, as it were, unsealed. One sees a perfectly familiar
+object or situation in an entirely new light. Your attitude now," he
+turned to her rather sharply, "is that I am about to blame you, to take
+you to task. Far from it. Why should I blame you for what has been
+beyond your power? Your words to-night have made me realize that it has
+been quite impossible for you to care for me, and that I have not been
+able to make you happy. Ah," lifting his hand as she was about to speak,
+"do not disclaim it. I know. You see, that very fact sends the whole
+house of cards tumbling. The bitterness with which you have spoken
+to-night would not have been in your mind, rankling, rankling all this
+time, if you had been a happy woman. It was bound to burst into flame
+sooner or later."
+
+"Oh!" she broke out. "You have always won. You do not know what it is
+like to lose; but I--I missed every mark I aimed at. I came up from the
+South, so dead sure that I was a very gifted and accomplished person,
+and that all I had to do was to hold out my apron and all the beautiful
+and delightful things would tumble into it. But this great city surely
+taught me a lesson, and she's no very gentle teacher, either. And I used
+to sit up there in that tiresome little apartment among those
+candle-shades and cotillion favors and think how--how pretty I was," she
+flushed under his smile, "and rage, and get sick with disgust when I
+thought how I would look after about twenty years of that kind of life.
+I knew exactly how I'd look. I'd be one of those peaked, wistful-eyed
+old maids, with rusty black clothes turning green and brown, and a
+general air of apology for living. I could just see myself ironing out
+the ribbons of my winter bonnet with which to trim my summer hat, and
+then laundering my handkerchiefs and pasting them on the window-panes to
+dry. And life, life was like a great, wonderful river, flowing by and
+leaving me stranded on the shore. And then you came."
+
+Hepworth laughed. "I don't wonder that you took the alternative. I'm
+conceited enough to think it better than those ugly pictures your young
+eyes were gazing at."
+
+"Yes, they were ugly," she agreed. "Life just seemed like a dark,
+dreary, cobwebby passageway, but I always felt as if I might come to a
+door any minute and step through it into a beautiful garden. You seemed
+the door." She spoke the last words a little shyly.
+
+He glanced at her again, inscrutable, unfathomable things in that gaze.
+"Ah, youth, youth and the waste of it!" There were tones in his voice
+that brought the tears to her eyes, but he did not see them. He was
+musing on the accident of her life, this flower of the dust, which he
+had taken from the dingy environment she loathed. He had lavished all
+the beauty and experience within his power upon her, and taken away
+perhaps the one thing that had redeemed her life. He had seen only the
+limitations and the makeshifts and how they had oppressed her dainty and
+fastidious spirit; but it had never struck him before that in lifting
+her away from them, above them, he had taken from her the one thing that
+might have glorified her life, that the sordidness and the scrimpiness
+were for her for ever haunted by the unexpected. That because she was
+young and beautiful and free, the dreariness must have been irradiated
+always by the rainbow tints of romance; and he had given her all the
+beauty and glitter his money could buy in exchange for the joy of a
+dream, and fancied that he had actually done something for her.
+
+"Dita, forgive me," he murmured, a curiously bitter smile about his
+mouth.
+
+"Forgive you!" she looked at him a little cautiously. She didn't
+understand the workings of his mind. He never gave her a hint either in
+eyes or expression that would seem as a clue for her to follow.
+
+"Yes. You should." Again he smiled at her. "You didn't get a fair
+exchange. I see that very plainly now."
+
+"You must not speak like that," she said quickly. "Believe me, it was a
+great deal more than a fair exchange and I have always regarded it so.
+Why do you think I have not been happy?"
+
+"Because you have never really loved me."
+
+"But I--I have always liked you," she cried quickly. "But," forlornly,
+"you knew the truth at the time. Even if I had not, I should have had to
+marry you anyway. I was so deep in debt I couldn't help it. I could not
+manage any more than I can speak Sanscrit. So you see that there is
+nothing to forgive. Believe me, I am always grateful, for before I
+married you, I thought and thought, but I could see no other way."
+
+He laughed again. He couldn't help it. He had a sense of humor and he
+seemed to see, in a flashlight of vision, shocked Romance gather up her
+skirts and shake the dust of Dita's threshold from her winged shoes.
+
+"You are so really fearless and honest, Dita, that I venture to ask the
+question." He put it with a rather diffident gentleness. "You have found
+it quite impossible to care for me?"
+
+"Oh, no," impulsively. "I have always liked you. I am really very fond
+of you. But I am always tongue-tied before you. I never can think of
+anything to say to you and I always say foolish things." She regarded
+him with a wistful timidity.
+
+He laughed ruefully. It was sorry mirth. "That is a proof of my
+stupidity, my child, not yours."
+
+He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Up and down the room
+he walked twice, three times, engrossed. Then having arrived at a
+decision, he put it into words. "Dita," he stopped before her and looked
+at her earnestly, "perhaps I am utterly rash and foolish, but will you
+answer me one question? But first get all melodramatic ideas of the
+state of my feelings out of your head." His smile was faintly cynical,
+obscurely so. "And believe me, that what really concerns me is your
+happiness. Are you in love with Eugene Gresham?"
+
+She started, cast one quick glance at him, and then stared frowningly
+before her, but he noticed that her hand trembled on the back of the
+chair. "Why do you ask me that? I--I am married to you--I--" her voice
+faltered, broke.
+
+"Oh, no conventional utterances, please," he cried quickly. "That is not
+worthy of you, not like you. There should be, there must be absolute
+sincerity between us now. Tell me, Perdita, are you in love with Eugene
+Gresham?"
+
+"Ah, that I do not know." She looked beyond him and, still gazing, shook
+her head. "I do not know. I never have known, never been sure. We were
+boy and girl together, he a few years older. He is associated in my mind
+with the life of green old gardens and the smell of jasmine flowers. He
+lives in a wonderful world, a world of color that something in me always
+yearns toward. It seems to me sometimes as if I would rise to it, and my
+heart would blossom in purple and red. I seem doomed to talk foolishly
+to you," she exclaimed rather piteously, "but most people's hidden
+thoughts would sound foolish to others, would they not?"
+
+"Go on, my dear." Then his controlled utterance gave way. "For heaven's
+sake, why should you not feel that you can say anything to me? What kind
+of an idea have I given you of myself? But tell me," quickly subduing
+his emotion, "what is it you feel?"
+
+"As if--as if my heart were a flower which had never really bloomed--a
+cold, tightly folded bud, that yet held within the colorless outer
+leaves wonderful red and purple petals. All there, awaiting a sesame,
+and I sometimes dream that only Eugene can give me that sesame. But,"
+the glow left her eyes, her head drooped, "I don't know, I don't know. I
+thought I was sure once that I loved him. I do not know now."
+
+"Where was Gresham during the time you were struggling here?" he asked
+presently. And it struck her irrelevantly.
+
+"In the East somewhere, I think. Doing his desert pictures. I used to
+hear from him once in a great while."
+
+He said nothing. Then he came nearer and took both her hands in his.
+
+"Dita, my clear, I'm going to be egotistical and talk about myself for a
+minute. Let me see if I can explain." Again that worn and flashing
+smile, with a deeper touch of cynicism, flitted over his arrogant face.
+
+    "'King Canute was weary-hearted,
+        He had reigned for years a score,
+      Pushing, struggling, battling, fighting,
+        Killing much and robbing more.'
+
+"Let us hope that it is not quite so bad as the last line infers; but
+it gives the idea, the picture. Well, Dita, I saw you, a beautiful
+flower, purple and red, if you will, although I do not think the
+combination of colors appropriate. And you were blooming in a tin can in
+a tenement window. It was insupportable, so I dreamed of transplanting
+the flower into its fitting surroundings, a marble court. That was what
+I crudely thought would mean your happiness. But I never secured the
+flower to adorn the marble court. Believe that. Above all, I wanted and
+I want its happiness. Dita, I'm weary-hearted, but I long--I long above
+all things--to make you happy. Take the poor surroundings that I can
+give you; but let your beauty have its meed, let your heart flower as it
+will. Feel free to meet, with outstretched hands, the romance your youth
+has dreamed of, for, Dita, I, who have only fettered you with jewels, am
+going to give you something really worth while, thanking God very humbly
+that it is in my power to do so, and the gift is freedom. You are free
+from now on."
+
+She started back, looking at him in frowning bewilderment and yet he saw
+deep within her eyes a wild gleam of hope, of joy. "Free!" she repeated
+uncertainly, "Free! How can I be free when I am married to you?"
+
+[Illustration: "Free! How can I be free?"]
+
+He laughed once more, and the dreariness of that laughter rang suddenly
+hours afterward in her ears. "Those things can always be arranged," he
+said. "But I am going to ask you a favor." Although he said "favor" her
+quick ear caught the ring of authority in his tone. "Since you are not
+sure that you love Gresham, I am going to ask that you wait a year
+before securing your legal freedom. You shall have it, whether you
+decide on him or not. Oh, believe that. Ah, one more request. Let me
+urge you not to have your portrait painted just now. In view of possible
+future events, it is much wiser, much safer to let that go for the
+present. I think you will have to trust my judgment here. There is no
+danger of your beauty waning." Again his worn and flashing smile. "And
+now, it is very late and I think you had better get some sleep. Good
+night." He smiled again, but she noticed how dreadfully tired he looked.
+She winced a bit in soul.
+
+"I am sorry that it has been such a fizzle," she turned to him with a
+sort of shy, girlish friendliness and impulsiveness.
+
+He smiled again and lightly touched her cheek with his finger. "Give no
+more thought to that." He turned abruptly away.
+
+"Ah, Dita," his voice arrested her from the threshold, "one more request
+I am going to make and that is that you get your amulet to-morrow. If
+not I shall have to see about it myself and I am really too busy to
+bother with it at present." Again that iron ring of authority was in his
+voice, but authority masked in velvet. "Will you very kindly attend to
+this, my dear?"
+
+She nodded mutely from the doorway, but did not lift her down-bent head,
+nor raise her eyes to his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FOOLS' LAUGHTER
+
+
+When Dita wakened the next morning, it was very late, almost noon. She
+came slowly to waking consciousness over wastes of apprehension,
+oppressed by some heavy sense of disaster. What had happened? Ah, she
+remembered it, it was last night. She squirmed uncomfortably and then
+lay gazing with somber and introspective eyes about the beautiful room.
+Slowly, the chaotic and uncomfortable thoughts which thronged
+confusingly in her mind resolved themselves into two or three distinct
+facts as scorching to her sensitiveness as if written in letters of
+fire. First, she had let herself go unwarrantably. An electric storm
+always exerted a sinister effect upon her, inducing a wildness, a
+recklessness at first, eventually followed by melancholy and culminating
+either in tears or temper. And she had yielded weakly to every phase of
+this storm-induced mood.
+
+Why did events have to take the bits in their teeth and gallop madly
+along the road to ruin at the most placid and unexpected moments? Why
+should an electric storm have blotted the sky and flashed its jagged
+lightning over her nerves that especial evening? Why had she not
+mastered the sirocco, driven it off in its first stealthy approaches?
+But she melted to self-pity; Cresswell should not have taken her so
+seriously. He might have realized that the storm, and that tiresome
+dinner, and those tiresome people had goaded her unendurably. Grant them
+every virtue, every grace, admit that there might have been an
+attraction between herself and them in ordinary circumstances, but the
+fact that they were old friends of her husband changed the whole
+chemical situation. Attraction became repulsion, attempt to conceal the
+fact as she would. But self-pity ultimately merged into self-accusation.
+No matter what the causes, she had made a melodramatic scene. She had
+told a lot of bare truths, which, like all bare truths, were only half
+truths; about Eugene, for instance, practically admitting that she loved
+him.
+
+Well, did she? She sat up suddenly in bed and pushed the hair back from
+her brow with both hands. She pondered intensely a moment. She didn't
+know. She really didn't know. Was it love, this feeling she had for him,
+had had for him ever since she had been a girl of fifteen? It was a
+powerful attraction anyway--a sympathy, an understanding.
+
+And Cresswell had offered her freedom, freedom! What did it mean? Her
+heart began to beat quickly, excitedly. It meant the great adventure ...
+if one had the courage ... one need "mourn no joy untasted, envy no
+bliss gone by." She would throw off this ennui, this apathy which
+afflicted her. She was free, free to seek and meet the unexpected. The
+great adventure, a thousand adventures were before her. At last, she
+would live. Suddenly she remembered her amulet. She must get it. She
+gave this a moment's consideration, and then, before summoning her maid,
+she went quickly to the telephone in her sitting-room, and rang up
+Eugene Gresham's studio.
+
+To her relief, he was there and answered the ring almost immediately.
+
+"Are you there, 'Gene. I want to see you to-day, as soon as possible,
+within an hour or so. Will it be convenient for you?"
+
+"Oh, perfectly. But," there was anxiety in his voice, "nothing is wrong,
+I hope."
+
+"Oh, nothing much," she replied evasively, "only I want to talk to
+you--but not here."
+
+"Why not take luncheon with me," he replied, "at half-past one and
+where?"
+
+"Oh, not in any crowded restaurant," she answered a little impatiently.
+"At some quiet place. A tea-room--the Wistaria?"
+
+"Very well. Then within an hour and a half."
+
+"And, oh, Eugene," her voice detaining him, "I want the talisman. Do not
+fail to bring it. Do you understand?"
+
+If Dita wore as a protecting disguise the simple and conventional dark
+gown which has been prescribed by certain unalterable rules of fiction
+as the proper costume for a lady hastening to a rendezvous, it failed of
+its effect, but served instead to accentuate her beauty; nor detracted
+in the least from her as an object of interest and comment.
+
+And Eugene, with his fame, and his air, and his eyes, his lifted
+shoulder and his limp, the pointed laurel leaves seeming to gleam
+through his cloud of hair, handed her from her motor-car with the manner
+of courts, his hat in hand, to the admiration of the passers-by. The
+whisper ran: "Eugene Gresham and the beautiful Mrs. Hepworth." They
+passed through a gaping aisle. They entered the tea-room to the craning
+of necks. Poor souls! This was their measure of seclusion. Beauty and
+genius! Fame and wealth! It is a combination New York loves. She serves
+them up to her multitudes on a salver.
+
+They were successful, however, in finding a remote table beneath swaying
+purple clusters of artificial wistaria and a dimly mellow light. And
+while Eugene ordered the luncheon, Dita glanced about her with a
+sensation of relief; new surroundings always seem to hold out the
+alluring if frequently vain promise of new thoughts and this was the
+beginning of adventure, of that new life of infinite variety she meant
+to live at last.
+
+Eugene turned from the waiter, and leaning across the table narrowly
+observed her.
+
+"A trifle pale," he remarked. "Mad Dita!" reproachfully and yet
+tenderly. "I hope all that atmospheric unpleasantness--mental, I mean,
+did not come boiling and seething to the surface after I left last
+night. I hoped the sirocco had spent itself before I left. But doubtless
+Hepworth understands how you are affected by a storm."
+
+"I'm afraid I did make rather a scene," she admitted, her lashes on her
+cheek. "However, that is neither here nor there."
+
+He drew a breath of relief.
+
+"Then it is all over, the atmosphere cleared and we are to begin our
+sittings to-morrow." He smiled in anticipation and laughingly drew her
+picture upon the air.
+
+"No," she shook her head, and spoke more reluctantly than before,
+"Cresswell has requested me not to have my portrait painted just now. He
+is kind enough," her smile was shadowy, "to think that there is no
+particular danger of an immediate waning of my beauty and he desires me
+to wait a few months."
+
+"But that is impossible! Incredible!" he scowled with irritation and
+threw himself back in the chair. "Oh, what a sirocco, what a sirocco it
+must have been!" He shook his head back and forth and then dropped it in
+his hands, studying the pattern of the table-cloth as though it were the
+map of the situation. "To pass over my disappointment"--he lifted his
+head and mechanically pushed about some of the dishes the waiter placed
+before him on the table--"ignore it, let it go. I'm not going to press
+that now; but there are other things to be considered. It is known that
+I am to do your portrait. It was openly discussed last night. All this
+must be taken into account. That is for appearances as far as you are
+concerned. Then regarding me. I am not a paper-hanger or house painter
+to be engaged and then dismissed at the whim of a millionaire. I can not
+accept a commission from Hepworth and permit him to cancel it by a
+negligent message, sent through a third person. Absurd!" He frowningly
+bit a finger. "My plans and arrangements must be concluded for months
+ahead. They can not be thrown askew like this. Oh, Dita, what did you
+do, what did you say that brought this about? I worked like a Trojan
+last night to avert anything of the kind."
+
+She did not answer, but sipped her tea with downcast eyes and he saw
+that the lashes on her cheeks were wet.
+
+"Ah, Dita," his voice fell to a charming note of tenderness, a note to
+stir any woman's heart, with the purple and white of the wistaria
+clusters swaying above their heads and the mellow light reflected in his
+eyes, his eager eyes which pierced life's stained and sordid curtain and
+saw the wonder and miracle of beauty; and it was this power to discern
+the eternal vision which illuminated his ugly, irregular, fascinating
+face upon which work and dreams and experience had stamped their
+impress. "You can not fancy what it means to me to paint your portrait
+now. I've painted it before, crudely, in boyhood, and experienced then a
+casual delight in the effort to portray a beautiful thing, and wrest a
+few new secrets of art from the portrayal. That was all. But now," his
+voice without being raised, yet lifted exultantly, "but now--my heart is
+swept with insurgent seas at the thought of what it means. I am lover
+and artist, fused in a fire of white enthusiasm. The lover sees, divines
+what the artist can only guess at, and the artist offers to the lover a
+perfected technique. I feel the stirring of this power to catch your
+loveliness, Dita, and fix it on canvas imperishably. It would be the
+great achievement. That is in the background of every artist's thoughts.
+It is his pillar of cloud by day and his pillar of fire by night. The
+great achievement!" He dreamed over it a moment. "I would paint the
+South in you, Dita, 'warm and sweet and fickle is the South.' Ah! I
+thought I loved you then. I thought I loved you the evening we parted,
+but I know now that I have never really loved you before or I could not
+have given you up."
+
+They were almost alone, nearly every one had left the room. A long trail
+of wistaria blew before her eyes. The light glowed through the silken,
+yellow shades. The South! She smelled roses and jasmine. It seemed to
+her for one bewildering moment as if her heart had indeed blossomed in
+purple and red. She smiled lingeringly, sweetly into his eyes.
+
+"The portrait's only postponed, Eugene, look at it in that way." The
+words recalled her to herself with a start. This was paper wistaria and
+electric light. She was no longer a girl in a flower-scented, green old
+garden about to pose for a boyish and impatient artist. Here she was, in
+spite of all her vows to the contrary, yielding to Eugene's spell
+without a struggle. She was quite sure of his charm and magnetism, but
+what she doubted now was her own heart.
+
+"'Ah, the little more and how much it is. And the little less, and what
+worlds away,'" she murmured beneath her breath, wondering unhappily if
+she were born to doubt everything.
+
+"But I can't and I won't submit to a postponement." He was now both
+impatient and impassioned.
+
+"It is not final," she explained. "Do take it as a postponement, nothing
+more. He has his reasons--oh, they are not what you suspect. He is not
+jealous. He is too big for that. It is something I can not go into now."
+Her sentences were disjointed. She seemed almost incoherent to him. "Let
+it be so for the present. I implore, no, I insist, that there be no
+explanations. But I must go, it is getting late," she started as if to
+rise; then sank back in her chair and held out her hand. "Oh, the
+amulet, Eugene."
+
+"I haven't got it," he threw out both empty hands and looked up at her
+from under his brows with the expression of a naughty child. "Now
+listen, Dita, before you get angry, although you're so wonderful when
+you're angry that any one might be forgiven for tempting you into that
+state; but after you called me up, the Nasmyths, those English people
+you know, mother and daughter, were at the studio, and I was so intent
+on getting them away in time to meet you, the mother is the most
+interminable talker, that I finally bundled them out of the door and
+came with them, with never a thought of the amulet."
+
+"'Gene, how like you!" Her face was full of dismay. "Cresswell
+especially asked me to get it to-day, and I don't think he believed for
+one moment that clumsy fib I told about having it mended."
+
+"I'll go at once and get it, and bring it to the house," he said
+contritely. "You can make any explanation--"
+
+"No, no more explanations," she said decisively. "They are perfect
+spider-webs, the most involving things any poor fly can tangle himself
+up in. They are, to mix metaphors, the quicksands of any situation.
+They make of the simplest matter a problem of complexities."
+
+"What does that go for?" Gresham tilted his head on one side and studied
+her. "Does it mean that you and Hepworth quarreled about me, last
+night?"
+
+She looked back at him in inscrutable pondering, as if considering the
+point, wondering, in fact, whether she and her husband really had
+quarreled about him.
+
+"No explanations, Eugene, that's fixed."
+
+"As you will," in careless assent. "But, Dita," again that ardent note
+of tenderness, warming his voice, and stirring her heart with all those
+intimations of romance which she had never known. "We might as well
+accept the inevitable, accept it with joy, face the light quite
+fearlessly. We might as well see clearly at last, what for years we
+should have known and believed and welcomed with all our hearts--that we
+belong to each other."
+
+Her quickly lowered eyelids veiled the sudden glow of her eyes.
+"Perhaps," she whispered, "only I want time to think it out, to be sure
+of myself. I--I've grown cautious."
+
+He looked at her with the smile that could say so many things and to her
+said but one. "Take time then, Dita, but permit me to pray that it will
+not be long. And I--I shall await with what patience I may that dazzling
+morning when you will open your beautiful, dreaming eyes, and know at
+once and for ever that you are at last awake. When you will say, 'This
+is my day of love, this is my hour and Eugene's! The world may go.' Take
+your days or months, Dita. I give them to you, for I know that every
+hour that passes will bring you nearer to me."
+
+Famous artist, famous lover! Men saw his irregular, swarthy face, his
+lifted shoulder, his limp, and wondered. But women saw the experiences
+and aspirations and dreams that that face held, they saw the smiles
+which said so many things exquisitely, they felt the subtle, intuitive
+comprehension of every word, an understanding which held no
+condemnation, but was as warming and stimulating as sunshine. His
+love-making was as delightful and perfect as his art.
+
+But again she threw off the sweet, poignantly sweet influence and strove
+to think clearly.
+
+"You had your chance, Eugene, before I was married. I would have
+listened to you then, the night before you sailed for Europe, but you
+didn't believe in me, you showed it plainly." Angry tears glittered in
+her eyes at the remembrance.
+
+"Ah, how could I?" His smile was at once cynical and tender. "I knew
+your temperament, that craving, artistic temperament. It is much like my
+own. We spring from the same stock, remember. You had all the inherited
+love of luxury and beauty as I told you then and you were starved,
+starved, Dita, and in a state of revolt. Your imagination was aflame
+with what Hepworth offered. And I--" he threw out his hands with a
+disclaiming gesture, "Where was I? My feet on shifting sands, I hadn't
+touched bedrock then. Ah, well, what's the use? The past is past. It's
+the future we face. My heaven, Perdita, what a future!"
+
+His eyes held her, drew her. Involuntarily, she swayed toward him. Then,
+impatiently, as if resenting her own attitude, she rose to her feet.
+
+Dita drove home, with the faint smile still lingering about her lips,
+still dreaming in her eyes. She drove through the park, green still in
+spite of frost. A mist palely irradiated by the sunshine it obscured
+enveloped the landscape in a sort of opaline enchantment and
+unsubstantiality.
+
+It was with a sigh of regret that she entered her own house. She felt as
+if she had wilfully shut the door on the wooing and pensive autumn
+without and gone into the bleak and wintry atmosphere of regret and
+puzzle and doubt.
+
+But as she moved listlessly across the hall a servant handed her a note
+from her husband.
+
+She tore it open and read it. Then she read it again. It seemed to her
+that the rustle of the paper was like the crackle of thorns, and the
+fool's laughter associated with it. She had meant to manage this
+situation in her own way, to keep her hand well on the lever, and behold
+it was all arranged for her.
+
+Very briefly the letter informed her that Hepworth's western interests
+would require his personal supervision for several months. That he hoped
+she would endeavor to make herself as comfortable and happy as possible
+and arrange her time in any way that best suited her. That was all. But
+as she walked to her own apartments it seemed to her that the air echoed
+and rang with the arid and mirthless laughter of fools.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A TELEPHONE CALL
+
+
+Maud Carmine was slowly pulling off her gloves before the fire in the
+old-fashioned drawing-room of the old-fashioned down-town house where
+she and her mother lived alone. It was not five o'clock, but the
+evenings were so short now that she hesitated whether or not to turn on
+the lights, but the firelight was brilliant and so much more attractive
+than electricity, no matter how softly shaded that might be.
+
+Yes, the firelight was so bright that in its radiance she could see her
+figure reflected in the long mirror between the windows with its ornate
+and early Victorian frame. She walked forward and standing before it
+gazed at herself with a little smile. She was not a pretty woman, but
+she was certainly a striking and attractive one and quite beautifully
+gowned. That was the most noticeable thing about her, the _dernier cri_
+worn with style and distinction. Her heart went out in gratitude to
+Perdita.
+
+While she stood there still surveying herself Wallace Martin was
+announced.
+
+"And no tea here for you," said Maud. "I've been out all afternoon.
+Mother is gadding somewhere at this unconscionable hour, so I suppose
+they thought I didn't want any. I'll send for some and it will be here
+in a jiffy."
+
+"I do want some, and some solid substantial bread and butter," confessed
+Martin. "I'm hungry. I'm dining out to-night, but the dinner is set for
+some unholy late hour, and I've been at a rehearsal all afternoon."
+
+"A rehearsal of your own play?"
+
+He nodded. "My very own," he said. "One of the million or two I've
+written has actually been accepted."
+
+"Oh, Wallace!" She held out her hands, her interest and pleasure showing
+plainly in her voice. "I am more than delighted. It seems too good to be
+true."
+
+"Don't be too enthusiastic yet," he strove to speak dryly. "It may be
+accepted by the managers, it is still a question whether it will be
+accepted by the public. It's run one gantlet, but whether it will run
+two remains to be seen."
+
+"Oh, Wallace," she cried again. "How can you be so pessimistic and calm
+and calculating and all that? Why, I should be off my head with joy."
+
+"I am," he said tersely. "Maud, don't tell any one, but I feel like a
+Wright aëroplane."
+
+"I won't breathe it," she promised gaily, "but please don't add to the
+fame I'm sure you're going to get from that play, by flying over the
+housetops to rehearsals. Oh, here is tea, muffins, bread and butter,
+cake. Anything else you'll have?"
+
+He sank back contentedly. "Nothing but to insist that you tell that 1820
+butler of yours that you're not at home to any one else. It's too
+deliciously cosy to be spoiled by women simpering and rustling and men
+lounging and clattering in. Just the firelight--it's a little early for
+fire, but this evening is quite chilly--and the tea-kettle singing in
+that nice homey way, and even a big Persian cat on the hearthrug. It's
+'ome and 'eaven. And what a contrast to last night! Better a dinner of
+herbs like this, where love is, than the stalled ox of yestere'en."
+
+A faint blush seemed to tinge Maud's cheek, but it may have been, after
+all, but the flickering firelight.
+
+"Last night wasn't awfully pleasant, was it?" she said with a little
+sigh.
+
+"Pleasant! It was deadly. Poor Maud!" helping himself to more bread and
+butter. "How hard you worked!"
+
+"How silly you are!" she cried indignantly. "Perfectly absurd the way
+you all acted. Horrid-minded creatures, bored and trying to make a
+situation out of nothing. Eugene Gresham and Dita have known each other
+for years. There is even some kind of a southern relationship between
+them, quite near, I believe."
+
+"La, la!" said Wallace, again helping himself generously this time to
+cake, "your loyalty is beautiful, but don't let it drive you to take a
+stand you may have to abandon."
+
+"Wallace!" she turned from him indignantly and the firelight showed that
+her eyes were full of tears.
+
+"I mean it just the same." He placed his tea-cup on the table and bent
+toward her. "Look here, Maud, your friend, Mrs. Hepworth, is a very
+pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one."
+
+"That is just where you are mistaken," she returned. "She is extremely
+clever but you don't seem to understand how much training and
+environment have to do with those things. Take a woman as pretty as
+Dita, a woman who has been beautiful and admired from her babyhood--she
+has always been the center of attraction, she has never had to observe
+people closely, to study their moods and characteristics, never has had
+to try to please." There was a depth of mournful experience in Maud's
+tone. "Therefore she seems to carry things with a high hand, seems to
+lack subtlety and finesse and deference to the opinions of others.
+Therefore, you, seeing this, immediately put it down to lack of brains.
+It is a stupidity unworthy of you, at least it is a snap-shot judgment,
+a lack of that careful, sympathetic study and analysis of character
+which I should fancy would be necessary to you as a playwright."
+
+He sat for a moment or two, with hands loosely clasped between his
+knees, gazing into the bed of glowing coals. This attitude and silence
+on his part continued for some minutes. "There!" he turned around so
+suddenly that she jumped, "I've given due and careful consideration to
+all you have to say and I will repeat my original statement. Mrs.
+Hepworth is a very pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one, not
+bright enough to be ordinarily discreet."
+
+Her shoulders twitched petulantly. "Wallace! The blot on your character
+is that you are a bit of a gossip, yes you are, and you mingle with a
+lot of idle people who have nothing better to do than to spend time that
+might be put to valuable uses in making mountains out of mole hills.
+Truly, it's an idiotic mental employment that is not worthy of you."
+
+"Maud, you rouse me to argument; you do, really. I am not talking about
+Mrs. Hepworth's very manifestly displayed interest in Gresham last
+night. That might be attributed to half a dozen different causes. She
+might have had a row with her husband or dressmaker, or have been so
+bored by the happy family group gathered about her that she was ready
+for anything. Any one could see that she was rather out-of-sorts,
+excited and reckless and all that. I am not even thinking of last night,
+and I will immediately withdraw any aspersions I may seem to have cast
+on Mrs. Hepworth's brain power, if you will tell me why she gave Eugene
+Gresham that old trinket, amulet, talisman or whatever it is?"
+
+Maud began to laugh, quite naturally at first, and then she stopped
+suddenly. She remembered the scene of the night before, the empty space
+in the tray. She remembered Cresswell Hepworth's surprise, and Dita's
+sullenness.
+
+"But you heard Dita last night say that it was broken and that it was
+being mended," she protested, but some way her protestations sounded
+flat and unconvincing in her own ears.
+
+"Yes, and you remember that she glanced quickly at Eugene Gresham before
+she answered. You also remember that Hepworth, in the innocence of his
+heart, explained that the old legend or tradition which had been
+connected with the charm for centuries had been that it could neither be
+bought nor sold, but that it could only be given away, given away with
+the heart's love of the possessor, and in that case it would prove a
+blessing to both him who gave and him who took."
+
+Martin stooped and lifted the Persian cat upon his knees. "Well, my dear
+Maud, the end of that story is that Gresham has the amulet."
+
+"If that is true," she flashed back, "he took it to be mended for her."
+
+"The circumstances do not seem to point that way," he said mildly.
+"Really, Maud, it's the deuce of a mix-up, and I'm simply trying to
+prepare you for the worst. You know those English people, the Nasmyths,
+in draggled tweeds and velveteens; the mother wears an India shawl, and
+the daughter a hat which looks as if it were made of carpet. Well, they
+were at the Hewstons' to luncheon to-day and they had just come from
+Eugene Gresham's studio where they had been pottering about the best
+part of the morning, although Alice Wilstead said their boots and their
+faces looked as if they had been chasing over plowed fields. Well, they
+were yelping about Gresham like all other women, and raving about the
+beautiful things he had, and Mrs. Nasmyth told how she got to poking
+about on a table and found your friend's amulet; and she, of course,
+made an awful scream about it, and Gresham, who, she naďvely remarked,
+didn't seem any too pleased at her discovery, explained that it was a
+good-luck charm, of very ancient workmanship, which had been given to
+him by a dear friend, and then he gently and firmly locked it up before
+her eyes in a little cabinet."
+
+"Horrid creature!" murmured Maud.
+
+"Who?" said Wallace eagerly. "You can't possibly mean Gresham, do you,
+Maud? What!" his tones expressed a wondering delight as she mutely but
+emphatically nodded her head. "To hear a woman speak thus of that hero
+of romance! Never has such a grateful sound saluted my ears. Never!
+Maud, I am really afraid I am going to hug you."
+
+"You are going to do nothing of the kind." She could not help laughing,
+although she was seriously worried.
+
+"Well, we'll waive it for the present," he conceded, again sinking
+languidly back in his chair, "but that isn't the worst. I told you that
+it was the deuce of a mix-up, and so it is. To continue now on page
+eight hundred and ninety-nine, the Nasmyths babbled all this out at
+luncheon, and old Hewston got perfectly apoplectic. He swelled up and
+became purple and emitted the most dreadful snorts and whiffles, and
+grunts and groans, until finally just as his wife and Alice Wilstead
+thought he was going to fall down in a fit, he got up and puffed away
+from the table, and Alice and Mrs. Hewston rushed after him, leaving the
+poor Nasmyths to take care of themselves. And not one thing could those
+two women do with him. You know what an obstinate, pig-headed,
+meddlesome old thing he is--and his head was set on jumping into his car
+and off to tell Hepworth as quickly as possible and, my dear Maud, that
+is what he did. Alice Wilstead said that she and Mrs. Hewston hung on to
+his coat-tails up to the very moment he entered the car, begging,
+praying, beseeching, imploring. She said he dragged them all the way
+across the sidewalk and literally kicked himself free from them." Martin
+threw back his head in a great burst of laughter in which Maud very
+feebly joined.
+
+"I wish I'd been there," she said regretfully. "He'd only have got in
+that motor over my dead body; but, Wallace, when did you hear all this?"
+
+"I met Alice Wilstead limping up the avenue, on her way home, and she
+told me about it."
+
+"I wish--" began Maud, but she was interrupted by a summons to the
+telephone. When she returned to the room a few moments later, her face
+was graver than ever.
+
+"I'll have to leave you, Wallace," she said. "You can stay here with the
+cat and the fire and the tea-kettle if you want to. Perhaps mother will
+come in, but Dita wishes me to come to her at once."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OUT OF THE GILDED CAGE
+
+
+Prompt as Maud was in responding to Dita's plea for her immediate
+presence, Dita was equally prompt in hurling herself upon her friend's
+sympathetic bosom.
+
+Maud had been shown at once to the sitting-room of Mrs. Hepworth's
+personal suite of apartments, and there Dita sat in the dim and
+depressing gloaming of the unlighted chamber, a figure of dejection.
+
+She had not even removed her hat, but sat brooding in the twilight until
+Maud's entrance roused her and she flung herself across the room and
+into the latter's arms with the impetuous rush of a cyclone.
+
+Dita was temperamentally far more given to anger than to tears, but the
+strain of the last two days had culminated now in a burst of wild
+weeping, and Maud found it necessary to soothe and calm her before she
+could venture to inquire into the immediate cause of her friend's very
+poignant and unfeigned distress; so she applied herself to the task of
+consolation with only vague conjectures as to the cause for grief.
+
+She was able, however, from Dita's almost incoherent statements, to
+patch together a fairly accurate idea of what had occurred.
+
+"Just read this letter," Dita thrust the sheets into Maud's hand. "Oh,
+you can not, not in this light. Wait a moment," she touched a button and
+the room was flooded with a rose-colored radiance. Maud stepped nearer
+one of the lamps and gave her most earnest attention to the words
+Cresswell Hepworth had written. His utterance through the medium of the
+pen, was brief, self-controlled, restrained and to the point. And as
+Maud read his well-considered words, something like a feeling of despair
+swept over her.
+
+"He has gone, actually gone," cried Dita, as Maud handed the letter back
+to her without comment. "Gone," she repeated the words as if the fact in
+itself were quite unbelievable. She crushed the letter in her hand and
+threw it on the floor. "He will be gone months, looking after his mines
+and railroads and I'm to stay here. He never even said good-by to me,
+and this," she touched the crumpled ball of paper contemptuously with
+her foot, "gives me very plainly to understand that it is a virtual
+separation. Oh," she jerked the pins out of her hat and sent that plumey
+velvet head-covering spinning across the room, then turned to her calm
+and sympathetic friend with a real fear and a real appeal in her eyes.
+"What am I going to do? For a few months it will be all right, and then
+people will begin to talk like everything. And you know how it will
+appear. Every one will say that Cresswell discovered that I was having
+an affair with some one, Eugene, of course, and that he, Cresswell, and
+I had a row and that he refused to live with me longer, but that he
+nevertheless was so chivalrous that he turned over this house and the
+country places to me. Oh, dear, why did I have to have a sirocco?"
+
+"Heaven knows," said Maud. "Let it be a lesson to you. Never have
+another one. There, there, dear, I didn't mean any reproaches or I
+told-you-sos. So stop howling or you'll mar your beauty permanently.
+Oh, now, don't lift your head and glare at me indignantly and say you
+hope you will, that it's never been anything but a curse to you. I've
+been too plain all my life to listen with patience to anything of the
+kind. Now, let me think." She sat with finger on lip deeply considering,
+while Dita still punctured the silence with loud occasional sobs.
+
+"You will have to travel," she said decisively. "Yup will have to travel
+until people begin to talk and then you will have to keep on traveling
+until they stop talking. But oh, Dita, can't you try and patch it up?"
+
+Her words gave fresh impetus to Perdita's gradually decreasing sobs.
+"You do not know him," she wept, "and to tell the truth, neither do I;
+but I have enough of an understanding of him to know that he always
+considers a step very thoroughly before he takes it, looks well into the
+chasm before he leaps, and it's no use trying to get him to change his
+mind when he has decided what course he means to pursue. Anyway, I do
+not wish it. I want to be free, but not this way. Oh, was ever a woman
+placed in such a position as I? I believe Cresswell would forgive
+anything but the sin of not knowing one's own mind and I had to confess
+to him last night that I wasn't sure of mine or of my heart either. He
+has a contempt for me, of course, and," rising restlessly and moving
+about, "I can't and won't accept his contempt, and I can't and won't
+continue to live on his money and potter about his old houses. I feel as
+if I would rather die."
+
+"But, dearest," cried Maud bewildered. "What else is there for you to
+do? What else can you do?"
+
+"Nothing apparently," she said. Her dark gown fell about her in the long
+lines of perfect grace. As she stood there, beautiful as the tragic
+muse, her great eyes transfixed Maud with her scorn, but the scorn was
+not for her friend, but for herself. "What can I do? I am about the most
+useless creature on all this green earth. I sit and cry at a situation
+which tortures my pride, instead of coming to a decision. I made a
+beggardly pittance trying to earn my own living, and I won't go back to
+that kind of life, a disgusting, sordid, scrimpy life, which stifled
+every generous impulse or spontaneous action. I will not go back, I will
+not give up all the things I love and have become accustomed to. I was
+born to this. I love it, and will have it, but not on these terms.
+
+"I haven't been utterly futile here, as I was in those other
+circumstances. I have made Cresswell Hepworth's upholstery, stiff
+houses, 'decorated and furnished by the most expensive and artistic
+firms,' look really livable and lovely. Truly, haven't I? Great artists
+have raved over them. Oh, I'm not afraid of velvets and tapestries and
+embroideries. I have no burgeois reverence for them. Color was always
+like clay to me. I always long to take it and mold it into new
+combinations. Why, I couldn't keep my hands off a rainbow if I got a
+chance at it, even the angels couldn't shoo me away." She was in one of
+her swift, mercurial changes of mood, her mouth dimpling, her eyes
+sparkling. "I'm not afraid of all the splendor of color or of all the
+gorgeously rich materials that God or man ever devised. I ache to take
+them and combine them and melt them together and contrast them. I'll
+dare any combination to get an effect I want, an effect that haunts me,
+and is like music in my consciousness. Isn't it strange that I can do
+anything I like with great heavy draperies? I wave my hand at them and
+they fall into just the lines I want. I can get all kinds of effects in
+a room, but give me a little palette with little gobs of paint on it,
+and little, little brushes and I can't do even a decent lamp mat. That
+is one reason Eugene and I have always understood each other so well.
+He, too, knows the call of color. Oh, stop looking that way, as if I
+were going straight to shipwreck just because I mention Eugene. The
+important thing to consider now is what I am going to do."
+
+"I've told you once," said Maud, with settled conviction; "travel."
+
+"On Cresswell's money?" bitterly. "Well, I suppose you think it's either
+that or huddling into some black hole and attempting to earn my living
+again--a phrase that's the synonym for me of a cheap and nasty
+experience, but there must be some way out. No, I am utterly wasted,
+futile, ineffective. I do not believe, I solemnly do not believe, that I
+have one single, solitary gift in this world except being pretty."
+
+"Look at me!" said Maud with a rather whimsical, cynical little smile.
+"I think that I'm the living proof of one of your especial gifts. Why,
+Dita, my dear, I'm a creation of yours. I'm considered one of the most
+stunning women in town and about the best dressed and," Maud's really
+soft and attractive smile transfixed her face, "I've won, I am really
+beginning to dare to believe it, the interest and I hope the affection
+of the only man I ever cared for and who never gave me a glance when I
+was just 'that plain Maud Carmine, who is musical, you know.' Oh, I mean
+Wallace, of course," blushing. "I haven't got over the wonder of it yet,
+I assure you. I'm still mentally pinching myself and saying, 'If this be
+I.' Think of it, Dita! I know the treasures of the socially humble, if
+any one does. I always had position, but that amounts to very little in
+these days, unless one has other things to back it up. It has been
+gradually losing importance, pushed to the wall by money, the ability to
+entertain, personal charm and good clothes, an air, a flare, a wit;
+until now the poor, solemn, superannuated thing, so long unduly revered,
+is really trotted back into the corner. Yes, I had position, but not
+recognition. The back seats for me, so I rubbed along on my music and
+conversation as best I could, poor fool! And then you came, and waved
+your magic wand over me, took me in hand, and the world began to
+appraise me at your valuation."
+
+"That was nothing," said Dita carelessly. "I just have the knack of
+seeing people as they ought to be. I could do what I did for you with
+anybody, if they would only let me. You were nice and plastic and put
+yourself entirely in my hands."
+
+"Plastic!" echoed Maud. "You mean hopeless! But turn about is fair play.
+Take the advice I offer you, and travel. If you say the word we'll start
+for Japan to-morrow. And you needn't touch a penny of your husband's
+money either, my child. I have enough for both of us."
+
+"Maud, you're a darling." Dita smiled in warm appreciation. "But--"
+
+"But, Dita," Maud's voice held both fear and appeal, "if you do stay
+here, you will not, you must not see Eugene Gresham."
+
+Dita smiled at her again, inscrutably. "An idea has come to me," she
+said, quite irrelevantly, "a dazzling idea. I really believe that it is
+the solution of the whole matter."
+
+She considered this dazzling idea, her eyes growing brighter every
+moment.
+
+"Oh, Maud, Maud!" she cried, clasping her hands, "what an inspiration!
+I'm going on my own again. Yes, I am. Don't look so horrified. I know
+I've grouched and fussed a lot over my past efforts in that direction,
+but you see I tried to do things in a small way, cotillion favors and
+such, and it didn't suit me. It wasn't my _métier_, not my way. I loathe
+detail. I can do things on a big scale or not at all. You know that. And
+my present idea means the big scale. When I first came to New York I
+regarded it as the great adventure, but then I didn't know how to go
+about anything. I was as ignorant as a baby of everything--everything.
+The tremendous professional skill required, my own ineptitude, the utter
+inadequacy of my poor, amateur accomplishments, my entire ignorance of
+business methods, all frightened, dazed, stupefied me, but now, now, I
+just believe I'll have another try."
+
+"Oh, what _have_ you got in your head now?" cried Maud in frightened
+resignation.
+
+"You see it's like this," Dita ignored the question and continued to
+follow her own train of thought. "New York demands one of two things of
+the stranger who comes knocking at her gates, either training or a new
+idea. She can take care of any trained person, but if she has to conduct
+the educational process, she does it with a club. Now I'm going back to
+her with my new idea. Oh, I was crushed a bit ago, but now I am really
+enjoying myself as I have not done since the first dazzle of marrying
+Cresswell and seeing his money turn itself so easily into the beautiful
+things I had longed for all my life. But I've been getting tireder and
+tireder of being the twittering canary in the gilded cage. Cresswell
+opened the door last night and now I'm going to fly put, but in a
+totally different direction from the one he expects me to take." She
+laughed delightedly. "Oh, do you think New York will listen to my new
+idea?"
+
+"She'll listen to Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth," said Maud dryly. "It won't
+make much difference about the idea, whether it's new or old." She
+thought of a conversation Hepworth's friends had held at the wedding
+breakfast and sighed reminiscently. "I'm afraid you're making Cress
+rather a background."
+
+"Why not?" said Dita cheerfully and defiantly. "Serves him right, going
+away in the fashion he did and putting me in such a position. 'Moses an'
+Aaron,' as my old mammy used to say, you needn't try to dissuade me.
+You'll be as crazy about the idea as I am when I unfold it to you. The
+twittering canary is going to hop out of the gilded cage, and build her
+own nest. It's the great adventure. It is to live. Won't Cresswell open
+those sleepy eyes of his when he sees this move of mine on the
+chessboard? I'm done with failure, this venture of ours is a success
+before it's begun."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A DOLL OR A BOX OF CANDY
+
+
+Perdita, being one of those ardent, mercurial creatures who run with
+winged feet to meet every event in life, whether it be joyous or
+disastrous, had encountered her bad quarter of an hour the morning after
+the dinner party.
+
+Hepworth's, however, was postponed for a later and more lingering
+occasion. We euphemistically limit these seasons of judgment to quarters
+of an hour in speaking of them, but they are quite independent of time,
+and may continue through days.
+
+Perdita had a temperamental advantage. Hers were those swift changes of
+mood so disconcerting to the devils of ennui and depression; but her
+husband's period of reaction lasted, with but little mitigation, all the
+way across the continent.
+
+A most lusty and persistent demon of doubt and self-accusation boarded
+his car within a few hours after the train left the station, invaded his
+luxurious solitude and, indifferent to a chilling reception, there
+remained. To Hepworth, the demon's most searing insinuation was that,
+instead of a masterly retreat in good order, this departure of his for
+the other side of the continent was a virtual renunciation of all that
+he cared most to win and to hold. Fool and coward, the demon whispered,
+to quit the game just at the moment when his presence was an imperative
+necessity. But, although the demon was eloquent--it is an attribute of
+demons--and his suggestions were like red-hot pincers, it never entered
+Hepworth's head to turn back. On the contrary, it was characteristic
+that having decided on a certain course, he was not to be swayed by the
+demon's most subtle and ingenious arguments. He was merely rendered
+supremely uncomfortable by them.
+
+He had offered Perdita her freedom and he meant it without any
+reservations. She should decide on her own course, follow her own
+leadings according to the limits of her own folly or discretion, but
+free she should be, and free even from any shadowy influence that his
+mere presence might exert. Quixotic, scrupulously so: but then that was
+Hepworth's way.
+
+The demon laughed at this obstinately maintained, unalterable decision.
+What chance, it sardonically suggested, had any mere average man against
+a rival like Eugene Gresham? Women love glamour. Perdita especially
+adored it blindly. Most women, certainly Perdita, would rather follow
+the alluring, brilliant gleam of the will-o'-the-wisp, any time, than
+the smoky but dependable light of the useful household lantern.
+
+These gloomy reflections served to goad and stab like so many tormenting
+banderillos, but Hepworth's resolution to absent himself for a time, and
+thus insure Perdita a free hand, remained unalterable, in fact it
+hardened, became like iron.
+
+The journey over, his spirits improved; the demon was far less
+persistent and only occasionally showed himself. There were a number of
+business matters of varying importance requiring his attention, and
+these very fully occupied his mind. He had made his headquarters for a
+time at Santa Barbara.
+
+Then, suddenly, his busy, if rather monotonous and routine existence
+became diversified by a series of peculiar events which, in his most
+wildly imaginative moments, he would never have conjectured.
+
+One afternoon, as he sat before an open window in the villa he had
+taken, looking out over a wonderful garden, all fragrance and color, at
+the blue channel, the mountains, the distant islands gleaming fairy-like
+through their golden haze, the name of Mr. James Fleming was brought to
+him and served very effectually to rouse him from his spiritless
+daydreaming, on whose confines hovered the demon.
+
+Hepworth sat up, care vanished from his brow, the depressed droop of his
+mouth changed to a smile. "Fleming! Jim Fleming!" he exclaimed. "Show
+him in at once," to the waiting servant.
+
+Mr. Fleming wasted no time in appearing and Hepworth pushed back his
+chair and rose, meeting him with a hearty hand-clasp and one of his most
+brilliant smiles.
+
+This was the effect the arrival of Fleming invariably produced. One
+might have thought from the way men greeted him that he was some great
+public benefactor. Quite the opposite. Hepworth, and no doubt many
+others, had, through him, lost thousands of dollars, but this did not in
+the least affect their pleasure in his society nor tarnish their
+confidence in his good intentions.
+
+Fleming was about Hepworth's age, rather tall and rather stout. He had a
+broad, clean-shaven face, and the mouth of an orator, large, mobile,
+stretching across his face in a straight line and turning up sharply at
+the corners. His eyes, which were blue-gray, had a most ingratiating and
+irresistible expression of camaraderie.
+
+During the course of his life many unkind names had been applied to
+Fleming, but by women, mark you, never by men. There were quantities of
+good wives and mothers who regarded him very much as the devil is
+supposed to regard holy water. Had they not reason? At the very mention
+of his name they had seen a certain wild, primitive gleam light the eyes
+of even their most staid and house-broken men, and at the sound of his
+voice the most tractable and responsible husbands would seem to hear
+again the pipes of Pan, and forgetful of duty, daily bread and family
+obligations would follow eagerly whither those wild notes led.
+
+Beyond question Fleming possessed that magnetic quality which opens all
+doors. He was at home in any society and where he was laughter flowed as
+wine. He had neither profession nor settled business, but always
+referred to himself as a "prospector--a prospector of the old school."
+
+The first gay greetings over, Mr. Fleming established himself in a
+comfortable chair, and said without preamble, but with his usual
+devil-may-care nonchalance, "I've come to ask a favor of you, Cress, a
+mighty big favor."
+
+Hepworth mechanically stretched his hand out toward his check book.
+
+"Oh, it's not money I want this time," said Fleming easily. "It's no
+favor to me to lend me money. That's always spent on others. Anyway,
+I've got more than I can handle for once. You see, it's this way. I've
+got to go over to Idaho. I've just got wind of a big thing there, a big
+thing. Two boys I know want me to go over and look at it and I'm off
+to-day. Biggest thing that's been struck in years, they tell me. Both
+of them stone broke. Didn't have enough money to pay railway fare. Stole
+rides, practically no food for a week. If there's anything in it, I may
+be good enough to allow you to finance it."
+
+"Let me see," said Hepworth reflectively, "according to the invariable
+law of ratio, I'm about due to win on some of these ventures of yours
+I've so obligingly financed."
+
+Mr. Fleming solemnly and sadly shook his head. "Set a beggar on
+horseback and sooner or later he'll show his rags. The born millionaire!
+You show all the degenerate earmarks." He pointed the finger of scorn at
+Hepworth. "Even if I hadn't come along you would still have been a
+millionaire, climbed to it on some one else's shoulders. Entirely
+forgotten the old days, haven't you? Why who," explosively, "laid the
+foundation of your soul-deadening fortune? Me. Myself. Well, that's what
+a man has to expect in this world. But seriously, Cress, I do want you
+to do something for me."
+
+"Don't frighten me in this way then," said Hepworth. "If it isn't money,
+I'm getting apprehensive. You're in some scrape and I've got to take
+off my coat and work like a nigger to get you out."
+
+"Honest to God, no," said Mr. Fleming fervently. "It's just this. You
+see my little girl is here to spend her vacation with me--jumped across
+three states and got here day before yesterday, and under the
+circumstances it's kind of rough on her for me to go skating off this
+way leaving her all alone in a barracks of a hotel and in this place
+where she don't know a soul. Sure's I'm sitting here, Cress, I did my
+best not to listen to the boys," Fleming spoke earnestly. He always had
+the virtue of believing profoundly in himself. "It didn't seem fair to
+her, you know. But, oh Lord! What's the use? You know how it is when a
+new property swims into my ken. I get the fever so's I can't eat and I
+can't sleep, and it's 'my heart in the Highlands' so's I'm like to die
+unless I'm up and away to that little old new mine that's just been
+found, seeing what's to her, anyway. And you may believe it or not," in
+solemn asseveration, "but all the time I'm holding back and trying not
+to go. I've got the cramp in my feet so that I can't hobble, but the
+moment I yield, and take to the path again, it's gone. That's a fact.
+Now," the musical note of persuasion was strong in Mr. Fleming's voice,
+"now all I'm asking of you, Cress, is to look in on my little girl now
+and then and see that she has everything she wants. She's got a sort of
+vinegar-faced Sue with her that she calls her maid, so she's not
+entirely alone; but I want to be easy in my mind about her, to know that
+she's got some one to fall back on if anything unpleasant comes up.
+
+"She's pretty cute, you know. About on to everything that's going. Can
+take the best kind of care of herself. Has had to, poor kid. Her mother
+died, and you know, Cress, she might just as well have had a grasshopper
+for a father as me. Although I've tried, she'd tell you herself, I've
+tried, that is, as far as the limitations of my artistic temperament
+would permit. But when I feel the _wanderlust_ and the _weltschmerz_ and
+all that in my blood and hear the siren voices of new properties
+calling, why, the fireside fetters have got to fall, the white, clinging
+arms have got to unloosen their grip. That's all there is to it. You
+know in books how the father of a motherless daughter is always father
+and mother and brothers and sisters and grandmother, uncles and aunts to
+her? Well, I haven't been all those to Fuschia. I wouldn't have known
+how and she wouldn't have stood for it. She's got no particular use for
+fireside fetters, herself. Oh," optimistically, "I guess she'll be all
+right here. I'm leaving her all the money she can spend. But I just want
+you to keep an eye on her. Kind of see that the wheels are running all
+right and that she's amused and don't mope. You'll like her, you know.
+It's a funny thing, but everybody's just crazy and always has been about
+that kid."
+
+Hepworth was not proof against the appeal in his old friend's eyes,
+neither was he capable of shattering Fleming's simple faith that he,
+Hepworth, a jaded and middle-aged person, would find Fleming's daughter
+a delightful and interesting charge.
+
+Fleming's mind still ran on his child. "She's about the only thing in
+petticoats that has any real confidence in me," he said, with pride.
+"It's only been once or twice in my career that I've seen a look of real
+friendship in a woman's eyes. The first sight of me brings that wary,
+on-guard gleam way back in their blue or brown windows of the soul. You
+can't fool a woman. They've got those intuitions, you know, and they
+know instinctively that I'm a born missionary to the henpecked, that
+it's my mission in life to bring a little cheer into the lives of those
+poor shut-ins, the married men; scatter a little sunshine on their path.
+
+"By the way," as if struck by a sudden thought, "you've married since I
+last saw you. Some slip of a girl, I'll be bound. That's what the
+middle-aged millionaire's sure to do. Well, hold on to your money,
+Cress. Don't trust to your own fascinations. And you keep an eye on my
+little Fuschia, won't you?"
+
+Manfully concealing his apprehensions, Hepworth promised to do all that
+lay in his power to be a father to Fleming's daughter and had the
+consolation of seeing his old friend depart most jauntily and evidently
+with a weight off his mind.
+
+But when the door had finally closed on him Hepworth let his
+perfunctorily smiling face relax. But it did not remain merely grave and
+preoccupied, for as he continued to gaze fixedly, but unseeingly, at a
+large paper weight before him, his eyes narrowed and his brow contracted
+in a frown.
+
+He had neither the heart, time nor inclination to spend his leisure
+moments amusing such an utterly spoiled, untrained, undisciplined child
+as he was sure Fleming's daughter must be. Allowed to choose her own
+path from babyhood, wilful, headstrong--oh, well, what was the use of
+anticipating? He'd promised to look after her, and disagreeable duty as
+it was sure to be, he had to see it through, and that was all there was
+about it.
+
+He decided to look her up the next afternoon. Take her a doll or a box
+of candy. Perhaps, though, she was too old for a doll. How old was she,
+anyway? He had forgotten to ask Jim. Probably about twelve or fifteen
+years. Yes, certainly, the box of candy was safer. That was always
+acceptable and agreeable to any of the seven ages of women.
+
+He sighed again, and then, as if seeking distraction, he picked up the
+New York newspaper he was about to open when Fleming's card had been
+brought to him. He surveyed it languidly, his eye roving with
+indifference up and down the columns. Suddenly his attention was vividly
+arrested.
+
+His whole gaze, even further, his whole heart hung on a paragraph
+stating that Eugene Gresham had just sailed on the _Mauritania_. It was
+known among Mr. Gresham's friends that he had recently received a
+commission to paint the portrait of a princess of the royal house of
+Austria and that upon completing this he would go to England to finish a
+portrait, already begun, on a previous occasion, of the beautiful Lady
+Heppelwynd. Mr. Gresham, when seen on board ship a moment before
+sailing, would neither confirm nor deny these rumors.
+
+The frown disappeared from Hepworth's face. What commendable discretion!
+Whether the credit were due Dita or Gresham mattered little. It was the
+admirable restraint, this delicate and unexpected regard for
+appearances, which Hepworth applauded. To do him justice, that was his
+first thought, the sober second one was profound relief that the
+fascinating will-o'-the-wisp was as far away from the impulsive and
+curious Dita as was the smoky lantern. He put the paper down and rose to
+his feet. Fleming's little girl should have a box of candy that was a
+box of candy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+FUSCHIA FLEMING
+
+
+Procrastination was a thief that had never succeeded in wresting much
+time from Hepworth. He was one of those rare and exemplary natures who
+never put off until to-morrow what they can do to-day. Never did he
+stand shivering on the edge of his cold bath, but plunged in immediately
+without pause for consideration. Obnoxious virtues these--prejudicial to
+any popularity among his fellow-beings, therefore it speaks volumes for
+him that he was able to overlive them.
+
+This all goes to show that although the duty of keeping an eye on
+Fleming's daughter became more repugnant to him the longer it remained
+in contemplation, he yet lost no time in looking her up, as he expressed
+it to himself. Neither did he waver in his promise to himself fitly to
+celebrate Eugene Gresham's departure for other shores, but kept his vow
+by selecting the most gaudily decorated and wastefully beribboned box of
+sweets he could secure, and armed with it, as a hostage to impertinent
+childhood, took himself to the big hotel where Miss Fuschia Fleming was
+stopping.
+
+He sent up his name to her and was very shortly informed that Miss
+Fleming was in the garden and would be delighted to have him join her
+there.
+
+Hepworth curled his lip. What grown-up airs! Naturally, she had lost no
+time in turning up her hair and having her gowns lengthened since her
+father's departure, and he, Hepworth, would have to play up to this
+phase of missishness.
+
+He was dazzled for the moment by the bright sunshine, the brilliant
+flowers, and mechanically followed the page, threading his way through
+various groups of people. Before a table among the roses sat a young
+woman reading. The page stopped; Hepworth stopped; the young woman cast
+aside her book and rose.
+
+[Illustration: Before a table sat a young woman reading.]
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Hepworth?" She stretched out her hand with a boyish
+gesture, smiling into his eyes, and the sunshine grew dim. "Won't you
+sit down? I've just ordered some tea. If you don't drink it, won't you
+tell the man to bring you something else when he comes? Father said--"
+
+"But father is surely not Fleming, Jim Fleming," he said, firmly
+determined to get this absurd mistake straightened out at once.
+
+"But father just is," she asserted as firmly. "And since you asked for
+Miss Fleming, I am she, Fuschia Fleming. That is my ridiculous name."
+
+But Hepworth had so far lost his mental equilibrium that he could not
+immediately recover himself.
+
+"Fuschia Fleming is a little girl," he insisted, although this time not
+half so positively, "and great Heavens," with one of his quick smiles,
+"I've brought you a box of candy and just barely escaped buying you a
+doll."
+
+"I wish you had," she said. "I love dolls, especially the kind that you
+would bring me." There was undeniably something heady about Fuschia
+Fleming's glance. "And as for sweets, they're grateful and comforting to
+any age. You'd better give me that box at once, and I'll give you a
+practical demonstration of my appreciation."
+
+Fuschia had the curliest mouth. There is no other way to describe it. It
+was all in ripples, not small, but looking smaller than it really was
+because it turned up quite sharply at the corners, like her father's.
+And the lashes that lay on her pale, smooth cheeks were the curliest and
+longest Hepworth had ever seen. Her eyes were blue, blue as the sea, and
+very cool and gay and inclusive. Without being sharp or speculative or
+inquisitive, they yet took in all the details of whatever they rested
+upon.
+
+But Hepworth was a keen observer, and he noticed at once that although
+her pale face was for the most part alive with laughter, there was yet a
+certain worn look about it, as if she had been recently over-taxed and
+fatigued. There were faint but undeniable lines about the mouth and eyes
+that time had never etched there; and that blythe assured bearing, her
+detached, yet ready manner, were not suggestive of the ease of confident
+youth. They bespoke training.
+
+Hepworth's eyes, their droop rather more pronounced than usual, were
+fastened on an adjacent palm, as if he demanded from it the answer to
+this riddle. Getting no response there, he turned his speculating eye
+on a tree of magnificent crimson roses as if hoping for some
+enlightenment from that quarter.
+
+"Why do you not tell me all about it?" urged Fuschia gently. "What's the
+use of trying to puzzle me out unaided? Father has evidently told you a
+lot of conflicting things. I really can throw more light on the subject
+than any one else."
+
+Her voice was beautiful, soft and full and creamy, with all exquisite
+modulations and inflections, and its music cleared Hepworth's befogged
+brain. He released the palm and the rose tree from the third degree to
+which he had been subjecting them, and leaned back in his chair as if he
+relaxed his mind as well as his body, smiling back at her, as confident
+now, and as assured as herself.
+
+"I don't have to," he said. "I know. It's just come to me. You see your
+father didn't happen to mention that you are studying for the stage."
+
+"Studying for the stage!" she cried, as if to refute him, considered,
+and then nodded emphatically. "Of course I am, and expect to be until I
+die; but hardly in the sense you mean. My field of study at the present
+time includes a good deal of practical experience. I've been on the
+stage now for three years, ever since I left school."
+
+"On the stage!" he exclaimed. "But my dear child, under what name?"
+
+"My own," she answered. "Oh, do not look so puzzled. It is the most
+unlikely thing in the world that you should ever have heard of me. I'm
+far from a star, just one of the humble members of first this and then
+that western stock company. You see, my idea was to get my training and
+experience before I burst upon New York. But New York is beginning to
+seem too iridescent a dream ever to be realized."
+
+There was a fall in her voice, a touch of wistfulness, which Hepworth
+found rather touching because its pathos was both uncalculated and
+unconscious.
+
+"Why?" he asked in surprise. This note of resignation in her tones, of
+acceptance of a disappointing, inevitable circumstance, struck him as
+singularly out of character and aroused his curiosity.
+
+"It's been the same thing several times in succession now," said
+Fuschia, a touch of superstitious gravity in her expression. "Just as
+father is preparing to stake me, and I'm getting a company together to
+take New York by storm as Rosalind, why, father loses his last dime on a
+dead-sure thing. There's a law about it. The biggest winning proposition
+in years, always comes along just as I am ready to cross the Alps and
+storm Italy. Uncanny, isn't it?"
+
+"What nonsense!" Hepworth clipped off the end of a cigar as if it were
+Fleming's head. "Do not let yourself be affected by such an absurdity.
+The only law, and I admit it's a strong and binding one, is Jim's
+selfishness and irresponsibility. Now my dear child," Hepworth was
+beginning to fancy himself enormously in the rôle of paternal adviser,
+"you make him give you as much as possible."
+
+"I do," she interrupted softly.
+
+"And you lay it all aside, very securely, never touching a penny of
+it--"
+
+"What about my clothes?" another interruption.
+
+"Never touching a penny of it," went on Hepworth firmly, ignoring these
+asides on her part, "until you have saved enough to finance yourself.
+Isn't that reasonable?"
+
+"Ye-s," admitted Fuschia. "It is a very reasonable and sensible
+suggestion, Mr. Hepworth, that is," thoughtfully, "if you leave out
+father and me. But just get it into your head that at the moment I'd
+save a nice little heap, father would be hit with an overwhelming
+impulse to back the wrong horse, and, here's something awfully queer
+psychologically, Mr. Hepworth, I'd know as sure as I'm Fuschia Fleming
+that it was the wrong horse, and yet, I'd get inoculated with the mental
+virus before I'd know it, and beg him to let me in on it. And you know
+that father is incapable of staking half or even two thirds of his
+little all against any proposition he believes in. The only thing that
+can satisfy him and make his blood tingle is to stake the whole. No
+limit but the blue canopy of heaven. Limits do fret father."
+
+Mr. Hepworth slightly lifted his shoulders. Then he dropped another lump
+of sugar into a cup of hot tea she had given him.
+
+"I wish to seem neither irrelevant nor impertinent," he said at last,
+"but can you act?"
+
+Miss Fuschia Fleming threw up her white chin and laughter bubbled
+unquenchable from her throat, not vain-glorious mirth, as if the fact of
+her superlative achievement mocked his crude question, but the
+unrestrained laughter of genuine amusement.
+
+"The idea of asking an actress such a question," she said at last,
+touching each eye lightly and deftly with a delicate handkerchief. "You
+may thank your lucky stars that I don't nearly drown you with
+picturesque and highly colored tales of my triumphs and then hurl the
+full scrap-book at you. My, but you are a rash man! To ask a
+professional if she can act!" Again her full-throated laughter rang out
+delightfully and so heartily that it shook the petals from the cluster
+of pale golden roses she wore on her breast.
+
+"But look here, seriously now," her laughter died quickly away, her face
+assumed a gravity he had not dreamed her mobile features could express,
+her gaze fastened upon him with a sort of hungry, passionate eagerness.
+
+"That was a horrible question of yours," she shivered, as if the breeze
+blowing over the gardens from the Elysian sea chilled her. "One should
+know intuitively, instinctively whether an actress can act or not. Good
+Lord!" she brought her hand down on the table. "If you don't feel it,
+know it, beyond all argument, why it isn't there, that's all.
+
+"Unless I set you dreaming, unless I suggest in this or that varying
+pose or expression, the whole world of women, I'm not a born actress.
+Training, study can make a good mechanical nightingale of me, a clever
+imitation of the real thing. That's all. But unless I have the chameleon
+quality of reflecting my part, the unerring understanding of any type of
+woman I may be called upon to represent, how can I be an actress? What
+does it profit me to give the public a carefully studied, intellectual
+representation of Portia or Nora, or Juliet or Candida, wide apart as
+the poles as they may be? I must not only apprehend them, I must be them
+in every fibre of my being, in every cell of my brain, in every beat of
+my heart, or I'm nothing. Unless I can convince you that Camille and I
+are one in emotion and view of life, and then obliterate that
+impression when I speak to you as Rosalind, why I'm not an actress, not
+the kind I care to be, anyway."
+
+"By Jove, my dear," cried Hepworth, "you need have no doubts on that
+score." He had not felt the thrill of such genuine enthusiasm for many a
+long day.
+
+He forgot the delicate and uncertain state of his marital affairs,
+forgot the censorious world, his ennui and doubt and regret.
+
+"I have a conviction," he said, "that Jim is going to win a lot on this
+new proposition of his. If he doesn't, it's all the same anyway. Why
+should you waste your youth and your genius in twentieth rate stock
+companies?"
+
+In spite of these cheering words, her head continued to droop. Her face
+had grown paler, and sad were the eyes she lifted to his.
+
+"But you asked me if I could act. You weren't sure. You didn't see me as
+Camille or Rosalind. You just saw Fuschia Fleming all the time."
+
+"Of course I did." His smile was most comfortingly reassuring. "But I
+saw Fuschia Fleming as Juliet and Portia and all the others. I merely
+asked you if you could act to see what you would say. No, no, my dear,
+your future is written so plainly that he who runs may read. No more
+one-night stands in dreary little towns, Miss Fuschia Fleming, but long
+engagements, crowded houses, enormous box-office receipts, wildly
+enthusiastic audiences. Can't you hear and see them? New York, London,
+Paris for you!"
+
+"Oh-h!" Fuschia was herself again. She exhaled rapture in an ecstatic
+sigh. She rose. It is impossible to sit in moments of such high
+exultation. She positively seemed to soar, to tread on clouds. It was
+growing late and chill. Almost every one had left the garden, only a few
+absorbed groups remained. Fuschia was an actress. Self-expression was a
+necessity to her. She rested her hand, a snowflake, gratefully on his
+arm, she floated against him, a thistledown, and before he knew it had
+lightly, enthusiastically, unconcernedly kissed him on the cheek.
+
+"You dear," she cried, "I'll repay you by showing you what I can do. To
+tread the forest of Arden in New York! Oh-h! But you are not going. No,
+no, no!"
+
+That was what Hepworth, rather overcome by the unconventional and
+unexpected expression of her thanks, was preparing to do. He thought it
+best, but his decision was not adamantine, far from it. He always prided
+himself upon the open mind, and an ability to see all sides of a
+question, so when Fuschia suggested that he return later and dine with
+her, it struck him as a possible, even admirable solution of his daily
+puzzle how to put in the evening and he accepted without more debate,
+with an alacrity, in fact, bordering on gratitude.
+
+He was therefore on time to the minute and Miss Fleming was equally
+punctual.
+
+As they sat through a dinner, not elaborate, but as prolonged as if it
+were composed of all the courses on the menu, Hepworth was struck by the
+positive quality of Fuschia's beauty. It was not always so, evidently.
+She was as changeful as the chameleon she had spoken of. In the garden
+that afternoon, in her white serge frock, she had at first impressed him
+as a pale, rather attractive looking young woman whose charm was
+greater than her prettiness; but viewed in the rose-colored lights, and
+across the pink blossoms on their small table, she was a very wonderful
+creature. She was, in truth, wild with joy and her expression of it was
+delightful. Her eyes were blue as the sea when the sun is one vast
+sparkle over it, her mouth, made for laughter, grew curlier every
+moment. Her white evening gown was a dream.
+
+In addition to her admirable outward appearance, Miss Fuschia Fleming
+was a comédienne of unsurpassed gifts. She was also witty, well-read and
+sweet-natured, and when she chose to exert herself she could make sixty
+minutes seem sixty seconds by any one's watch, even that of the grimmest
+old curmudgeon, and Hepworth certainly was not the grimmest old
+curmudgeon. He was only a very lonely and sad-hearted man whose days had
+been hanging heavily on his hands.
+
+"Good old Jim," he soliloquized as he took his way homeward that
+evening. "He believed sufficiently in my friendship to come right to me
+when he was in a hole. Made no bones about it. Asked me to keep an eye
+on his daughter, sure enough of my affection for him to know I'd do it.
+I shouldn't wonder if this Idaho proposition is a good thing if it's
+properly financed. Jim's judgment is pretty sound. Well, we'll see,
+we'll see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SHOCKING THE HEWSTONS
+
+
+As the winter wore on the weather in New York offered daily a more
+violent and odious comparison to the blue seas and balmy airs of
+California. The cold, sullen skies, dull, damp days and piercing winds
+set more than one dreaming of sunshine and summer, and among the many
+was Alice Wilstead.
+
+She was pondering thus, looking about her with surprise, one especially
+snowy, dreary winter afternoon as she took her way to Mrs. Hewston's. It
+was one of those thoroughly depressing days when nothing could really
+raise one's spirits but the inspiring glow of firelight. Mrs. Wilstead
+certainly looked as if she needed that and all positively cheering if
+not inebriating things as she entered Mrs. Hewston's drawing-room. Her
+piquant dark face was meant for smiles and gaiety, all of her features
+apparently designed to that end, for the corners of her mouth, the tip
+of her nose, the slant of her eyes, all inclined upward. It is a tragedy
+when a person of such countenance is in an introspective or melancholy
+mood. Sober meditations have an aging and blighting effect on the
+features of those born to look out upon the world with an arch and
+piquant interest.
+
+Isabel Hewston roused herself a little reluctantly. She was sitting
+alone most comfortably in a delightfully easy chair, she had on a
+becoming and loose Paris tea-gown. She had resolutely put behind her the
+haunting specter of increasing flesh, had taken an afternoon off from
+the persistent and continued battle she had been forced to wage with it,
+and now lay, a box of sweets on the table beside her, a new novel in her
+hand, enjoying to the full her temporary respite. It is to her credit
+that she put aside her book at the most nerve-tingling paragraph without
+a sigh.
+
+"Dear Alice," she exclaimed, lifting herself on one elbow, "you have a
+bad-news look all over you, the very rustle of your skirt proclaims it.
+What can be the matter?"
+
+"Give me some tea," said Mrs. Wilstead gloomily, "and let me sit down
+and rest." She slowly removed her furs. "My dear Isabel, do you mean to
+say you do not know?"
+
+"Know what?" asked Mrs. Hewston in bewilderment, ringing and
+mechanically ordering tea. "How could I possibly know anything after
+just getting off the steamer this morning? What has happened? You
+haven't been speculating, Alice, and losing all your money?"
+
+Mrs. Wilstead hastily disclaimed any such unforgivable crime and
+inconsolable grief as losing money. "Then really you have not heard,"
+she exclaimed. "Isabel, I am more worried than I can say. Lemon, please.
+It is stupid of you, Isabel, never to get into your head the fact that I
+couldn't be guilty of taking cream. To think of such a thing occurring!
+I had hoped that with Eugene Gresham out of the way, having the decency
+to go to England and France, and the papers full of his spectacular
+stunts, that all talk would cease and that when Cresswell Hepworth came
+back from that western trip that everything would be all right."
+
+"What are you talking about?" asked Isabel Hewston with the calmness of
+despair. "If it isn't too much trouble, would you mind making a few
+explanations? Just one might suffice."
+
+"It is that absurd, undisciplined Perdita Hepworth. She has had her head
+completely turned by the success of Maud Carmine and now she and Maud
+have gone into business together."
+
+"Into business?" Mrs. Hewston made a tremendous clatter among the
+tea-cups. "Business! What can you mean? Cresswell has not failed?"
+
+"Good heavens, no! But that is the reason he has been so long in the
+West. At least that is what every one says. Dita and Maud informed him
+of this scheme, and he, of course, expressed his opinion of the whole
+matter, refused to countenance it; but he couldn't do anything with such
+a headstrong creature as Dita, and so he simply cleared out; went West
+and has stayed there, while those two girls have gone stubbornly on and
+carried out their plans."
+
+"Business!" Isabel still rolled her eyes in dazed speculation. "But what
+kind of business? What could they possibly do? Lamp-shades, menu-cards?
+I'm sure I've always heard that Perdita didn't make such a brilliant
+success when she tried that sort of thing before!"
+
+"Menu-cards! Lamp-shades!" Alice laughed scornfully. "That's mere paper
+dolls to this venture. This is a business of their own invention,
+although Dita does take orders for house decoration also; but the main
+purpose is dressing the wealthy, telling the plain little daughters of
+the rich what to wear."
+
+"For pity's sake!" gasped Isabel. "What sort of place is it, beauty
+parlors or dressmaking?"
+
+"Oh, dear me, neither! Nothing so commonplace. They have taken a house
+just on the Avenue (they say it is a dream within), and you have to
+write for an appointment, and then if they will consider you at all they
+write back and set a time, and you go exactly as if you were calling,
+you know, and you are received by either Maud or Dita or both. Then you
+come again whenever they tell you, and all the time Dita is studying you
+just as a portrait painter would. Finally, when she feels that she has
+you thoroughly in mind, and is quite decided about the way you shall be
+clothed, she has designs made for you of hats and gowns, little water
+colors, you know, and sends you to her dressmaker. She also has your
+maid come and dress your hair before her, according to her directions.
+And it costs you!" Alice Wilstead pursed her mouth and lifted her brows,
+"It costs you! Oh, like the dickens!"
+
+"Who is that?" said Mrs. Hewston turning.
+
+"Only me," Wallace Martin replied modestly and ungrammatically,
+entering, as usual, unannounced, a privileged friend of the family, and
+greeting the two women with his usual barking cheerfulness.
+
+"I just walked up home with that pretty little Lolita Withers, and, as
+you were only a block or two farther, I came on here."
+
+The two women gazed at each other with a long, wondering stare. "Lolita
+Withers!" they exclaimed simultaneously. "Pretty!" Nothing could have
+been more eloquent than their tones.
+
+"My dear Wallace," said Mrs. Hewston, finding her voice, "is this some
+new joke? Are you quite sane?"
+
+"He means it for a joke," said Mrs. Wilstead, who had been peering at
+him curiously. "He is going in for eccentricity, or else the success of
+his play has gone to his head."
+
+"Not a bit of it," replied Martin with unmoved smiles. "Lolita Withers
+is at present an obviously pretty girl. Any one would so consider her."
+
+"Obviously pretty." Mrs. Wilstead had found her tongue by this time, and
+acrid and scoffing it proved. "That skinny, ineffective little Lolita
+Withers! Dull-eyed, anćmic, with stooping shoulders and wispy light
+hair."
+
+"She looks like a dream of spring," said Wallace, helping himself
+lavishly to tea and cakes. "A sort of an evanescent beauty. Truly, yes,"
+he affirmed, "she's been to Maud Carmine and Perdita Hepworth." He gave
+a great burst of laughter.
+
+"If they can make any one believe that Lolita Withers is pretty," said
+Mrs. Hewston dazedly, "they are indeed benefactors of the race."
+
+"Perdita Hepworth is a genius, a wizard. I always said so." Alice
+announced this with a sort of triumphant conviction. "She could make
+Aaron's rod blossom like the rose."
+
+"But where did they get the money?" Mrs. Hewston's mind turned always to
+practical things. "If Dita really quarreled with Cress, would he--?"
+
+"Maud's money." Martin spoke with the assurance of one possessing
+authoritative knowledge. "Cresswell Hepworth! Oh, no, he went off in a
+terrible huff because the girls laid their plans before him and told him
+what they were going to do. At least," he amended, "that is the idea I
+got from the little that Maud has occasionally told me. Yes, it's Maud's
+money; but they'll lose nothing, plucky girls! Double and treble it,
+more likely. They've already had an overwhelming success."
+
+"I'm going to them," cried Isabel Hewston excitedly. "If they are so
+wonderful they ought to be able to make me look slender without my
+having to go to all the bother of being really slender."
+
+"You'll have to stand in line then; that old Mrs. Peter Huff is jumping
+for joy and calling down blessings on their heads because they've
+literally transformed her three ugly daughters. Maud said they were
+splendid material, and Dita did wonders with them. The old lady hopes to
+get them married off now."
+
+"Alice! When can we go to them?" Mrs. Hewston's voice was trembling with
+excitement.
+
+"I can't go now." There was a distinct fall of disappointment in Alice
+Wilstead's voice. "The truth is, I'm going to California with the
+Warrens the first of next week. Why, what is that?"
+
+There was a sound of some one wheezing, puffing, muttering without the
+door, and then the curtain was violently jerked aside and Mr. Hewston
+entered. His hair stood up white and ruffled about his head, his face
+was of a much livelier crimson than usual, and he was puffing out his
+lips as if blowing fire and smoke from his mouth. In one hand he was
+tightly clasping a newspaper.
+
+"Willoughby! My dear!" his wife rose in consternation. "What is it, what
+has happened?"
+
+For answer Mr. Hewston spread open the paper and struck it with his
+hand. "Read that," he cried tragically, "read that! My poor friend,
+driven from his home by the vagaries of a mad, irresponsible girl, his
+life ruined by the foolish, frivolous creature he married! Turned from
+his home, he was driven to this."
+
+Wallace had seized the paper, and the two women hung over his shoulder
+to scan the sheet before them.
+
+What met their eyes were huge, black head-lines above and below the
+pictures of Cresswell Hepworth and a very pretty woman.
+
+The head-lines announced that the two had been in an accident in Mr.
+Hepworth's motor-car at Santa Barbara. Both were thrown out, but neither
+sustained any serious injuries. The article went on to say that Mr.
+Hepworth had, during his stay in the West, evinced great interest in the
+career of this beautiful and gifted young woman, an actress of
+reputation in her part of the world, but unknown in the East. It was
+understood, however, that she was to play a New York engagement during
+the coming spring, making her first bow to a metropolitan audience as
+Rosalind in a superb stage presentation of _As You Like It_. There was
+no question of the beauty of the mounting of this famous comedy, nor the
+strength of the company with which the young star would be surrounded,
+as the capital behind her was practically unlimited.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+PUBLICITY
+
+
+When the beautiful, young wife of a multi-millionaire takes advantage of
+her husband's absence on a prolonged and unavoidable business trip to
+embark upon a rather bizarre and eccentric venture of her own, it is to
+be expected the situation will be hugely discussed, especially in its
+three-fold phases--the lady first, the exact relations existing between
+husband and wife next, and third, the business itself.
+
+Perhaps in this case the business should be put first, above the lady,
+and above any sentimental interest in marital misunderstandings, for
+Perdita's skill in "bedecking and bedraping" was well known among her
+sisters, whose ideals in bedecking were those of Paris, and who had no
+Greek longings to be "noble and nude and antique." And had they not for
+the past two years enviously regarded Maud Carmine--who had been as a
+walking _mannequin_ among them, the living, breathing advertisement of
+Perdita's abilities.
+
+Therefore from the very first business bade fair to engulf the new firm
+and sweep the two partners off their feet, and if the list of those who
+daily assembled in "Hepworth and Carmine's" reception-rooms were to be
+published, it would look like a social registry or a page from _Who's
+Who_; that is, a page with all of the masculine names carefully culled.
+
+There were elderly ladies and young girls, and ladies in all the waning
+stages between the two. The elderly and waning ones all hoped before
+Mrs. Hepworth got through with them to look like the young girls, and
+the young girls, with all the enthusiasm of youth, hoped to look like
+Perdita Hepworth.
+
+There arrived then, one morning, at this palace of hope, Mrs. Willoughby
+Hewston, who, as she stepped from her motor, glanced nervously right and
+left and ascended the steps of the house Perdita and Maud had taken
+just off the Avenue with an agility of which her best friends would not
+have considered her capable. This nervousness, this hurry was due to the
+fact that only the day before she had mentioned her intention to her
+husband, with the result that she was thunderously ordered not to go
+near the place, under penalty of his worse than censure. He gave her to
+understand that this would be something too terrible for her imagination
+even to apprehend. Consequently, Mrs. Hewston wasted no time in getting
+to Hepworth and Carmine's as early as possible the next morning. She
+would have been less than woman had she not done so.
+
+The reception-room was spacious, sunny and restful, depending for its
+effect upon beautiful woods and long, unbroken lines; for color, there
+was the hint of ivory and tea-green, ineffably serene, and there Mrs.
+Hewston awaited Dita, her agitation subsiding somewhat under the calm
+influence of the place.
+
+But when Dita appeared it returned in full force. "Oh, my dear," she
+exclaimed, "what a charming spot this is! How original! How daring of
+you and Maud! Oh, my dear, if Willoughby knew I was here!" She raised
+her hands with a gesture full of meaning. "You know that he is in such a
+state anyway over those newspaper articles."
+
+"What newspaper articles?" asked Perdita. "Do you mean those that have
+appeared about all this?" she waved her hand comprehensively about her.
+
+"Haven't you seen them?" Mrs. Hewston looked frightened. "Oh, my dear
+child, how very stupid of me. Why, why did I mention them? I supposed,
+of course, that you knew. But if you do not, please do not ask me
+anything more, for I never, never will be the bearer of bad news."
+
+Dita stared at her in puzzled amazement for a moment and then she took
+her firmly by the shoulders. "Look here, Mrs. Hewston, you are
+frightening me dreadfully. I haven't an idea what you are talking about.
+Now you must tell me, indeed you must. Do you not see the state of mind
+in which you leave me unless you do?"
+
+"Oh, my dear," Mrs. Hewston shook her handkerchief out of her bag,
+evidently preparing for its possible use. "I didn't mean to frighten
+you, and you shouldn't allow yourself to be so easily upset. Now,
+understand, no one was hurt, but those dreadful papers yesterday were
+full of a motor accident which occurred in California."
+
+"Cresswell's car?" interrupted Dita quickly. "Was he--" She was about to
+say "injured," but Mrs. Hewston took the word from her mouth, or rather,
+substituted another for it.
+
+"Alone? No, dear," shaking her head a little as at the regrettable, but
+to be expected frailties of men. "He was not alone. He was driving the
+car, it seems, with a beautiful young actress by his side. She must be a
+very--er--persuasive person, too, because the papers said that she is to
+appear here this spring in some superb production or other, and they
+strongly insinuated that Cress' money is behind the whole thing. But you
+see, that, as I said, there's nothing in it all, nothing really to worry
+over."
+
+"I see," said Dita, but slowly and without enthusiasm.
+
+"And now, my dear," Mrs. Hewston had suddenly grown quite brisk, "let's
+forget all this and talk of something that is more interesting to you,
+because it's in your line. Perdita," in her most wheedling and cooing
+tones, "I want you to make me lovely."
+
+"You are lovely, Mrs. Hewston."
+
+"Oh, in a middle-aged, broad, pink kind of way, but I want you to make
+me look slender and lissome and girlish without all this awful dieting
+and exercise and these dreadfully tight corsets that make one feel as if
+one were nothing more nor less than blanc-mange in a tin mold. And you
+know you do come out of them with your flesh all fluted, just like the
+blanc-mange when it's set."
+
+"You shall be quite lissome, I promise you that," said Dita consolingly,
+if rather absently. "Come to me again early next week and I shall have
+some designs for you to consider, beautiful, long folds and all that.
+But I can't perform miracles, you know, and you'll have to diet a little
+and exercise; yes, and wear the boned corset; you don't want to look
+like a--"
+
+"Do not say it!" cried Mrs. Hewston nervously. "I am sure you are going
+to say either 'whale' or 'tub,' and I can't stand it. That's what those
+awful corsettičres always say when I protest the least bit against
+their tortures.
+
+"And Perdita, one thing more--my chin. I always say the chin is the
+greatest give-away a woman's got. She can get around anything else, but,
+no matter what she does, that chin sticks out like a cliff and reveals
+every year she's lived. Of course, you may try to draw off attention
+with a diamond dog collar or jeweled black velvets, but at the best
+they're only poor, miserable makeshifts; and one must wear evening dress
+no matter whether one has rolls of flesh or a gridiron of bones. If you
+don't, people either think you come from the woods or have something
+worse than bones or superfluous flesh to conceal. Just look at
+Willoughby!" Mrs. Hewston's emotions overcame her here and she dabbed
+her eyes carefully with her handkerchief. "He is fat as a pig. He
+shuffles and hobbles about with the gout. He eats anything he pleases,
+and never thinks of cultivating a pleasant expression. Yet if I should
+die, he could marry again without difficulty. Oh, it's a hard world for
+us women! But really, I must go, dear. Just look out and see if you see
+Willoughby by chance, either up or down the street."
+
+As soon as she was assured of safety and had departed, Perdita, who,
+fortunately for herself and her customers, had no other appointments for
+the morning, sent for the papers of the day before and carefully
+considered the incident of Mr. Hepworth, Miss Fuschia Fleming and the
+motor-car as set forth in the various journals.
+
+"And so," said Perdita to herself with glooming eyes, when she had
+finished an exhausting perusal, "he is going to back this deserving
+young adventuress, who has, no doubt, played upon his sympathies, in a
+great spectacular presentation this spring, and in New York. Well, there
+will be something else spectacular. I will make this venture of ours a
+stupendous success now or I will know the reason why. Where on earth is
+Maud? She is never about when I really need her."
+
+She frowned a moment over Maud's delinquency and then happened to
+remember that Miss Carmine had expressed an intention of being present
+at a rehearsal of one of Wallace Martin's plays. Dita then decided on
+the moment to drive to the theater and consult with her partner at once
+on the new and spectacular policy of their house which she was mentally
+outlining.
+
+But first, before starting, she thoughtfully selected some of a number
+of photographs of herself and also of Maud. "I suppose I shall have a
+dreadful time persuading her," she reflected as she drove through the
+streets. "She has bred in the bone those old-fashioned ideals of New
+York when it lived in Bleecker and Houston Streets."
+
+But curiously enough, while events of one character had led Perdita
+strongly to consider the adoption of a certain line of action,
+circumstances of a widely differing nature had impelled Maud practically
+to the same conclusion. Which only goes to show how clever a weaver is
+Fate and how wonderfully she contrasts and combines all her various
+threads.
+
+For two or three hours Maud had been sitting in a dimly-lighted, empty
+playhouse, watching the rather dreary and disillusionizing progress of
+Martin's latest play.
+
+It was an odd thing, she mournfully reflected, that Wallace never got
+himself, his own, bubbling, merry, joyous self, full of quirks and
+quips, into his plays. They would seem to have been written by a
+secondary personality, for they were all, without exception, intensely
+serious and depressing, dealing with problems of the most complex and
+dun-colored character.
+
+Maud was extremely practical. She never dreamed of buoying up her
+spirits with any ambrosial reflections that this latest offering was "a
+distinct contribution to the more serious drama." Neither did she
+attempt to convince herself that there were enough high-browed folk in
+the town to keep the play on for, peradventure, three nights. No, she
+simply, and with her usual common sense, reserved judgment until the
+third act, and then after a moment of wonder that Wallace had found a
+firm of managers willing to undertake the production, with all the
+expense entailed, when they had just one chance in a million to win (in
+her opinion, at least), she turned to more practical issues.
+
+"Dita and I," she remarked mentally, "have got to make a stupendous
+success if I want to marry Wallace, which I do, and he is going to
+continue to write plays, which he is. But I'll have a frightful time
+persuading Dita to run her business along the lines of twentieth century
+advertising. She has all sorts of ante-bellum ideas about stately
+procedure and measured methods, derived, of course, from those
+generations of lazy southern aristocrats."
+
+While she mused, amid the terrific racket of moving things about the
+stage in preparation for the fourth act, she felt a light touch upon her
+shoulder, and looked up to see Perdita, pale but determined, standing
+beside her.
+
+"I'll just slip into this seat beside you," said Mrs. Hepworth, suiting
+the action to the word. "I want to talk to you a few minutes. Now,
+Maudie, I know that you will not like it, but we've been doing
+awfully well lately, and I think it would be a good idea to put what
+we've made in advertisement. Of course, there's a lot we can get without
+paying for it. The Sunday newspapers will print pages about us,
+especially--especially if we let them have some of our most stunning
+pictures and allow those interviews where the artists sit and make
+sketches of you."
+
+Maud looked at her business partner as one who, bidden to rub a magic
+ring on his finger and wish, sees his wish come true. Here was Perdita
+approaching her tactfully, and timidly entreating her to do the very
+thing that was in her mind to accomplish. She could not grasp it, but
+sat staring at her companion in an amazement so profound that it bereft
+her of speech.
+
+Perdita misinterpreted the silence. "I've got to make a red-and-yellow
+success," she exclaimed with emotion. "I've--I've just got to be in the
+newspapers. Don't take it in this cold, reproving way."
+
+"My dear Perdita," Maud spoke with crisp distinctness. "I'm not! It's
+your attitude of mind, not your sentiments, that surprises me. The
+latter are my own. You," she continued virtuously, "are probably
+actuated by your vanity; I, by my heart. Look at that!" she waved one
+hand toward the stage, "or rather don't look at it. Now let us come to
+an understanding. You know that I have always loved Wallace. You know
+that he has lately loved me. You also know what it costs me a year to
+be one of the best-dressed women in New York and maintain my newly
+acquired reputation for good looks; consequently the business has to
+make handsome returns. We live in the twentieth century under artificial
+conditions, and it's no use pretending it's Arcadia and the simple life.
+It's not. We're hothouse blossoms, Perdita, products of this great
+forcing bed, New York, and we might just as well adapt ourselves to
+conservatory conditions. Wallace wouldn't look at me if I were a hardy
+annual. He didn't when I was what God and nature made me. But Wallace
+suits me, child though he is, in many ways, and I can do a great deal
+with him. I may even," but Maud's tone had lost its high confidence and
+was a trifle dubious now, "I may even make a playwright of him."
+
+"Why, here he is now with--with Eugene Gresham," interrupted Perdita.
+This was but the second time Perdita had seen Eugene since his return a
+few days before.
+
+Out from the wings stepped the two men and then clambered over the
+footlights and the orchestra space, and hastened down the aisle to join
+Mrs. Hepworth and Miss Carmine, who had now a number of large
+photographs spread over their knees, intently studying them.
+
+"Good morning," Wallace shook hands exuberantly with both women. "Went
+splendidly, didn't it? We're going to have the first act over again."
+
+"Very impressive, very," said Gresham, who looked in the best of health
+and spirits.
+
+Maud cast one withering look at him, but it glanced lightly off, turned
+aside by his smile. He saw it, however, and as quickly as possible got
+into a seat on the other side of Perdita.
+
+"Have you seen the papers?" he asked happily. "Blessings on Miss Fuschia
+Fleming. I shall do my humble best to keep the ball rolling. As soon as
+she appears in New York, I'm going to put in a request to do her
+portrait. Something bizarre, weird and splotchily thrilling, you know.
+Quite violent. That will keep a crowd around it from dawn to dark as
+soon as it's exhibited. It doesn't make the least difference whether she
+has any ability or not. She may be, and probably is, the most awkward,
+scrawny and nasal of western actresses; what of it? With Hepworth for
+her angel and Gresham for her painter, her vogue is secure. And Perdita,
+Rosita, your freedom is that much nearer."
+
+"Eugene," Perdita's eyes flashed, "I think it extremely bad taste, even
+vulgar, of you to talk in that vein."
+
+And Eugene hastened to retrieve his blunder, and soon Perdita, who was
+never long impervious to his spell, was smiling once more.
+
+Miss Carmine, however, was of sterner stuff. She did not wince, although
+she saw that there was no remedy for Wallace's malady but the knife, and
+he, unwittingly, wasted no time in precipitating his destiny.
+
+"What are you doing with all those photographs of yourself and Mrs.
+Hepworth?" he asked.
+
+"We are going to give them to some reporters, who are getting up stories
+for the Sunday papers."
+
+"Maud!" Martin spoke in the deep, pained tones of his leading man.
+"Maud, I have said nothing. In fact I admired and approved when you and
+Mrs. Hepworth went into this business venture. But such methods for you,
+for her! Do you not feel that you owe something to yourselves, and that
+she at least owes something to Hepworth? Oh, of what are you thinking?"
+
+"Money," said Maud succinctly. "Something you evidently are not thinking
+of." She glanced toward the stage.
+
+"I hope not," he answered stiffly. "Art--"
+
+"Art, art! Don't prate about art." Maud did not intend to spare the
+knife. "Art must be an individual expression and your play is simply
+hash seasoned with reminiscences. Oh, dear, dear Wallace, you can write
+a good play. I know you can, when you will write as Wallace Martin, and
+not after Sudermann, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Shaw. Look at this act. Wallace,
+tell me, is there no other way of picturing the gay, irresponsible life
+than by a costume ball in an artist's studio? Must the _vie de Bohčme_
+always be thus presented? Then why does the lover in a problem play
+usually have to be a Russian prince in Moujik costume? And the heroine's
+midnight visit to his apartments! Couldn't you, wouldn't they allow you,
+to write just one play without it? And need the lady, after her past has
+been discovered and fully discussed, always go out into the tempest in
+search of her better self, and slam the door behind her?"
+
+"Maud! Maud! You--you are pulling down the pillars of the temple,"
+gasped Martin. "It's blasphemous! Every one says the play is good. You
+can not judge from a rehearsal. Let us change the subject," with
+dignity. "Since you have not hesitated to criticize me, I feel that I am
+justified in again urging you not to go into these gaudy advertising
+methods. Willoughby Hewston seems to feel that Cresswell was terribly
+chagrined at his wife's going into business. And truly, you should urge
+her to show some consideration for him."
+
+"A fig for Willoughby Hewston." Maud fumbled in her bag and drew forth
+an envelope. "Here is a letter I got from Cresswell yesterday. He
+congratulates me on the enterprise we have shown, and says that he is
+delighted that Dita's interests have found so congenial and healthful a
+channel in which to flow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A WIDOW'S SMILE
+
+
+One morning, a California morning, all sea-breezes and flower-scents and
+golden sunshine, Mr. Hepworth read, as he ate his breakfast, a letter
+from Willoughby Hewston. The letter, in itself, was a long one, and it
+also contained a bulky enclosure. This enclosure was the full page of a
+sensational New York newspaper. This exhibited enormous, black
+head-lines, screaming innuendo of the most blasting character. In the
+center of the page were pictures of Hepworth and a dark, heavy-browed
+young woman, with large eyes and strongly-marked Hebraic features. The
+page was further embellished by pen sketches surrounding these
+photographic reproductions, sketches of a startling and romantic nature,
+a wrecked automobile, a picturesque young woman in very high heels and a
+very long coat, fainting into the arms of a tall, rather elderly man,
+presumably Hepworth.
+
+Hepworth had scowled and reddened at the first sight of this dreadful
+page, and his expression did not improve as he continued his perusal of
+it. Finally, however, his face cleared. He folded it neatly together and
+placed it carefully in his pocket-book. Not a pleasant incident, but
+closed. No use in crying over spilled milk. This newspaper account of an
+adventure had occurred nearly nine days ago and therefore any wonder it
+may have excited was practically over. He turned again to Hewston's
+letter and re-read it with mixed expressions in which amusement
+predominated.
+
+When Hewston set out to be profoundly serious, Hepworth always found him
+intensely funny. Finishing his friend's admonitory epistle, Hepworth
+next picked up one addressed to him in a smart feminine hand, Alice
+Wilstead's. He ran his eye over several pages, and then paused at a
+paragraph which he read over two or three times, his rather worried look
+changing the while to one of profound dismay, for Mrs. Wilstead not only
+stated that she was carrying out a long-cherished intention of visiting
+California with her friends, the Warrens, but, what was more, she was
+staying not upon the order of her coming, but coming at once.
+
+She digressed at this point to express her pleasure at the thought of
+seeing him so soon again. He bestowed upon these protestations of
+friendship one bare, ungrateful glance and rustled over the various
+sheets of her letter, hoping to gain, if possible, some more definite
+information; and there it was before his incredulous and resentful eyes.
+
+She was, she explained, writing this "hasty note" (it was eight pages)
+within an hour of leaving. She expected to arrive in Santa Barbara on
+the Thursday afternoon train. Why, Great Heavens! He clattered his
+coffee-cup impatiently in the saucer. This was Thursday morning and he
+had made all arrangements to spend a rather diversified day, including
+golf and a luncheon at Monticito with Fuschia and her father, a little
+fęte in honor of Jim's triumphant return, with "the earth, by George,
+the earth and nothing less in my vest pocket."
+
+"And Alice," Hepworth clattered his cup again, he knew her of old. She
+was quite as inquisitive as her delicately-pointed tip-tilted nose
+indicated, and if he wasn't on hand to greet her, she would make life a
+burden to him until she discovered why.
+
+Hepworth, however, was used to coping with difficult situations. He took
+what odds fortune offered him and coldly, nonchalantly played to win. He
+sat for a few moments in deep thought. He had no intention whatever of
+giving up his day's pleasuring. The only problem which occupied him was
+what to do with Alice. Inspiration followed thought. He rang the bell
+and despatched a hasty request that Mr. Hayward Preston come to him at
+once.
+
+Mr. Preston was a favorite with all mothers, especially those with
+daughters. They spoke of him in an almost lyric strain. Naturally, one
+might expect to find him an egregious ass, and avoided of all men. The
+wonder is that he was not. He had an agreeable appearance, admirable
+manners, excellent business abilities. His virtues were all a little
+obvious and robust, and if one insisted on a flaw, it might be said that
+he lacked subtlety. So much the better. Subtlety destroys a healthy
+interest in the commonplace and makes of the straight and narrow way a
+tame and monotonous pathway too rocky for speed.
+
+"Preston," said Hepworth with his usual courteous charm when this
+younger associate in certain business enterprises appeared, "I wish to
+ask you a favor, or, to put it more correctly, I am going to do you a
+favor. I have just received a letter from an old friend of mine, Mrs.
+Wilstead, saying that she will arrive this afternoon on the three-thirty
+train. Unfortunately I have another engagement and can not meet her at
+the station, as, under other circumstances, I should very much wish to
+do; so," with another cordial smile, "I am hoping that you will be free
+to act as my proxy."
+
+Mr. Preston was not free. He had something else on hand, but this fact
+he did not hint by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, relegated it to
+the background of his thoughts to be settled later. He was not letting
+any opportunities to do "the chief" a favor slip lightly by him.
+
+"I shall be very glad to meet Mrs. Wilstead, if you can assure me that
+she will accept me as your proxy," he said with a frank smile. "Let me
+see. The afternoon train. And how shall I know the lady?"
+
+"I will send my chauffeur with you. He knows her. You are sure,
+Preston," solicitously, "that this does not interfere with any of your
+plans?"
+
+"Quite sure," returned Preston with convincing sincerity.
+
+"Thank you," said Mr. Hepworth devoutly; he made a mental vow to the
+effect that Preston should never rue this day.
+
+Thus, it happened that Alice Wilstead, on stepping from the train at the
+conclusion of her trip across the continent, found, instead of her old
+friend, a good-looking young man awaiting her, a young man after her own
+heart, with that gravity and stability of mien, and the dependable
+smile, which, being in strong contrast to her own volatile self, always
+impressed her pleasantly.
+
+Hayward Preston, on his part, gazed at the most attractive woman he had
+ever seen, of the type he particularly admired. Tall, graceful, her
+vivacious irregular face lighted by the gleam of white teeth and the
+sparkle of dark eyes, the air of the great world clinging about her as
+lightly as a perfume.
+
+To her joy, this delightful, wholesome-looking, grave man stopped before
+her. "Mrs. Wilstead?" he asked.
+
+She looked at him and smiled. It was the most effective smile in her
+whole arsenal reserved only for very special occasions.
+
+"Mr. Hepworth was at the last moment detained by certain business
+matters which are holding him a prisoner at his office and he asked me
+to act as his proxy. This ought to identify me, ought it not?" with a
+smile, and he gave her the card upon which Hepworth had written a few
+lines.
+
+She barely glanced at it and then smiled again, the same smile, only a
+little diluted. She had seen at once that it was strong wine for
+Preston.
+
+"You must meet Mr. and Mrs. Warren," she turned to the two who were
+fussing over their luggage. Warren was a tall, good-looking man and his
+wife an amiable, attractive little person.
+
+Preston left the question open to them whether they wished to go to
+their hotel at once or would prefer to drive about, and see something
+of this new world, into which they had just stepped, and they decided in
+favor of the latter suggestion.
+
+Through the town they drove, exclaiming over the roses, along the
+palm-lined boulevard by the shore and then in a rash moment at Alice's
+request, they turned toward the mountains. A rash suggestion and one
+that Preston had cause to rue, for presently they passed a carriage
+being rapidly driven in another direction and all apparently in the
+highest spirits. It was a party of three, two men and a girl, a slender,
+tanned, laughing girl, who caught Alice's eye at once. The next glance
+revealed the man who sat beside her, and who was leaning toward her
+explaining something, to be Cresswell Hepworth. As Alice bent forward,
+doubting the evidence of her senses, this girl lifted a bonbon from a
+box on her knees and held it out toward Hepworth with a pair of tiny
+gilt tongs. He snatched it deftly in one bite, to the accompaniment of
+immoderate laughter from his friends, in which he joined.
+
+Oh, dignity! Oh, austere grief! What crimes are committed in thy name!
+In these days one might well paraphrase the famous lines from _The
+School for Scandal_ and render them: "When a young girl marries a
+middle-aged man, what is she to expect?" The situation was graver than
+even Willoughby Hewston could have predicted. In the first surprise
+Alice had exclaimed, "Why, that's Cress!" And then to relieve Preston of
+embarrassment before the Warrens, an embarrassment which was manifesting
+itself in the deep flush which overspread his face, "He probably got
+through sooner than he expected," she said in a matter-of-fact tone and
+dropped the subject.
+
+But she thanked fortune that both Mr. and Mrs. Warren were talkative
+people given volubly to voice their enthusiasm over the beauty about
+them, and thus her rather stunned preoccupation passed unnoticed.
+
+She had upon her journey, and even before she started, pictured herself
+as a sort of missionary, with the not altogether unpleasant task before
+her of cheering up poor Cresswell. She knew the strength of his few
+affections, his devotion to Perdita and therefore she had some idea of
+how deeply this breach between them had affected him. But like most
+women, even the experienced ones, she had never realized that the
+masculine and feminine attitude toward grief is as wide apart as the
+poles. They may both wear rue, but with a difference. Woman seeks a
+cloister that she may brood over her sorrow, commune with it, hug it to
+her heart in solitude, but man does his best to shake that black,
+haunting shape, tries to lose it in a crowd, and willingly sips any kind
+of a nepenthes which seems to offer him forgetfulness.
+
+Alice Wilstead had not expected that Hepworth would make any unmanly
+exhibition of his woes, weep on her shoulder or be excitingly dramatic;
+she knew him too well. But she had expected to see him a little older,
+perhaps; a little grayer, sadder, more quiet, with a hint of melancholy
+in his eyes. He might--occasionally she pictured the scene--open his
+heart to her now and then in a grave and reticent way and disclose a
+strong man's grief; but instead she had seen him sitting up in a very
+smartly appointed carriage beside a correspondingly smart young woman
+in a white serge gown, who was in the very act of popping an enormous
+_marron glacé_ between his willing teeth.
+
+"Men," said Mrs. Wilstead to herself, with cynical humor, "are all
+alike." A nugget of wisdom, by the way, which frequently falls from the
+lips of a sex prone to generalize from a personal experience.
+
+On arriving at the hotel, Mrs. Warren professed herself a bit weary and
+retired to her rooms, followed by her dutiful husband, but Alice
+Wilstead, afire with repressed curiosity, suggested, with another of
+those smiles, full strength now, that Mr. Preston take a cup of tea with
+her. She was more tired than she had thought.
+
+For a few moments, Mrs. Wilstead spent herself in enthusiasm for the
+beauty and charm of the place. Such air! Such scenery! Such flowers!
+Then she was solicitous about Preston's tea; two lumps of sugar and two
+slices of lemon? What mathematical exactness! She took a sip of her own.
+Just the right strength and of excellent flavor. What interesting
+looking people at the table over there; she believed, no, she was quite
+sure that she had seen them, perhaps met them before. Yes, she
+remembered the daughter distinctly. It was in Switzerland, a year ago.
+She was completely absorbed in the scene before her. "Look at that
+absurd man yonder, Mr. Preston." Preston eagerly fell in with her mood,
+lulled to a false sense of security. Then without a minute's warning she
+opened fire.
+
+"A charming young woman," she began, "is a much more plausible, less
+hackneyed and convincing excuse than a 'pressing business engagement.'
+I'm surprised Cresswell did not think of it. But that would be telling
+the truth, and you men avoid that as much as possible in dealing with
+women, do you not?"
+
+"You have taught us that you prefer the other thing," he returned with
+some spirit, although his soul quaked within him.
+
+"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Wilstead, without preamble.
+
+"I don't know," said Mr. Preston miserably. He knew perfectly well that
+Mrs. Wilstead was too experienced to believe him, and would scorn his
+clumsy subterfuge. This confused him frightfully, but he hadn't the
+faintest idea what else to say, so he stumbled on with what he felt was
+yokel-like stupidity. "Really, I do not know."
+
+"No, of course you would not know under the circumstances." Mrs.
+Wilstead's tone was sweet and sincere, but beneath the sugar-coating of
+innocence he discerned the bitter pill of her complete understanding.
+His ears burned and felt the size of an elephant's. He was very unhappy.
+He stirred his tea round and round, as if his spoon were an egg-beater.
+
+"Now that you are here," he said awkwardly, "she will be heard of no
+more."
+
+Although he never knew it, that speech advanced him leagues in Alice
+Wilstead's favor. The genuine sincerity of his tone would have warmed
+the heart of any woman standing with reluctant feet where the brook of
+_passé_ joins the river of middle-age.
+
+Alice regarded the opals on her fingers (she was born in October) with a
+pleased yet humorous smile.
+
+"Accepting your inference, what chance has an elderly widow against a
+young and lovely actress?"
+
+Preston started. She had played trumps when he was least expecting
+them. "Then you know--" he said.
+
+"That Miss Fuschia Fleming is a star that will shoot madly from her
+sphere to brighten the firmament of New York this spring."
+
+"I supposed, of course, that was her game," he said soberly. But he was
+thinking not so much of Fuschia Fleming as of that after revelation
+which this delightful woman had made. A widow of charm, of sparkle, of
+money. One felt the latter. She unconsciously exhaled it. And best asset
+of all, the old and valued friend of Cresswell Hepworth. Preston was no
+cold-blooded schemer, neither was he an ardent, impetuous Hotspur. He
+merely calculated chances, not only by virtue of temperament but
+training, and when this jewel of a chance flashed its dazzling rays, he
+instinctively estimated its weight, the accuracy of the cutting and
+possible value.
+
+Therefore Mr. Hayward Preston made such hay in the next few minutes,
+that when he left, or rather when Mrs. Wilstead dismissed him, he
+received another of that particular brand of smiles and walked home with
+his head among the stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+
+
+One morning, shortly before she left for New York, Miss Fuschia Fleming
+and her father sat in the sitting-room of their suite in the hotel at
+Santa Barbara. The sunshine without lay broad and white and dazzling.
+Within it seemed to be reflected, although through many tonal shadings
+in subdued, but still golden points of emphasis. There were bowls of
+yellow roses, there were baskets of oranges and lemons, there was
+Fuschia herself in a morning gown as pale as the gold of her hair which
+looked paler than ever in contrast to a great tawny, orange-colored
+flower, which she had leaned from her window and plucked a short while
+before and thrust carelessly above one ear.
+
+Her chair was completely surrounded by newspapers, colored supplements,
+Sunday magazine sections. They billowed about her like waves. Whoever
+would reach her must cross a crackling sea. On the opposite side of the
+room, her father reclined comfortably in a large easy chair, smoking an
+excellent cigar and poring intently over a page of "past performances,"
+with pencil in hand poised above it.
+
+"Goodness!" said Fuschia suddenly, "she's a dream!"
+
+"Who?" asked her father, looking up.
+
+"Mrs. Hepworth." Fuschia was gazing at a page which presented many
+pictures of the same lady. "Put down that dope sheet, papa; it's time
+wasted studying it. All your money is needed to back just one favorite,
+and copper just one bet, and that's me."
+
+"In common with my brothers, men, the workers and the shirkers, I am
+always ready with advice," obediently laying aside his paper.
+
+"Save it for the weak brother then. I want to talk to you, to clear out
+my own thoughts. Now Mrs. Hepworth--"
+
+"Cress' wife?" her father interrupted with a show of interest. "What's
+the matter there, Fuschia? Why isn't she here?"
+
+"She's got a mission in life, just like you and me," Fuschia showed her
+beautiful even teeth in one of her widest, curliest smiles. "Yours, with
+the great motto inscribed upon your banner, 'Home-keeping youths have
+ever homely wits,' is to rescue your brother from the deadly thraldom of
+the home; mine is to reform the stage; Mrs. Hepworth's is to redeem
+women's clothes. She has all kinds of theories about color and design
+and she wanted to put them in practice. That nice Mrs. Wilstead says
+that she's an odd, capricious, undisciplined creature, but a genius in
+her line. Oh, I've learned a lot about her from what Mrs. Wilstead and
+all these newspapers have told me, and what Mr. Hepworth hasn't told me.
+Papa, dear, I never admired any one in my life as I do that man. I've
+tried every way but using a drag-net to get him to tell me the whole
+story, but he's stood every test. He'll talk freely on any other
+subject."
+
+"Didn't happen to give you any inside talk about those Arizona
+properties, did he?"
+
+"He did not. You see he married the poor but beautiful girl, and then
+she got playing too gaily with Eugene Gresham, the great artist. You've
+heard of him surely. It was the triangle, you see. Same old dramatic
+motive. Then suddenly, just as every one was standing on their tiptoes
+to enjoy the view, why the triangle flew to pieces. The Cresswell
+Hepworth part landed out here, the Eugene Gresham part went to Europe,
+the Mrs. Hepworth part went into business with a Miss Carmine, and
+opened a big establishment in New York, and every one came down on their
+heels with a thud, and are still staring at each other wondering what's
+doing."
+
+"If Cress really wants her," remarked Fleming, flicking the ashes from
+his cigar, "he surely wouldn't be such a fool as to leave the field.
+He'd stay and fight for her."
+
+"That's man-talk," said Fuschia lightly contemptuous. "A crazy idea you
+all have, that you can make women love you. Don't you know how the
+leading man always walks about the stage clenching and unclenching his
+hands, and muttering, 'By heaven, I'll make her love me; I'll win her
+against all the wir-r-rld.' Poor souls, they think they can dazzle us
+into loving them; and many feel that if they only talk enough about
+themselves, and their great achievements, what they've done and what
+they're going to do, that they can't fail to fascinate us; and it often
+suits us to let them think so. Awfully funny, isn't it?"
+
+"I never succeeded in fascinating 'em, no matter what line I took," said
+her father with feeling.
+
+"Women don't care much for you, do they? Well, cheer up, Daddy, dear.
+They've never loved me. Once in a while, they're very nice to me, and we
+purr and purr and rub noses, but all the time we are watching each other
+out of our green eyes, and then one day there's the swift stroke of the
+velvet paw and the deep mark of claws."
+
+"Mighty little purr and velvet for me," Fleming's petticoat
+reminiscences were invariably gloomy, "mostly claws."
+
+Fuschia's unfeeling smile curved nearly up to her eyes. "How is that
+Idaho property anyway?" she asked with apparent irrelevance.
+
+"Fine, my dear, fine. I think Cress may really make something on it
+himself, but in any event, he'll have no difficulty in unloading it."
+
+"I'll need a pile of money for my campaign." She took an orange from
+the basket and began tossing it from one hand to the other. "I've
+brought a good deal of study to bear on the arrangement of this
+checker-board. I always like to get on to the game just as much as
+possible. Why have I been traveling about with those miserable little
+stock companies putting up with all kinds of hardships? Just to get
+experience. Now I'm ready for New York!" She mused a moment, and then
+took up the subject with fresh enthusiasm. "It's helped me a lot, all
+this newspaper notoriety about myself and Mr. Hepworth. Puts me before
+the public as nothing else could. Just look at these pictures!" She
+plunged her hand down into the rustling sea, and held out a Sunday
+supplement to him. "There's a lovely picture of the auto tumbling over a
+cliff and me landing in a tree. Simply great! Now just as soon as I get
+to New York, Mrs. Hepworth's got to be a sister to me."
+
+"How do you know she'll cotton to you?" asked Fleming.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" His daughter opened her eyes in
+surprise. "I need her, for through her, I mean to have my portrait
+painted by Gresham. And his prices! La, la! Sure, you can put your hands
+on real money and plenty of it?"
+
+"Fuschia, my child," her father laid aside his "dope sheet" and bent
+impressively toward her, "this new proposition has more in it than even
+you can spend, and you know what that means. It's one of those
+spectacular properties that make a poet of a man. You can talk it
+beautifully, splash on the color, you know, and it writes as well as it
+talks. Shows up superbly in a prospectus, photographs like an artist's
+dream. Just the thing to capture the eastern imagination. You see, it
+matters very little whether the property is intrinsically all right or
+not. That is always problematical, and to be left in the hands of
+Providence. The great thing is to know what is going to capture the
+eastern imagination. That's what you're really dealing with, not the
+proposition itself, by Jingo, but the eastern imagination."
+
+"That's just what I tried to tell that unborn babe of a press agent this
+morning," cried Fuschia, nodding her head in emphatic agreement. "I got
+him because he was a Mayflower Yankee, just out of Harvard, and yet
+he's got no more idea of how to deal with his own people than a new-laid
+kitten. He came bounding to me an hour or two ago with a lot of stuff
+he'd been working over nights with wet towels around his head and a pot
+of black coffee at his elbow.
+
+"'I think I've struck it,' said he. 'It is both true and new!' Pop, it
+was like this. 'Miss Fuschia Fleming can really do things, therefore she
+does not waste time talking about them. One of the most competent of
+stage managers, she never loses her temper. Admirable self-control a
+striking characteristic. Thoroughly systematic and methodical.'
+
+"Lord, Papa! I felt sorry for the kid. It like to killed me, you know.
+Well, I waited a bit till the daze wore off and then I said, 'I'm sorry,
+honey, but it won't do. If I'd made good in New York and had 'em all
+rooting for me, it would be different, but they're effete Easterners,
+boy, used to ruts and routine, and you can't change their breakfast food
+on 'em like that. They won't stand for it. Give 'em the same good old
+press notices that mother used to make back in 1860. Don't talk about
+my "trim neatness." You won't believe it, Daddy, but the poor kid
+actually did that! I said, 'Say that my favorite house costume is a
+Mexican riding-suit hung with silver dollars, and that, in cold weather,
+I always wear a Navajo blanket over my shoulders. Have a sketch of me
+rolling a cigarette between the thumb and second finger of one hand and
+throwing the lariat with the other. Describe me, when only fifteen,
+playing Rosalind in the redwoods of the Yosemite before a wildly
+enthusiastic audience of miners and cowboys. Then say that once before,
+when appearing before the most brilliant audience ever assembled in a
+San Francisco theater, I became so overwrought that I began to shoot
+holes through the drop curtain.' Do you think that was all right, Papa?"
+
+Her father gazed at her with an almost awed admiration. "Honest to God,
+Fuschia," he said at last, "I don't know what to think of you. Here I've
+spent my life handling those Easterners, singly and in bunches, and here
+are you, without either experience or training, on to the game
+intuitively. Fuschia, this is a proud day for me. I've never told you,
+little girl, but sometimes I've had my doubts about your bringing up. I
+tell you after your mother ran away with my best friend and then
+divorced me for desertion and shortly died, leaving you, a two-year-old
+girl baby to me as a last bequest, it was a black hour. Like one of
+those Bible boys--Peter, wasn't it?--I went out and crew bitterly. 'If
+she was only a boy!' I said. 'What can Jim Fleming do with a she thing
+like this?' Then I took another look at you, in your white dress and
+blue shoes, smiling at me with your mouth all over your face, and, true
+as I stand here, Fuschia, you were the first thing in skirts that didn't
+seem to be looking at me across a great gulf.
+
+"And then I talked to myself a while. You see, if your mother had come
+to me as man to man and said, 'Jim, I'm tired of you and I want to marry
+Henry,' I'd have said, hard as it might have hit me, you know that,
+Fuschia, 'Kate, I don't blame you, and I'll do what I can to help you.'
+But she preferred the feminine route, a note on the pincushion and she
+gone with all her jewels and ten thousand I'd given her to buy a
+diamond necklace. But as I say, I looked at you in your white dress and
+blue shoes and that friendly grin on your little mug, and I said, 'God
+knows how it'll work, but this girl thing here ain't going to grow up
+thinking that there's fences built all around her and that she's got to
+coax and sneak and pretend to get her way. Poor Kate! With great price
+she obtained her freedom, but my little Fuschia, here, she's born
+free.'"
+
+"Good old Poppy-doppy!" Fuschia's tone was fondly approving and
+something like a tear glimmered in the depths of her turquoise eyes.
+"I'm glad you never tried the snaffle bit of parental training and home
+influences on me, because I'd sure have kicked myself free, and it
+mightn't have been pleasant. But to come back to the present, Mr.
+Hepworth is so splendid, that unless his wife is really in love with
+this boy-Raphael or whatever he is, I'm going to get into the game and
+make home happy for the Hepworths."
+
+"Cautiously, cautiously, daughter," admonished Fleming, looking a trifle
+alarmed. "That's all right on the stage; but in real life when an
+outsider tries to join the parted hands of husband and wife, he's
+likely to get a cuff on the ear."
+
+"Oh, men are crude," sighed Fuschia. "You didn't suppose I was going to
+do the child at Christmas act, did you? No, what I mean to do, that is,
+if it's just her imagination and not really her heart that's captured,
+is to take her boy-Raphael away from her."
+
+Fleming gasped, and, lowering his head slightly, looked at his daughter
+from under his eyebrows. "Fuschia," he said, "there are few things that
+can feaze me. 'No limitations and no limits' has always been my motto,
+but you do, child, you really do take my breath away sometimes. Why, if
+report is true, Cress' wife is one of the most beautiful women in the
+world."
+
+"Um-huh," Fuschia yawned indifferently. "What has that got to do with
+it? I've usually," she continued thoughtfully, "succeeded in getting
+anything I wanted; that is, men. The wildest of them will trot right up
+to me, and eat out of my hand."
+
+"You're your father's own little girl, Fuschia," said Jim with emotion.
+
+"Yes, and it's a good thing I inherited father's constitution as well as
+his spell-binding abilities, considering that I have to be practically
+my own press agent, stage manager and all the rest of it; the management
+of Fuschia Fleming and Fuschia Fleming herself and then take up the task
+of reuniting families besides. But Mr. Hepworth is a good, good man,
+Papa, and we're going to make him happy, even if we have to do it on his
+money."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+DO YOU LOVE ME?
+
+
+The Warrens and Mrs. Wilstead had remained in Santa Barbara a week, time
+enough for Alice to discover that Hepworth was in no apparent need of
+the consolatory offices of his old friends, that Fuschia Fleming was a
+most entertaining young woman, and that Hayward Preston's attentions
+were persistent and his intentions manifest and purposeful.
+
+During the next month, no matter in what part of the state they were and
+in what hotel Alice and her friends registered, Preston was sure to turn
+up before the day was over; and to begin at the earliest possible moment
+his unending argument. Along palm-shaded boulevards, under avenues of
+pepper trees, in orange groves, on lonely mountain trails, in the shadow
+of old missions, on surf-pounded beaches, in secluded nooks of great
+hotels, everywhere and at all times he told his plain, unvarnished
+tale. He had now asked Mrs. Wilstead to marry him in every resort in
+California; and had not yet succeeded in winning her consent, and the
+day of her departure was drawing near. Within two days she would be
+leaving for New York. It was at Pasadena that Mr. Preston made his last
+desperate stand.
+
+He and Alice were strolling about the gardens of the hotel; she had not
+wished to get too far away from the sheltering Warrens, and there
+Preston was making what he assured her was his last appeal.
+
+She, however, preferred to view his condition of mind and heart in a
+psychological rather than a sentimental way.
+
+"It is a habit, an obsession," she asseverated, tilting her rose-lined
+parasol toward the sun so that charming pink reflections fell upon her
+face. "You have lost sight of the object in the zest of pursuit. It is
+the game which absorbs you, believe me. The winning would disconcert
+you. Yes, it's the game. I am convinced that you have lost sight of the
+goal and all that it entails."
+
+Mr. Preston merely looked at her. "It entails you," he replied simply.
+
+"It entails a great deal more," her speech was as quick as his was slow.
+"You are, you tell me, exactly thirty-three years old. I, Alice
+Wilstead," she shut her lips and breathed hard a moment and then
+gallantly took the fence, "am just thirty-eight."
+
+Not by even the flicker of an eyelash did he show either surprise or
+dismay. Alice's heart went out to him. She really adored his
+impassivity; it was so unlike anything she was capable of.
+
+"What has that got to do with my loving you and your loving me?" asked
+Preston stolidly.
+
+"Everything," she answered deeply, regarding with drooping eyes and
+wistful mouth a great, fragrant rose which she held between her fingers.
+"If we could but hold this moment, if neither of us would know further
+change, why--"
+
+"Then you admit that you could care for me, that you do care for me," he
+exclaimed with brightening eyes.
+
+"Let it remain at 'could' and 'might,'" with one of her swift smiles.
+"But under any circumstances, I do not wish to marry any one. Look at
+my admirable position, rich, free, supposedly attractive, young--a
+widow, you know, is always a good five or six years younger than either
+a married or an unmarried woman. One is regarded as a young widow until
+one is quite an elderly person. Now, really, why should I marry?"
+
+"There isn't any possible reason," agreed Mr. Preston unhappily, "unless
+you love me, and then there is every reason. But are you not tired
+walking up and down, up and down these paths? Shall we not sit down on
+this seat a few minutes?"
+
+She acquiesced. It was a glorious morning and the spot was enchanting
+with all this fragrant, almost tropical plant life blooming and blowing
+about them, and Alice, impelled by the softness and sweetness of the air
+and scene, forgot her adamantine resolutions and lifted her eyes to his
+in one long and too-revealing glance.
+
+"Alice, Alice"--there were all manner of tender inflections in his
+usually colorless and unemotional tones--"you can not now deny--"
+
+"Yes, I can," she cried quickly; "I can and I do. Hayward, believe me,
+it will never, never do. You are looking at the matter from the man's
+viewpoint, I, from the woman's, and, in cases of this kind, the woman's
+is the surer, the more safely intuitive."
+
+"Bosh!" Preston's exclamation was calm, but pregnant.
+
+"But consider, consider," she besought him. "Look at us, you are the
+robust, ruddy, phlegmatic type that will not change in twenty years, and
+I am exactly your opposite in every respect and that's the reason you
+like me and therein lies the whole tragedy. I'm nervous, mercurial,
+emotional, and nothing, nothing brings wrinkles so quickly as vivacity
+and expression."
+
+"But you haven't any wrinkles."
+
+"Not yet. Care, massage, a good maid and a light heart have kept them at
+bay. And, oh! gray hair!"
+
+"But you haven't any gray hair," he said, with the same patient
+obstinacy.
+
+"Not yet, but when they do begin to come, they come all at once.
+Hayward, I do not deny that I could care for you if I would let myself,
+but when I realize that for a woman to marry a man younger than herself
+makes life one long, hideous effort to keep the same age as her husband;
+oh, it is too frightening! Just think! No matter how much one may long
+for repose to have to be always up and exercising to keep one's figure;
+to have to hold on to one's complexion by always sleeping in stifling
+masks and slippery cold cream; to be always watching the roots of one's
+hair to see if it doesn't need retouching, and, worst of all, to have to
+be gay and vivacious and conceal, heaven knows, what twinges of
+rheumatism under a smiling face."
+
+"You're just talking," said Preston calmly. "Keep on if it amuses you.
+It doesn't mean anything at all to me. Not at all." His success in life
+was largely due to the fact that he always kept the main object in view
+and never permitted himself to be diverted by side issues. "Your
+personal appearance ten years from now has nothing to do with the
+matter. We may both be dead ten years from now. There is only one
+question to be discussed and that is, 'Do you love me?'"
+
+The petals fell from the red, red rose as Alice twisted it nervously in
+her fingers.
+
+"I think I have given you ample proof of my liking for you," she said at
+last, "but the _loving_ is obscured in doubts."
+
+"Forget them, for my sake," he murmured. "Can't you, won't you, Alice?"
+
+"If I could only get away from those mental pictures," she confessed.
+"They stand between us like a barrier. Just think of arriving at the
+point where you want to doze after dinner and dream over some nice,
+slow, old book, with your head comfortably nodding now and then. And the
+fire flickering and the cat purring on the rug. Lovely, isn't it? And
+instead, think of realizing wearily that you've got to spend the evening
+at the opera or playing bridge. And that, of course, means turning
+yourself at an early hour into the hands of your maid for repairs and
+decoration. And then you've got to sit upright the whole evening because
+your stays, which are guaranteed to give you the lithe and willowy
+figure of youth, will not let you lean back. And you do not dare to
+smile, because you will crack the kalsomining on your face; neither may
+you move your head, you are so afraid that the curls and puffs and
+braids may not be pinned on tight. Oh, it's a dog's life!" she sighed
+heavily.
+
+"And it's not for you," Preston spoke firmly. "There is nothing coltish
+about me." Alice laughed, it was so true. "Business is all that very
+deeply interests me, and amusements bore me very much. I like the
+after-dinner doze and the fire and cat already. You will probably have
+more of that kind of thing than you like, if you marry me. Alice, will
+you not consider?"
+
+"Mrs. Wilstead, Mrs. Wilstead," a page's voice rang through the
+shrubbery and came nearer and nearer and Alice took from him a thick
+letter addressed to her in Isabel Hewston's hand and adorned with a
+special delivery stamp.
+
+"From a dear friend," Alice exclaimed. "Will you excuse me while I look
+at it? There may be some matter of importance, you know."
+
+In Preston's manner there was no hint of his annoyance. He behaved as
+well as a man could when interrupted in the most fervent declarations of
+affection which the limitations of his nature permitted him. He even
+suggested that he withdraw, and rose, hat in hand. Could complaisance,
+consideration go further? There were only two days before him, and she
+had never been so near yielding before.
+
+"Oh, no, no," almost possessively, she stretched forth a hand to detain
+him. "You have nothing to do but wait, and I shall run through this,"
+touching the letter, "in a moment."
+
+Preston sat down beside her again and lighting a cigarette, smoked and
+looked out over the brilliant garden before him while she read.
+
+It was evident, Alice discovered this before she had finished the first
+page, that Isabel Hewston was actuated by no deeper motive than pure,
+erratic impulse when she placed that special stamp upon the letter. At
+least so Alice and Preston probably would have agreed and Isabel
+reluctantly would have admitted it. But the Fates who sit in the
+background and transmit wireless messages to mortals would have smiled
+inscrutably and shaken their heads. If Isabel hadn't stuck that stamp on
+for no reason whatever, and if the page hadn't sought Alice through the
+breeze-caressed, rose-scented garden and given her the missive at the
+exact moment he did--but, as Eugene Gresham would say, "What's the use?
+Why conjecture?" What really occurred was this:
+
+"Dearest Alice," wrote Mrs. Hewston, "how I envy you in that southern
+paradise while here the weather merely changes from sleet and snow to
+rain and then back again."
+
+There was a page or two of this and of Willoughby's various ailments and
+symptoms, and then a long and glowing account of her visit to Perdita
+Hepworth, and a great deal of minute, enthusiastic description of the
+gowns that Dita was designing for her.
+
+This Alice read with interest, but greater interest still did she bestow
+upon the statement that there appeared to be a coldness between Wallace
+Martin and Maud Carmine, owing, it was said, to the fact that she had
+ruthlessly criticized his last play, and prophesied accurately its
+speedy failure.
+
+"It does seem too bad, dear," Isabel wrote next, "that you, away off in
+California, should have to come in for your share of the gossip which
+seems so sadly rife this season."
+
+Here Alice clutched the pages and, bending over, bestowed upon them an
+almost breathless attention. What could Isabel mean?
+
+"It is perfectly stupid, of course," the letter ran, "and I would not
+think of mentioning it to you except that we have always been frank
+about such things, and, anyway, you ought to know. There is a rumor
+about that you went to California hoping to catch Cresswell's heart in
+the rebound. People now believe that he and Perdita have definitely
+separated and that you knew this, and, as some one put it to me, so
+vulgarly too, dear, camped down on his trail. They say now that the
+incident of the actress was merely to make things easier for Perdita in
+gaining her freedom, but that soon after that is granted her, Willoughby
+says that, as those coarse men express it, you will lead Cress to the
+altar."
+
+"Darn Willoughby!" Alice breathed hard as she muttered the words between
+her clenched teeth, the vivid scarlet of hot anger suffusing her face.
+Preston turned quickly to her, throwing away his cigarette, and ceasing
+to regard the brilliant garden through meditative, half-closed eyes.
+"What is it?" he asked. "Something has worried you."
+
+"No," she smiled, with an effort, and shrugged the matter lightly off
+her shoulders, "some mistake about a very trifling matter. It annoyed me
+for a second, that is all."
+
+For a moment or two neither spoke. Alice was watching the flight of a
+butterfly that soared in the air until almost out of sight and then came
+back to drift about a group of tall, white yuccas.
+
+"Hayward, do you still love me as much as you did ten minutes ago?" She
+smiled charmingly at him, that very, very especial smile of hers, and
+he, with his rather slow perceptions quickened by love, read
+capitulation and a real affection in her softened eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "Hayward, do you love me?"]
+
+"Alice!" And the depth and fervor of his love will be appreciated when
+it is recorded that he, Hayward Preston, the most conventional of men,
+deliberately tilted her rose-lined parasol and in the face of the world
+and before the very eyes of an advancing couple, kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+PLAYING THE GAME
+
+
+It was only a day or two after her arrival in New York that Fuschia
+Fleming, who had been rehearsing the greater part of the night, opened
+her sleepy eyes in the hotel chamber to find her maid bending above her
+with a visiting card in one hand and a perplexed expression upon her
+face.
+
+"I hated to waken you, Miss Fuschia," she said, "but when I saw the
+name--"
+
+"What is the name?" Fuschia's voice was drowsily indifferent.
+
+"Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth."
+
+"_Mrs._ Cresswell Hepworth!" Both indifference and sleepiness were
+things of the past. Miss Fleming sat up in bed with a spring. "She's in
+the parlor, isn't she? Here, Martha Mary, hustle about. Get me out my
+gold-colored kimono with the silver wistaria on it, and some yellow
+stockings and slippers. Tell her I regret having to keep her waiting,
+late at rehearsal last night. You know the proper thing. Now, go ahead
+and do your prettiest and then dance back here and help me get into
+things."
+
+"Certainly no time wasted," reflected the actress standing before her
+mirror, winding her long ash blonde hair round and round her head. "I
+dare say it's a case of 'Gur-rl, what have you done with me husband?'
+There is only one reply to that. I shall draw myself up haughtily and
+say, 'Pardon, Madame, it was you who first carelessly mislaid him, not
+I.' Where the deuce are my hair-pins? She'd never come to my apartments
+with a cat-o'-nine-tails under her golf cape, or a bottle of acid in her
+shopping bag. Sure-ly not. They always choose the foyer of the theater
+for such stunts. Oh, Martha Mary," as that person whom Jim Fleming had
+once designated as a "vinegar-faced-Sue" returned to the bedchamber. "I
+can find nothing. Everything has crawled under the bed or the bureau.
+How is the lady dressed for the part? Handsome, dark garments, rich,
+dark furs, black veil over face, handkerchief handy?"
+
+"The lady is wearing rose-colored cloth and chinchilla," replied Martha
+Mary literally.
+
+"Rose color and chinchilla. That is a note out, positively frivolous.
+Oh, dear me! I am only half put together. You get more worthless every
+day, Martha Mary. Put on all my moonstone rings, for luck. They may save
+my life."
+
+When Fuschia entered her temporary drawing-room, Perdita Hepworth was
+standing with her back to her, gazing from the window out upon the bleak
+wind-swept streets. March was departing with lion-like roars and buffets
+and striving bravely but vainly to obscure his ugly countenance in
+clouds of dust. Hearing a slight sound, she turned and saw advancing
+down the pleasantly warmed, flower-scented room, a young woman whom she
+instantly likened to a pale but radiant ray of spring sunshine.
+
+This sunshine, yellow kimono, pale yellow hair, a cheek like the heart
+of a tea-rose, gold-colored silk stockings and slippers, paused between
+a jar of white lilacs and a basket of hyacinths. The lion-like roars
+without seemed suddenly all hollow pretense. Spring had come to New
+York and involuntarily Perdita smiled in greeting.
+
+"Miss Fleming, please forgive this unseemly early call; but you see it
+is important, this matter I wish to see you about." Perdita thus opened
+the conversation.
+
+"She can chew up the scenery about me husband all she wishes," said
+Fuschia to herself, "if she just lets me look at her. Her pictures give
+no idea of her. She's red roses and music and emotion. She's poetry and
+romance. My Lord!"
+
+In spite of Perdita's brave attempt, conversation languished. She
+appeared to be weighing some matter which lay on her mind. At last she
+looked up with a slightly ironical smile. "You will think I have come on
+some affair of state, Miss Fleming, the way I am hesitating--"
+
+Fuschia here made a violent mental protest. "Now don't you begin by
+telling me that I broke up your home, because I didn't. You broke it
+yourself."
+
+Mrs. Hepworth made an impatient gesture as if at her own unusual lack of
+adequate expression.
+
+"Do you play cards at all?" she asked, "bridge or--"
+
+Fuschia could not suppress one stare of surprise. "Play bridge!" she
+murmured, wondering what that had to do with the matter. "No, I have no
+card sense. Strange, too, for papa has a lot."
+
+"The reason I asked was this," in rather diffident explanation; "I was
+wondering if you could appreciate what it means to make an unexpected
+play which takes several tricks--to play trumps in such a way as to make
+the other players gasp with surprise, to--"
+
+"Oh, I know what you mean," said Fuschia comprehendingly, a light
+dawning in her puzzled eyes. "You are talking about playing the game.
+Why, of course, I understand. That's all there is; that's what I'm on
+this dizzy old planet for."
+
+But although a basis of mutual agreement and understanding was thus
+established, Dita seemed still to struggle with an unwonted
+embarrassment.
+
+It was not, however, within Fuschia to prolong a situation of this kind.
+She bent forward, her elbows on her knees, her fingers covered with
+moonstone rings clasped lightly in front of her, her eyes full of a
+thousand twinkles and the upturned corners of her mouth curving almost
+to her eyes.
+
+"Let's get down to cases, Mrs. Hepworth, man to man. Is it a go?"
+
+Perdita drew a breath of relief and smiled back. She certainly was not
+one of the few, the very few, who could resist the twinkles in Fuschia's
+eyes.
+
+"It's a go," she answered; "then man to man, it is this way. You have
+made it easy, you see, for me to say the things I wanted to, although I
+did not know in what feminine phrases I might have to clothe them. But
+you and I are, at present, very much in the public eye. Now every one is
+waiting to see what our attitude toward each other will be. It is
+assumed openly by the newspapers, as you probably know, that there is a
+sort of woman's war on between us. Now, Miss Fleming, I want--"
+
+"Your husband," supplemented Fuschia mentally. "Well, I haven't got him;
+never did have him; don't want him."
+
+"--to design your stage costumes and to have it so announced," concluded
+Perdita.
+
+Then she saw a remarkable change come over the dainty, thistledown Miss
+Fleming. Her mouth became an almost straight line, the gleam in her eyes
+was almost uncannily shrewd. She gave Perdita's words a concentrated
+consideration for a few moments and then nodded two or three times,
+brief, quick, clean-cut little nods.
+
+"Great!" she said succinctly. Then her mouth curled again, the twinkles,
+like splintered diamonds, came back to her eyes. She flew across the
+room and threw her arms about Perdita, enveloping her in a momentary and
+rose-scented embrace. Her enthusiasm was unrestrained. "The
+advertisement is above rubies," she cried. "No wonder you are such a
+success."
+
+"Oh, that is no credit to me," replied Dita carelessly. "I have a sort
+of sixth sense about clothes, you know. It is my one gift. I know the
+moment I put eyes on any one exactly how she, it is always she, of
+course, ought to look. I see colors when I look at people. Women often
+say to me, 'Oh, I can not wear this or that color,' when it is just the
+one thing they should wear, it is their mental correspondence."
+
+"And how are you going to dress me?" asked Fuschia with intense
+interest.
+
+"Principally in gold and silver," Dita answered without hesitation. "You
+have on the right thing now. Most designers would put you in black,
+because you are so very fair. They would try to make you striking by
+force of contrast, but not I. You see very few women of your coloring
+could stand the dazzle of gold and silver. It would completely eclipse
+them; but you are mentally dazzling. Your personality is strong enough
+to reduce anything you wear to its proper place. One must take all those
+things into account in designing, you know. Now you are quicksilver,
+sunlight, glimmer of day on speeding waters, and we must accentuate that
+fact; not ignore it and slur it over."
+
+"It sounds fascinating," said Fuschia. "How sweet of you to do this for
+me."
+
+"For myself, you mean." Perdita rose. "You'll do, my dear. You're new,
+you're different. New York will be yours whether you can act or not."
+
+A flame went over Fuschia's face and seemed to pass as swiftly as it had
+come; but instead, it remained, focused in her eyes.
+
+"I can act," she said briefly, "and, look here, New York may accept me
+on the magnificent advertising I've had and will continue to have; or
+New York may accept me on the strength of my wonderful gowns designed by
+Perdita Hepworth. That's all right, that's as it should be. But I'm
+going to make New York forget my press notices, and your gowns and
+Fuschia Fleming, and I'm going to make it sit tight and still in its
+boxes and orchestra chairs and balcony seats and laugh and cry with the
+heroine on the stage who shall be the realest thing on earth to them for
+the time. That's the game for me, Mrs. Hepworth. That's all the game I
+care a hang about."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Maudie," said Perdita to Miss Carmine, an hour or two later, "I have
+just secured a new commission, a big one."
+
+"What?" asked Maud with interest.
+
+"Hepworth and Carmine are to design the costumes that Miss Fuschia
+Fleming will wear in the repertoire of society dramas in which she will
+appear after two weeks of Shakespearean rôles. Paula Tangueray, Mrs.
+Dane, you know the lot of them."
+
+"Perdita! The cheek of her. To make such a request under the
+circumstances."
+
+"Maudie! The cheek of _me_," mocked Dita softly.
+
+"You!" astonishment was beyond all bounds now. "You!"
+
+"Yes. Did you fancy--" there were those deep vibrations in Dita's voice
+which always bespoke some strong emotion, "that I was going to endure
+the spectacle of Miss Fleming triumphant 'in our midst,' and every one
+watching to see how I would take it, and predicting that only one course
+remained open for me and that was with dignity to ignore the incident?
+Not so. The world will see, and this, amusingly enough, happens to be a
+fact, that Miss Fleming and Mrs. Hepworth are excellent friends, that
+Mrs. Hepworth is one of Miss Fleming's warmest admirers, and that she,
+still speaking of myself, has assisted in Miss Fleming's unparalleled
+success in New York by designing for her some of the most wonderful
+costumes ever seen on the stage."
+
+"Unparalleled success!" scoffed Maud. "It is rather early to predict
+that. New York is like a cat. You never know which way it will jump."
+
+"It will jump Fuschia Fleming's way," replied Dita confidently. "You
+haven't met her."
+
+"Is she so beautiful then? As beautiful as you?"
+
+"Oh, no," Perdita was smoothing out her gloves on her knee. She shook
+her head decidedly. "Nothing like. She isn't beautiful at all. She's
+just a slender creature with rather colorless _blonde cendre_ hair and
+blue eyes."
+
+"Oh," Maud was plainly puzzled. "Then what do you mean?"
+
+But Perdita only smiled. "Have you and Wallace made up yet?" she asked
+with what appeared to the other woman striking irrelevance.
+"Impertinent, I know; but there's a reason?"
+
+"No-o-o," said Maud reluctantly and evidently wondering if Dita had
+suddenly lost her mind.
+
+"Then do so at once," advised her business associate. "Do so before he
+meets Fuschia Fleming."
+
+"From what you say." Miss Carmine's chin was high and haughty. "I see no
+cause for alarm."
+
+"No?" Perdita tapped the table with her finger-tips, still inscrutably
+smiling.
+
+Maud rarely permitted herself to become angry, but she did so now. She
+had never imagined that Perdita could be so aggravating. "Just because
+Cresswell lost his head about her, you think--" she flashed out.
+
+"He didn't," cried Perdita not with bravado, but with a confidence which
+Maud realized with surprise was genuine. "I hadn't been with her three
+minutes before I knew that. But take my advice," again her voice fell to
+that teasing note. "If you really love Wallace make up your differences
+with him to-day, to-day, before he, a playwright, meets the actress.
+Then get a new steel chain, one that he can't chew through, and fasten
+it securely to his collar."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HE CALLS ON HIS WIFE
+
+
+Early in April Hepworth returned to New York. It was a gentle, smiling
+April, inclining more to laughter than to tears and striving to
+obliterate the memories of March. He arrived one evening and wasted no
+time in communicating with Perdita. The next day in fact was marked by
+the passage of notes between them, severely businesslike, and yet models
+of courtesy.
+
+The result of these diplomatic negotiations was that Mr. Cresswell
+Hepworth, at a suitable hour the following morning, wended his way to
+his wife's business establishment.
+
+It was a deliciously balmy morning, the rare sort of a day that slips in
+now and then between April showers and sets one dreaming of the glory of
+the spring in the silent woody places. The great, roaring canyons of
+brick and stone floated in a silvery, sparkling mist, and in that
+atmospheric alembic dreary perspectives assumed an unsubstantial and
+fairy-like beauty. The little leaves on the trees fluttered in the soft
+breeze and were so young, so green, so gay that they lifted the heart
+like tiny wings of joy.
+
+In spite of himself there was the hint of a smile about the corners of
+Hepworth's mouth and this deepened and deepened until as he rang the
+bell of his wife's door, he suddenly became conscious of it, and
+carefully suppressed it.
+
+The sphinx, past mistress of inscrutability of expression, would have
+paid him the tribute of a flicker of admiration as he entered the
+reception-room. It was without a suggestion of curiosity or even
+interest in his eyes that he glanced absently about him; perhaps the
+long droop of the lids at the corners, which appeared to accentuate his
+rather weary and listless gaze, was more marked than usual, but this was
+always so when he was making mental notes and registering his
+observations with the rapidity and accuracy of a ticker.
+
+He awaited Perdita in her reception-room, that charming apartment, and
+here, in view of certain events which occurred later, it would be well
+to give the plan of the first floor.
+
+This room opened from the hall and ran the length of the house with
+windows at the front looking out upon the street while those in the rear
+opened upon a strip of garden. There was another door at the lower end
+of the room, which, with the long room, formed an ell, and terminated
+the hall.
+
+Dita kept Hepworth waiting a bare moment. Her approach was unkindly
+noiseless, but nevertheless he heard her, and was on his feet, his eyes
+meeting hers full as she appeared in the doorway. The conventional
+banalities of greeting were gone through with ease on his part, grace on
+hers.
+
+Merciful banalities! They gave him time to consider the change in her, a
+change which was to him sufficiently striking almost to have trapped him
+into an expressed surprise, and this change was so subtle that he
+wondered that it should yet be so apparent. It was not a matter of
+outward appearance, that remained the same in effect. It was a mental
+change so animating and vital that Cresswell felt all former estimates
+of her crumble. Had she always been so, and had he never really seen her
+until now? Had time and absence in some way cleared his obscured vision?
+He felt a momentary sense of confusion, a brief mental giddiness, and
+then he pulled himself together. The first impression was the correct
+one. She had changed, and thereby had gained, gained tremendously in
+poise.
+
+But there was no time now in which to analyze impressions.
+
+"So this is the magic parlor where all the ugly women are transformed
+into beauties." He looked about him as if he had not thought to glance
+at her surroundings before. "The presence of mere man here seems rather
+profane, do you not think so? Ah, well, my stay is brief. You have
+proved, haven't you, that it is not an impossibility after all, to paint
+the lily and gild refined gold?"
+
+"So few women have any taste," she said carelessly. "And oh, their
+houses! You should see them when I go over their hideous houses like a
+devouring flame and ruthlessly order out all their dreadful junk. And
+the most awful objects are always the most precious in their eyes. I
+feel so sorry for them. I have always a guilty sense of being a naughty
+boy robbing a bird's nest, and the poor mother birds stand around and
+flap their wings and hop and shriek. It's very mournful, but they
+needn't have me if they don't want me."
+
+He laughed. "And Maud? Is she, too, well and happy?"
+
+Dita lifted her hands and eyes. "That is a very tame way of describing
+her. Her gowns are dreams this spring, she is considered almost a
+beauty; people, you see, are gradually forgetting that she was ever
+'that plain Maud Carmine who plays nicely,' and Wallace Martin and
+herself are engaged to be married." A faint, amused smile crept around
+her mouth at this announcement.
+
+Hepworth looked up with sudden interest. "Indeed! Well, that might have
+been expected, I dare say, but will it not rather seriously interfere
+with the business?"
+
+"No," she shook her head. "No, I think not, Maud has no intention of
+quitting. Wallace's plays are more or less problematical and Maud has
+invested a good deal of her money in this. It is really paying
+remarkably well, you know."
+
+"Dita," his voice was low, and he could not conceal the chagrin, the
+touch of pain in it. "Why have you never touched a cent of your own
+money, since my departure? I only learned a few days ago that you had
+not. I can not begin to tell you how it made me feel. It not only
+distressed but deeply wounded me."
+
+She twisted a little in her chair. "It--it has never been necessary,"
+she said. "We began to make money at once. Really, Cresswell, Maud and I
+have prospered beyond our wildest dreams."
+
+"But suppose you had not. Is your prosperity the only reason you have
+not touched it? Would you have done so under any circumstances? That is
+what I have been asking myself for the past week, and am now asking
+you."
+
+She flushed uncertainly. "Ah," she said. "I can not answer you that. I
+can not tell. One never knows what one will do when the pinch comes."
+
+He smiled faintly. "I'll not put any more embarrassing questions to you,
+but confine myself to perfectly safe topics. You are looking very
+well."
+
+"I am well."
+
+"And happy? But there, that is hardly a safe topic, is it?"
+
+A sudden light came into her eyes, making them warm and softly bright.
+She smiled at him with a fresh, almost childlike enthusiasm. "Yes, I'm
+happy," she said, "happier than I've ever been in all my life. Why,
+Cresswell, it's been fun, fun. There's been lots of work, and lots of
+planning, but nevertheless, I've never enjoyed anything so much in my
+life. Often I go to bed at night tired out, but it's always with a
+comforting sense of satisfaction. It's all so varied and interesting,
+you know, but it isn't that that makes me happy." She clasped her hands
+and looked up at him with an unconscious appeal for sympathy and
+understanding in her eyes. "It's better than that, better than anything
+else. It's meant success, think of it, success. Not a horrid, little
+picayune one either, but a nice, big one."
+
+He leaned forward and looked at her curiously as if he really saw her
+for the first time.
+
+"Why, Dita," he exclaimed, "has it meant so much to you as that?"
+
+"Indeed, yes." There was ardor, fervor in her answering exclamation. "I
+can not tell you how much. I believe I was really morbid on the subject.
+I believed in failure as a real atmosphere always encompassing me. I had
+all manner of superstitions, beliefs about it. I believed that with all
+my strength and youth and energy, I was yet doomed by fate to a tomb of
+inaction. I seemed so futile, so ineffective. With a restless, active
+brain I accomplished nothing. You see that was such a dreadful
+experience, my attempt to earn my living before I married you, and I was
+so ignorant and inexperienced of every condition of life in which I
+found myself, that it prevented me from striking out boldly, from
+believing in myself. So I made the fatal mistake of beginning small, and
+began to paint all those wretched little articles, and it wasn't my
+_métier_ at all, Cresswell, really it wasn't, so, naturally, I failed.
+And," as if it had suddenly occurred to her, "I have found it so
+interesting to dress Miss Fleming. Designing her costumes has been
+fascinating."
+
+"That was a very wonderful and a very clever thing of you to do,
+Perdita." There was a tone in his voice she did not understand. She
+began to praise Fuschia and he leaned back in his chair listening. She
+could see the mere gleam of his eyes between his almost closed lids. She
+wondered if he had really heard one word she had said. In reality he was
+bestowing upon her such attention and study as he had never dreamed of
+giving her before. She felt, however, in spite of his apparent
+indifference, that he was so far in sympathy with her, that she was
+impelled in spite of herself to continue her confidences.
+
+"Do you know, Cresswell, it's a horrible thing to be considered a
+beauty. Oh, you may laugh," he could not help his mirth. "I know beauty
+is supposed to be the heart's desire of every woman; but there are many
+drawbacks. Every one, without exception, takes it for granted that you
+are a fool. Your sense is always considered in reverse ratio to your
+good looks, and then, it's such an uncertain thing. Just when you need
+it most to console you for the disappointments and disillusions of life,
+it departs, and horrid things, wrinkles and gray hairs, take its place."
+
+"Perdita! What an absurd creature you are!"
+
+"Ah, Cresswell," her tone was pensive. "You have always been successful.
+You can not imagine what failure feels like, that deadening, hopeless
+sensation." She was vehement enough now.
+
+"Can I not?" At last he lifted his drooping lids and looked straight at
+her. "My dear Dita, I can give you cards and spades on every emotion of
+failure you have ever felt. I recall one case in particular, where I
+failed so conspicuously and brilliantly, that I am overcome with
+surprise at my own stupidity every time I think of it. But as you have
+been talking that case has reverted again and again to my mind, and it
+has struck me that there is still a chance that I pursued the wrong
+tactics."
+
+She drew back wounded. He had then, as she had once or twice suspected,
+not been listening to a word she said, and how his cold face had glowed
+at the mere thought of retrieving a business blunder.
+
+Hepworth got up and began walking about the room. "And Gresham, what of
+him?" he asked presently, breaking the silence which had fallen between
+them.
+
+"He is quite well, I believe," she was furious at the conscious note
+which crept into her voice, at the scarlet which flew to her cheek, but
+one thing she had never been able to endure and that was any evidence of
+cowardice in herself. She lifted her eyes bravely to his and held them
+there. "He has been in town since January," she said. "I have seen him
+very often."
+
+"Ah, painting as brilliantly as ever, I dare say? A genius, Eugene!
+Unquestionably."
+
+Again silence fell between them, and lasted until she broke it with the
+constrained question: "Are you--are you going to be here for some time
+now?"
+
+"No, I shall have to be in London more or less during the summer, but I
+have some matters which must be attended to first. By the way," as if
+struck by a sudden thought, "what are your plans for the summer?"
+
+"I have made none. I have not even thought of such things yet. I dare
+say I shall go somewhere for a bit of a change, but," with a smile,
+"business is so very brisk."
+
+He laughed and took one or two more turns up and down the room.
+
+"Dita, do you remember that I told you once that you were a remarkably
+clever woman? Well, I merely wish to call that fact to your attention,
+and reiterate my statement. Oh, I must tell you, I have a new amulet, a
+wonder. I will tell you the history of it when you have more time. You
+have the case in your keeping have you not? And the tray with the one
+empty space?"
+
+The blood rushed to her face. "I have the case," she said coldly. "It is
+locked in my safe here. Do you wish it now?"
+
+"No," he shook his head. "Wait until I bring the amulet. May I bring it
+late Wednesday afternoon? And why not dine with me then? Say you will,
+Dita. Give the world something to talk of, something to puzzle over."
+She had never seen him so eager.
+
+She hesitated a bare second. "I will. Yes, I will be very glad to," but
+lifting her eyes to his: "Are you so sure that one of those amulet trays
+has an empty space?"
+
+"It had when I last saw it." His voice was unreadable.
+
+"But that is months ago; perhaps you will think differently when you see
+it Wednesday evening."
+
+There was a flash over his face, which vanished as quickly as it had
+appeared. He drew nearer to her as if about to speak, then apparently
+reconsidered the intention. "I really must not keep you longer," he
+picked up his hat. "Of course, there are a number of matters to be
+discussed, but they can wait. We will reserve them for Wednesday
+evening. Good-by." He held out his hand. She placed hers in it.
+
+"Good-by," she returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE MAGIC WORD
+
+
+"Maud," said Dita, walking in upon that young woman, a package of
+letters in her hand, "a lot of things are happening. Here is a letter,
+among other things, from Mrs. Wilstead. She says that she is just back
+from California, and that she needs stacks and stacks of new clothes,
+and wants our designs. It will be fun dressing her. She is so extremely
+good looking."
+
+Maud stirred restlessly, frowned, bit her lip, but did not speak.
+
+"Just back from California," went on Dita. "I wonder--I wonder, Maud, if
+she could possibly have come on with Cresswell?"
+
+"Very probably," said Maud. "In fact, I think nothing could be more
+likely."
+
+"Why, what do you mean by speaking so mysteriously?" Dita widened her
+eyes. "Suppose they had? Nothing, after all, could be more natural."
+
+"Nothing, I suppose." Maud was trying hard to be non-committal. "But let
+her go to some one else. If we take any more people, we shan't get away
+this summer. We have more on our hands now than we can manage. Yes, let
+her go to some one else."
+
+"But, Maud," Dita hesitated, "I really think we should refuse some one
+else and take her. She is an old friend."
+
+"Old fiddlesticks!" cried Maud impatiently.
+
+"Maud! What is the matter with you? A touch of spring fever? Really, I
+think we must consider her."
+
+"But if I ask you not, Dita"--there were almost tears in Maud's voice.
+
+"But why should you ask me not? This is too bewildering."
+
+"Ah, well," Maud spoke now with the calmness of despair, "since you
+force me to tell you, I ask you not because Mrs. Wilstead has been
+constantly with Mr. Hepworth in the West this winter, and the current
+gossip is that he is only waiting for a divorce to be arranged between
+you and himself, to marry her."
+
+There was silence for a moment on Dita's part. Her eyes were downcast,
+mechanically she sorted the letters in her hand. "Then what of the talk
+about Fuschia Fleming and himself?"
+
+"Oh, they say that she took a back seat when Alice Wilstead appeared on
+the scene. But really, Dita, this move on Alice's part makes me furious.
+The idea of her being guilty of such wretchedly bad taste. I have always
+liked her, been really fond of her, in fact, but this crass exhibition
+of bad breeding disgusts me. I dare say that she doesn't care so long as
+she gets results; that is, the benefit of your taste and skill to
+enhance her waning beauty; but look at the position it is going to place
+you in, Dita. For number one to design the trousseau for number two is
+really too absurd. It simply goes beyond all belief. Dita, you must,
+indeed you must, write her the curtest, coldest of polite notes and tell
+her that we are entirely too busy to consider her."
+
+"Very well. I'll humor you so far," returned Perdita. "What is it?"
+turning to a maid who entered with a visiting card. "Ah, Eugene! I asked
+him to come this morning. I particularly wanted to see him and I don't
+want you present. There, don't get that stony look of despair on your
+face, Maudie; think how good I have been all winter, only seeing Eugene
+once in a blue moon, and then in your company."
+
+"But I want you to keep on being good," pleaded Maud; "especially now."
+
+"I am gooder than you can possibly imagine," laughed Perdita, "but, all
+the same, I do not wish you tagging about this morning." She smiled
+teasingly at her puzzled business partner as she left the room.
+
+She went down to meet Eugene in the same room at the same hour she had
+talked with her husband the day before.
+
+But Eugene was not one to endure for one moment a situation dominated by
+the shadowy third person. No woman should gaze at him with the
+remembrance of yesterday in her eyes, the smile of wistful reminiscence
+on her lips. An hour with him must be a dazzling and kaleidoscopic
+episode. He would hold it in his hand, and at the bidding of his will,
+the moments, like bits of colored glass, should revolve and melt and
+mingle--rainbow arabesques on the background of Time.
+
+"Your meditations, remembrances and regrets for your oratories, my
+dear," his challenging eyes seemed to say, "but with me you live, you
+laugh, you thrill responsive to the harp of life; the yesterdays
+forgotten, the to-morrows unborn."
+
+"Dita!" he caught her hands in his as she entered. His eyes were
+shining, his head thrown back. He was more vivid than the spring
+sunshine which fell through the open windows.
+
+"Eugene! You look as if you had just received some wonderful new
+commission."
+
+"So I have, a commission to love you. That is right, blush. Dita, why do
+you not always wear rose color? But no, don't listen to me. If it were
+blue or green, I would be making the same request. Dearest, my eyes
+drink in, drink up your loveliness. You never, never were so beautiful
+as you are this morning."
+
+"Eugene, you are mad; too foolish for anything. What is the matter with
+you?"
+
+"Mad doesn't half express it. May I smoke?" He took her consent for
+granted, for he was already rolling cigarettes in his deft, supple
+fingers. "Yes? No? I am delirious with joy. Hepworth is back as, of
+course, you know. That can only mean one thing; every one says that just
+as soon as a divorce can be decently arranged, he and Alice Wilstead
+will be married. The verdict of the world is that he was so angry at
+your going into business that he flung off to the West. It was the most
+spectacular of your many caprices and it proved the last straw for him.
+Blessed last straw!" lifting his eyes devoutly. "And then Alice Wilstead
+cleverly appeared on the scene and the consoling offices of friendship
+did the trick."
+
+"Three months ago it was Fuschia Fleming, according to gossip." Her eyes
+were downcast, her tone expressionless.
+
+"Oh, that," he blew rings of smoke lightly through the air and followed
+them with gay eyes; "that is a part of the game. That was making
+evidence for you. It is all arranged that I am to paint her portrait,
+you know. I have not met her yet, either." He threw his cigarette
+through the window. "Dita, Dita, how can you sit there so cool and
+still? When I think that you are actually on the very eve of freedom, I
+become delirious with joy."
+
+"So sure of the winning, Eugene?"
+
+"Dita!" His face clouded, there was a world of reproach in his voice.
+"That is a terrible trait in your character, that teasing desire of
+yours always to fling a little dash of cold water on one's mounting
+enthusiasms."
+
+"There is another dash coming," she laughed. "I want my amulet, and I
+want it at once, to-day. I know," anticipating his protestations, "that
+you returned it to me the afternoon Hepworth left for the West, and I
+would not see you to receive it in person. Then, my mind was so
+perturbed and occupied that I didn't think of it again before you
+sailed, and since your return," a little smile creeping about her mouth,
+"I haven't thought about it either; but now that the matter has come up
+between us, please see that I have it to-day, Eugene."
+
+He had looked slightly annoyed while she was speaking, but now he bent
+toward her with his most charming manner, his most winning smile. "You
+know my greatest weakness, Dita? I try to overcome it, really I do," in
+laughing excuse, "but in spite of will or reason those superstitions of
+mine persist. Alas! They do." He admitted it as a naughty little boy
+might admit a passion for stealing jam. "And I have tremendous faith in
+that old charm of yours." He picked up another cigarette from his
+skilfully rolled little heap, placed as orderly on the table beside him
+as if they were his paint brushes.
+
+"Ever since I have had it," he went on, "the luck of the high gods has
+been mine. Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin still clamoring to
+have their portraits painted. The critics amiable and almost
+intelligent, money pouring into my coffers and pouring out faster than
+it comes in--I wish there were such a thing as a money-tight purse--and
+best of all, ah, best of all, the love of my heart so near, so near."
+His eyes held the warm glow which changed, irradiated them. "The star of
+my life comes slipping, wavering through the spaces of the sky and down
+the purple pathways of heaven to my arms." He leaned forward quickly
+and almost enfolded her.
+
+"Eugene!" She stood haughty and tall before him. "You assume entirely
+too much. You have from the beginning. More, much more, than I have ever
+given you any reason to assume. According to the tradition the amulet
+can only bring one luck when it is given with the heart's love; and I
+never gave it to you, Eugene, never. You laughingly filched it one day
+when I took it off the chain about my neck, that you might look at it
+more closely. And you are so sure, so sure of me, when I am anything but
+sure of myself. I have never deceived you as to the state of my
+feelings. How would that have been possible when I am still so doubtful
+myself? Ah, those doubts!"
+
+"They are nothing, dearest, nothing. I shall brush them away as I brush
+cobwebs." He put his hands upon her shoulders and stood gazing deeply
+into her eyes.
+
+"Ah," she shook her head, and, at the same time, stepped away from him,
+"I am no more sure that I love you than I was six months ago."
+
+"Never any more sure?" His voice deep and rich as a low-toned bell.
+
+Her black eyelashes lay long on her cheek, where the crimson, the hue of
+a jacqueminot rose petal, was spreading. "There are moments," she
+admitted, "times when I am with you that I believe that the magic word
+has been spoken and that my heart has blossomed in purple and red, that
+I truly love you, but," she shook her head sighingly, "the moment I am
+away from you, I know that that is not so; that you haven't said the
+magic word yet, 'Gene."
+
+"But I know it, that magic word," he whispered, "and I shall awake you,
+just as the Prince did the Sleeping Beauty. Not with a word at all,
+dear, but with a kiss." He bent forward, but she had slipped away from
+him, and before he knew it had put almost the length of the room between
+them.
+
+"You--you must not talk so to me now, 'Gene," the words were barely
+breathed, "and," with a desperate clutch at a safe topic, "my amulet. I
+must have it by to-morrow morning."
+
+There was a flash like fire in Gresham's eyes. A quick scowling change
+darkened his whole face. He picked up the five or six beautifully
+rolled cigarettes which yet remained of his neat heap and tossed them
+out of the window.
+
+"I see it," he cried harshly. "You probably have Hepworth's box of
+amulets in your keeping. You wish to return it to him, and show him when
+you do so that your old charm is safe in its place. Oh, I can see the
+whole scene. He will courteously hand it to you and say, 'Your property,
+I believe, my dear Perdita.' I can hear his frigid, formal utterance.
+And you will accept it with that grand, ancestral manner of yours,
+murmuring, 'Thank you, yes, I regret that I can not ask you to accept it
+as a small contribution to your collection, but that being out of the
+question on account of certain traditions which adhere to it, I feel
+that I must continue to hold it in my possession.' Why not be honest,
+Dita, and tell him that you have given it to me?"
+
+"Eugene, you are impossible. You go entirely too far." There was no
+mistaking the displeasure in her voice, and his immediate recognition
+that it was cold, not hot anger, brought him to himself at once.
+
+"Flower of magnolia!" his voice fell to all those exquisite and
+heart-touching modulations of which he was master. "I was only teasing.
+Forgive me. You shall have your bit of glass early to-morrow morning.
+And until I see you again I shall dream only of the wonderful, beautiful
+years we shall have together. We shall wander about the world, here,
+there and everywhere, and I shall paint the glory and color of the
+universe and you, always you, Perdita, the focus, the center, the heart
+of all beauty."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS
+
+
+Dita had barely finished her breakfast the next morning when the message
+was brought to her that a lady who refused to give her name but insisted
+on seeing her at once upon important business awaited her in the
+reception-room.
+
+Dita hesitated a moment, debating whether or not to rebuke the maid, who
+must have yielded to the lure of gold so readily to forget her orders,
+and send back a peremptory request for the lady's name and her business,
+or whether to yield to her natural and feminine curiosity and grant an
+interview to this visitor who appeared so desirous of maintaining an
+incognito.
+
+This brief hesitation proved a loss, however, to the waiting lady, whose
+method of being announced showed that she hoped to take Perdita by
+surprise, for Maud Carmine entered at the moment and with some show of
+indignation in both voice and expression informed Dita that Mrs.
+Wilstead was the person guilty of strategic entrance.
+
+"Such impertinence!" breathed Maud. "Scrawl a note in pencil, Dita, to
+the effect that it will be impossible for Mrs. Hepworth to see Mrs.
+Wilstead. That will show her that her ruse and her bribes have been
+quite unsuccessful."
+
+In her ardor for Mrs. Wilstead's demolition Maud had forgotten that the
+last thing Dita could endure was dictation. Now, no sooner had the words
+of admonition left her lips than, to her chagrin, she saw Dita's chin
+lifted, Dita's nostrils quiver, Dita's shoulders flung back ever so
+slightly.
+
+"I think I shall see her." Mrs. Hepworth was on her feet, her voice
+cool, firm, pleasant, with just that little warning vibration which
+always meant danger. "You may tell Mrs. Wilstead that I will see her
+immediately." Her eyes scorched the maid, who hastened to obey, with the
+impression of an X-ray having been turned on her immaculate white waist,
+and exposing with startling vividness the crisp, green bill hastily
+thrust within.
+
+"Come, Maudie," Perdita touched her on the shoulder in passing. "Do not
+look so downcast. Why do you wish to deprive me of a little legitimate
+amusement?"
+
+Maud, strong now in tardy wisdom, said nothing, and Perdita's light,
+quick step might be heard a moment later descending the stairs.
+
+Alice Wilstead turned hastily from her contemplation of the small green
+yard without the window.
+
+"My dear Perdita!" She came forward with Dita's note of the day before
+in her hand. "I just received this in the morning's mail, and I lost no
+time in getting here, I assure you, and making the attempt to see you by
+hook or crook. I know it's outrageous of me, but I don't understand, and
+I want to understand. Why is it, my dear, that you have refused to take
+me? Surely I'm not a hopeless case." She smiled ingratiatingly, and Dita
+was bound to admit that never had she appeared more attractive. Her
+piquant face was radiant with happiness, the whole effect of her was of
+a sort of buoyant joyousness.
+
+Dita's chin was just half an inch higher than when she had left Maud,
+her smile was sweet and cold and faint, as remote as if it had been
+bestowed upon a passing acquaintance in Mars, and she remained standing.
+
+Mrs. Wilstead's mental recoil was but momentary. Her cause was good, her
+motives pure, her courage high. Above everything, she desired the
+benefits of Perdita Hepworth's genius. They were on sale, to the high
+bidders, and she did not purpose to be excluded merely because it was to
+be supposed that she would espouse the cause of her old friend,
+Cresswell Hepworth, in the event of open differences between himself and
+his wife.
+
+"I regret, Mrs. Wilstead," Dita's voice matched her smile, "that it will
+be quite impossible for us to take any one else now. The summer is
+almost upon us, you see."
+
+Mrs. Wilstead should not be blamed for not seeing. April, as wind and
+sky portended, was about to burst, not into tears, but into a snowstorm.
+Alice shivered in her furs.
+
+"Oh, but, my dear child," she begged, "do have some mercy on me. Here am
+I getting my trousseau. Oh, no wonder you start. I've always said that
+I never, never either would or could do anything so idiotic as to get
+married again, and yet here I am not only considering it, but actually
+committed to a wedding-day. And that is to be so appallingly soon. I
+tried and tried to put it off a little longer, but he is so impatient."
+
+Dita's mouth had frozen, and the haughty and incredulous gaze which she
+cast for a brief, indignant moment on Alice would have turned one less
+bubblingly gay into a pillar of salt. This interview seemed incredible.
+She had always regarded Alice Wilstead as an especially well-bred woman,
+but this greed to attain an object at the sacrifice of her self-respect,
+even decency of feeling, and regardless of the position in which she
+would place the woman with whom she pleaded, was, to Dita, shocking,
+insulting, unforgivable. While she waited the fraction of a second to
+command her voice, Alice spoke again.
+
+"But you seem angry." She was obviously both hurt and bewildered. "What
+have I done? Surely, you will not fail me now at this most crucial
+moment of my life. Why, consider, I am going to marry a man five years
+younger than myself."
+
+Dita caught at a chair, and sat down, the room seemed to whirl about
+her, she pressed her hand to her brow.
+
+"Alice Wilstead," she said, "what on earth do _you_ mean?"
+
+"I mean what I say," returned Alice with a touch of acerbity. "I am
+going to be married. What do you mean?"
+
+"But to whom, to whom?" Dita was all impatience.
+
+"To whom? Why, to Hayward Preston, of course. One of your husband's
+business associates in the West. Surely you knew that?"
+
+"I wish I had Maud by the throat," muttered Dita irrelevantly.
+
+It was twenty minutes later when Maud put her shocked and disgusted head
+within the door.
+
+"Dita," coldly surveying the two enthusiasts before her, who sat
+together in jocund amity, "Mrs. Hewston is out here in a state of great
+perturbation. Do you wish--"
+
+But she got no further, for Mrs. Hewston, in the superiority of her
+greater bulk, pushed Maud into the room before her and now stood, the
+picture of pink and white and plump tragedy, on the threshold.
+
+"Oh, Alice, I am glad to find you here," she wailed, advancing further
+into the room, while Maud discreetly closed the door, not upon herself,
+oh, no, but behind both of them. "You are always such a support." She
+sank into the chair Dita pushed toward her. "It's Willoughby, of
+course." She drew her handkerchief from her bag and mopped her eyes.
+
+"Perdita Hepworth," she abandoned her spineless attitude and sat
+upright, speaking with vehemence. "I am more ashamed of being here than
+I can ever make you understand. But Willoughby!" There was resignation
+in her uplifted eyes, acidity in the purse of her mouth. "He is the
+dearest, most lovable fellow in the world," she looked at her listeners
+suspiciously, but meeting no correction, permitted her irritation a
+natural outlet, "but he is the most obstinate, stupid mule the Lord ever
+made."
+
+"What is it now, dear?" asked Alice sympathetically.
+
+"This, and it's quite enough," returned Mrs. Hewston bitterly.
+"Cresswell Hepworth, your husband," accusingly to Dita, "and may Heaven
+forgive him, for I never can! dined with us last night and just before
+he left, Willoughby got to asking him about his plans and Cresswell was
+telling him that he was due in London before long. 'But how much longer
+will you be in New York?' asked Willoughby, and Cresswell said, with a
+queer little smile, 'I can't quite say. There are a number of things to
+be looked after, among others a duel I may have to fight.'"
+
+The women looked at each other in pale horror. Dita herself ghastly,
+half rose from her chair.
+
+"I told Willoughby," sobbed Mrs. Hewston, "that it was just one of
+Cresswell's jokes. You know that odd, dry humor he sometimes shows,
+but," despairingly, "you also know Willoughby. He tore and snorted and
+raved and routed all night long. I would rather have had a hippopotamus
+in my room. And he excoriated you, Perdita. Called her the most dreadful
+names, really," this to Alice and Maud, confidentially and quite as if
+Dita were not present. "He said that Cresswell's life was ruined
+because of the caprices of an ungodly, wanton girl. Yes, Dita, I don't
+blame you for being angry, but it was worse than that, too. You see,
+he's got the idea firmly into his head that Cresswell is going to fight
+a duel with Eugene Gresham and--"
+
+"For goodness sake, let us keep our common sense," said Mrs. Wilstead,
+laying a detaining hand on Dita's shoulder, noting that Mrs. Hepworth's
+eyes were turned longingly toward the telephone. "You know perfectly
+well, Isabel, you know, Maud, and you, also, Dita, that Cresswell
+Hepworth does not for one moment contemplate anything so crazy. Nothing
+could induce him to put either himself or you, Dita, into such a
+position. Such a thing would be entirely against his nature. He would
+regard it as farcical melodrama, turn from it even in thought with
+infinite contempt and scorn. The idea of Willoughby thinking such a
+thing. Just like him. Meddlesome idiot. Ah, I don't care, Isabel, you
+know he is one. I wish I had him here now."
+
+"He's out there in the motor," wept his wife. "He was afraid I wouldn't
+come and tell Perdita unless he came with me. But, Alice, you shan't
+speak of him so, he's the best--"
+
+"He's still there," interrupted Maud, who had gone to peer from the
+window at Mrs. Hewston's announcement that this watch-dog of Dita's
+morals waited without, "with his head out of the window looking up at
+the house. And, oh, Heavens!" falling back against the lintel, "here is
+Eugene Gresham coming up the steps, and Mr. Hewston is glaring at him
+until his eyes are standing out of his head. He is purple in the face.
+Now he is speaking to the chauffeur. Why, they are off, gone like the
+wind."
+
+Mrs. Hewston fell back limply in her chair. She seemed incapable of
+speech for a moment. "Alice," she said at last, in awe-stricken tones,
+"he has gone to tell Cress that Eugene Gresham is here."
+
+"Well, what of it?" snapped Mrs. Wilstead. "Cresswell will only laugh at
+him and smooth him down. You know that."
+
+"I hope so," breathed Mrs. Hewston. "He seems to amuse Cresswell. Fancy.
+But then," more understandingly, "he doesn't have to live with him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+HEPWORTH MISUNDERSTANDS
+
+
+Dita's fears calmed by Mrs. Wilstead's essentially common-sense point of
+view, her confidence was further restored by Eugene's evident ignorance
+of any plots and plans on Mr. Cresswell Hepworth's part of bringing this
+triangular situation, involving himself, his wife and the other man, to
+a fiction-hallowed and moss-grown conclusion.
+
+It was therefore without particular apprehension, at any rate
+apprehensions of the kind nourished by Mr. Hewston, that she dressed for
+the dinner _en tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with her husband. It was rather with a sense
+of mounting interest, even excitement.
+
+She wavered in her choice of a gown, scanning with hypercritical eye a
+dozen or more. White savored of a school-girl simplicity and disarmed
+her if she chose to be subtle. Blue was unbecoming; sufficient taboo.
+"Green's forsaken and yellow's forsworn," she murmured ruefully. Black
+remained, thin, soft-falling gauze, distinguished, distinctive,
+exquisite in design and effect; above its shadow rose her neck of cream,
+her hair was the dusk shadow of copper, her eyes were darkly brilliant.
+
+She hesitated at jewels. He had given her so many. Which would go best
+with her gown? Then she turned away from even the mental contemplation
+of them with a feeling of distaste. She could not, even to please him,
+wear his jewels when he and she were almost strangers, when but the
+details of their final parting remained to be settled. And yet would it
+not look a bit odd to appear without any ornaments whatever?
+
+She considered the matter a moment, and then smiling a little, she
+opened the box which Gresham had given into her hands that morning, and
+which lay upon her dressing-table.
+
+She turned over this old trinket in her hand, and gazed at it, forgetful
+of the passing time. How impressive Eugene had been when he had returned
+it to her!
+
+[Illustration: She gazed at the old trinket.]
+
+"I am only lending it to you, remember that, for you will give it to me
+with your heart's love, Dita, and soon."
+
+She was roused from her reverie by the sound of a motor stopping
+without. Her maid waited to place a black and gold wrap about her
+shoulders. "One moment," said Dita. Quickly she slipped the amulet on a
+thin, old-fashioned gold chain and fastened it about her throat. Then
+she went downstairs to greet her husband.
+
+Commonplaces of the most conventional and banal order they talked.
+Nothing else on the drive to the restaurant, nothing else on first
+taking their seats at the table on one side of the great garish room.
+There were many curious eyes on them, necks craned, the incredulous
+whisper ran:
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth actually together! What does it mean!"
+
+The stereotyped babbling went on intermittently, until dinner had been
+ordered and the earlier courses come and gone, and then Dita suddenly
+awoke to the fact that her husband had taken the conversation into his
+own hands and was actually talking to her. Oh, of course, he had often
+talked to her before, arranged new amusements for her, discussed what
+jewels she would like, what plays she would care to see, what people
+interested her most, what journey she would enjoy.
+
+But now, she almost caught her breath at the surprise of it, he was
+talking to her as if she were a man, or at least an intelligent human
+being and not just merely--a pretty woman.
+
+He was talking straight ahead, discussing business matters, several
+interesting problems which had come up in his affairs during his recent
+western sojourn. He did not pause to explain anything to her, quite took
+it for granted that she would understand. He did not apparently stop to
+consider whether she was interested or amused, and that pleased her
+enormously. She began to ask questions, and he answered them fully, even
+pondering some of them carefully before replying. One he considered for
+a moment or so and then said: "Do you know, I had not thought of that
+before, that puts a new phase upon the whole situation." Her strand of
+rubies had never given Dita such a glow of pride and pleasure.
+
+"Ah, why have you never talked to me like this before?" she asked
+naďvely. "Think of all the stupid dinners we've eaten together when you
+treated me like a tiresome little girl who had to be continually amused,
+and I was one, too; as tongue-tied and missish as anything, because you
+took it for granted that I was."
+
+"No one could accuse you of being either tongue-tied or missish
+to-night. You are quite matronly in that black gown."
+
+"Oh, I love to hear about the big things that go on," she said
+enthusiastically, if irrelevantly, "but men will never talk to me about
+them. All my life, whenever I'd try really to talk sense to a man, he'd
+say, 'What wonderful eyes you have,' showing that he hadn't heard one
+word I'd been saying. They always seem to think that I expect them to
+tell me how lovely I am. It's the curse of the pretty woman."
+
+"Oh, well, console yourself," he said carelessly. "There are prettier
+women in the world than you, quantities of them!"
+
+"I--I--suppose so." Dita had rarely been so taken aback. She looked at
+him a moment like some insulted queen. His eyes, however, were
+discreetly downcast. "Oh, of course," she said as quickly as she could
+recover her breath, "of course," her laugh was forced and rang hollowly.
+
+"Oh, yes, don't let your beauty get on your nerves. The world is full of
+beautiful women. My new amulet--I told you that I had a new one, did I
+not?--was given me by one of the most beautiful women I ever saw. I have
+her picture somewhere. I must show it to you."
+
+Mr. Cresswell Hepworth was entirely without design in his choice of
+topics. He had spoken of some of his great western enterprises because
+his mind had been more or less occupied with them during the day, and
+had been so surprised and pleased that these subjects had gained his
+wife's interests that he had continued the discussion of them. Again, in
+his seeming disparagement of her beauty, he had merely thought to
+console her for what she regarded as the constant belittling of her
+mental endowment, evidently a sore spot in her consciousness.
+
+Dita played with her fork a moment without answering his last remark.
+She had no right to feel either resentment or irritation. Her sense of
+justice assured her of that, but she suffered a twinge of both emotions,
+nevertheless.
+
+"Wallace Martin tells me that good old Hewston made an awful scene when
+those distorted pictures of Fuschia Fleming and myself appeared in the
+paper." Hepworth laughed more heartily than usual.
+
+"Oh, do not mention that unspeakable old creature!" she cried
+petulantly. "Tell me of more interesting things."
+
+"Dita," he spoke to her more earnestly, more self-revealingly she felt
+than he had ever done before, "I am going to tell you something. When I
+went west last winter, it was not alone because I was called thither by
+various business affairs, but because, after thinking the matter all
+over, I definitely decided that the only thing for me to do was to
+relieve you of my presence. I was convinced that, although you might not
+be fully conscious of it, still in the depths of your heart you really
+loved Gresham. I was also convinced that I loved you infinitely, and
+that it was quite beyond my power to interest you. But since my return I
+find myself at sea. The moment I saw you I saw the difference in you,
+the change that made me revise my former crude, stupid estimates of you.
+I realize that you are the sort of woman who must have an object, a
+purpose in life, an expression; in fact, that you set little store by
+the beauty others praise extravagantly, because it has always been
+yours. You value it no more than one values the sun and wind. It is
+achievement that fascinates you, isn't it?"
+
+"Ah, yes, but I had failed, you know, and I was afraid to try again. I
+knew that you were doing big things, but you never would talk of them to
+me, and I thought that you considered me too stupid to understand them."
+
+"Dita, how blindly we have misunderstood each other. Is it too late?" He
+whispered the words as he put her wrap about her shoulders, his voice
+ardent, impassioned as she had never heard it.
+
+She cast one astonished, almost frightened glance upon him. Then, as in
+a daze, a dream, walked down the room, never seeing the admiring eyes
+that everywhere met her. She might have been in the desert, as far as
+they were concerned.
+
+As the door of the motor closed on them a panic of shyness seized her.
+"You, you spoke of your new amulet," she said, snatching at a topic.
+"Have you it with you?"
+
+"Yes. But I do not know whether you can get a very good idea of it in
+these shifting lights."
+
+He took the case from his pocket and, lifting out the ornament, gave it
+into her hands. It was fashioned of half a dozen uncut diamonds in a
+setting of the most delicate and exquisite filigree.
+
+"Old Spanish, you see," he said.
+
+"Beautiful!" she exclaimed, turning it over and looking at it more
+closely. But the attention she was bestowing upon it was a mere seeming.
+She was thinking, or rather attempting to think, but her heart was
+fluttering wildly, her whole impulsive nature seemed to impel her to the
+action she was meditating.
+
+"Cresswell," she lifted a face white as a snowdrop to his, "will you
+make an exchange with me? Will you give me this amulet and take mine?"
+
+"Perdita!" he cried, "you do not--" his voice broke.
+
+"Yes, I do," she exclaimed, "it is not a wild whim, a caprice on my
+part. I have been thinking about it all day, ever since this morning."
+
+"This morning!" sharply; looking at her keenly, quickly. "Ah," with a
+long breath, "it was this morning that Hewston drove poor Isabel to your
+house to prevent the duel between Gresham and myself." He laughed, but
+it was dreary mirth. "Hewston is a most imaginative fellow. I have a
+railway deal on which I spoke of to him as a duel. And so, you were
+going to sacrifice yourself in order to make quite sure that I would
+spare Eugene. Oh, rest content, Perdita. He is quite safe from my
+poignard or pistol. Never fear."
+
+It seemed to her that the satire in his voice bit into her soul. With a
+great gasp of relief she realized that the car had stopped before her
+door. "Oh, take your amulet," she cried, "since you will not have mine."
+She almost threw it at him.
+
+He thought that she was angry and sullen as she walked up the steps and
+into the house without a word to him, and with the barest inclination
+of the head. In reality, she was striving hard to control her sobs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ITS ANCIENT CHARM
+
+
+The hour which Dita had set for her appointment with Cresswell Hepworth
+was twelve the next morning, consequently she was not only surprised but
+perturbed when Eugene's name was brought to her a little after eleven.
+
+He looked haggard, she thought, as if he had not slept, but his eyes
+were brighter than usual.
+
+"Good morning, Queen of the May," he cried, coming forward to take both
+her hands in his as she came through the doorway. "Did you know, by the
+way, that this is May day? Ah," his eyes fastening themselves on the
+crystal amulet gleaming against her white gown, "you have it still. That
+was what disturbed me and drove slumber from my eyelids during the long
+night. He is a strong man, a very able and masterful man and he wants
+that amulet and you, Dita, and I feared--oh, you know how things appear
+in the dead of night, what monstrous and fantastic ideas come to one."
+
+"You might have saved your fears and your fancies," she answered with a
+delicately ironical smile. "He does not want me. He would, I think, like
+the amulet. Nevertheless, he declined it."
+
+"Then you offered it to him? Really!"
+
+"Yes," the irony still in her voice. "You were a better prophet than you
+dreamed, Eugene, you predicted exactly what happened. I offered it to
+him and he declined." Her voice faltered.
+
+"Naturally," laughing, "what else could he do under the circumstances?
+Even he, with all a collector's greed, would hardly care for a gift
+which is supposed to be invariably accompanied by the heart's love of
+the donor. He knew, poor wretch, that all he was getting was the bit of
+glass, while the heart's love was mine, for ever and ever mine."
+
+His voice sank to those musical cadences which ever prove so enthralling
+to the ear. And Dita, who loved music and beauty and romance, smiled
+dreamily. But doubt, like a shadow, lay in her eyes and about her
+mouth.
+
+"No," she cried, "oh, I do not know, Eugene. When I am with you, you
+throw a glamour over me. I believe that I am just on the eve of loving
+you--that any minute you will say the word which will make me fully
+realize that I do, but as soon as you leave me, Eugene, the moment
+passes."
+
+"It is because you are perplexed, worried about this other matter, that
+is all, dearest. When that is settled and you are free, then I will
+sweep away at once and for ever all these doubts in your mind, sweep
+them away as if they were cobwebs."
+
+"Will you? Perhaps," but she shook her head as if only half convinced.
+"Hush! What is that! I think it was the bell of the outer door. You must
+go at once, Eugene. Cresswell was to be here at twelve o'clock. It must
+be quite that now."
+
+"And I have no desire to meet him." He picked up his hat. "I will step
+through the little back room into the hall, and thence out. I dare say
+you and he have some final arrangements to make. Is that it, eh?"
+
+She nodded, but without looking at him. Her face had grown very pale and
+the hand which she placed on the tall back of a chair to steady herself
+trembled a little.
+
+Her ears had not deceived her, it was Hepworth's ring--and the echo of
+Eugene's retreating footsteps had barely died away before a maid drew a
+curtain and Hepworth crossed the threshold.
+
+If he upon his arrival had at once noticed a subtle but marked change in
+Perdita, she now was struck by an equally vital and informing alteration
+in him. He had always seemed to her before as one who leaned back in an
+automobile and merely dictated the directions the chauffeur was to take,
+but now he was the man who was driving his car himself, at unlawful
+speed, and keeping quite cool and collected during the performance.
+
+He took the chair opposite the one in which she had seated herself, and
+she noticed a flicker of a smile across his face as his eye caught the
+amulet hung about her neck, a tender, humorous, sad little smile.
+
+"Yes, I am still wearing it," she said, as if in answer to some question
+of his, "and I have had the box containing the others brought down here.
+It is there on that table in the corner." She spoke with a bravado
+which only half concealed her embarrassment.
+
+He glanced toward it indifferently. "Then we will fasten my new one in
+the space left vacant by yours," his swift, delightful smile came and
+went, transforming his face for the moment like a gleam of sunlight, but
+although brilliant, it was sad, sad as all regret, and Dita, seeing it,
+felt some wild, momentary impulse to beseech forgiveness, she could not
+tell exactly for what.
+
+The amulet, her old bit of crystal, was swinging at the end of a long
+chain, and, a little embarrassed, she lifted it in her hand and gazed at
+it mechanically, turning it this way and that to catch the different
+reflections of light.
+
+"Did you know that we are lawbreakers, you and I, Dita?" asked Hepworth
+with another smile, "meeting to discuss the details of a properly
+arranged divorce? Well, my dear, it will not rest particularly heavy on
+my conscience if it makes things easier for you in the least degree.
+Your lawyers will instruct you just what to do, but there is one matter
+which I wish to discuss with you personally, and that is some
+settlements.
+
+"Why, Dita," breaking off sharply and starting to his feet, "what is the
+matter? Are you ill?"
+
+Indeed he was justified in thinking so. She had grown white as snow. The
+color had left even her lips.
+
+"No," she spoke with an effort, but she lifted her head, as if by main
+strength of will. "No," and he was infinitely relieved to see a bit of
+color creep back into her lips, but the eyes she courageously raised to
+his were dark with an emotion which he could only translate as fear or
+horror, he could not tell which.
+
+"Have I offended you, then?" he murmured. "Believe me--"
+
+"No, no," she insisted so definitely that he was forced to believe her.
+"It was something quite different. Something, something I just
+remembered."
+
+She was manifestly so confused and disturbed that he did not press the
+point. It would have seemed both unkind and unwise to do so, and then,
+although her eyes still retained that curiously shocked, almost
+horror-stricken expression, the color had returned to her cheek.
+
+"You were saying?" she began, her voice steady enough now. "Oh, yes, I
+remember, about the money." Those deep vibrations of emotion thrilled
+her tones. "Well, I won't have it. Won't touch it. I will not hear of
+settlements. I can make enough for my needs."
+
+He lifted his eyes and looked at her quickly and then the eyelids almost
+closed. Perdita was under very close observation.
+
+"Naturally, I do not for a moment dispute that. It is a fact already
+proven, but it is my wish to remove the necessity from you. Your
+occupation will then continue to be a source of amusement, of interest
+to you, but you will not feel that it is your sole dependence."
+
+She shook her head with a sort of irrevocable gentleness with which he
+could not fail to be struck.
+
+"No," she said, "it is really quite useless to discuss the matter.
+Truly, Cresswell, I will not even consider it."
+
+"But, Dita," he began, then paused a moment as if to make a choice of
+arguments, desirous of using at once the most potent and evidently
+preparing to undermine and break down the barriers of her decision if it
+took a month.
+
+She forestalled him, however, with a quick flank movement. She rose to
+her feet. "Cresswell," she said, "I promised you last night that I would
+discuss this matter with you this morning, but now," there was the least
+hesitation in her voice, "I am going to ask a favor. I dined with you
+last night, now will you dine with me to-night? Will you? There will
+only be Miss Fleming and her father, and she will just sit at the table
+a few minutes, she never dines before playing; Wallace Martin and Maud,
+and they are going somewhere, so you and I will have the leisure of a
+long evening to discuss all the pros and cons of this question, your
+side and mine. Will you come?"
+
+She was looking at him so earnestly, there was something so strange in
+the depths of her dark eyes, that he felt tempted on the moment to beg
+an explanation of this postponement. Then, as quickly he relinquished
+it.
+
+"I shall be delighted to come," he said heartily. "And if to-night you
+are in no mood to talk over dry details, we will put it off again until
+a more convenient season."
+
+"No." Her tone was positive. "I am quite sure that we will come to one
+decision or another this evening. Good-by."
+
+When the curtain at the door had fallen behind him, Dita sat down again.
+She did not seem to be thinking or mentally engaged in any way whatever.
+On the contrary, she seemed to be waiting, two or three minutes passed,
+five. Still she waited. Ah, a bitter smile hovered for one moment around
+her lips. Her whole tense figure relaxed a little as if the moment which
+she had so confidently expected had come.
+
+There was the sound of the shutting of the outer door in the small room
+to the left, then a halting step across the bare and polished floor.
+Eugene's step. He paused a moment in the doorway leading into the larger
+room, but as Dita did not turn nor give any sign whatever of having
+heard him, he came on.
+
+"Back again, you see," he said. "I saw Hepworth leaving the house just
+as I came about the corner up here, so I knew the coast was clear. May I
+sit down?"
+
+For the first time Dita looked at him. He was unmistakably not of the
+same temper in which he had left her an hour before. The buoyancy and
+spring of him had vanished. His eyes were clouded, his mouth depressed,
+certain lines on his brow and about his mouth stood out more markedly
+than usual. In fact, he seemed to have halted midway in some mood
+between dismay and anger. And as Dita observed this, there again played
+about her mouth for one instant that same, sad, bitter, secretive smile.
+
+She had leaned back in her chair as if prepared to remain some time, but
+she made no effort whatever to carry on a conversation or even to embark
+on one.
+
+The frown deepened on Eugene's brow. This attitude on her part was
+evidently irritating to him.
+
+"Everything settled, Dita, and satisfactorily?"
+
+"What do you mean by satisfactorily?" she asked, letting a moment or
+two lapse between his question and her answer.
+
+"I mean everything arranged in your favor," he replied with a short
+laugh. "He is rather sure to do that, you know. He likes to do things
+with the grand air."
+
+"Oh, no, Eugene, it is you who like to affect the grand air. With him it
+is natural."
+
+He looked up at her quickly. "It sounds, it sounds," he said, "as if you
+might possibly be on the verge of a sirocco. Don't Dita, I implore you.
+I am off the key myself."
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+He lifted his shoulders. "Ah, that I do not know."
+
+"I refused any alimony, Eugene," she said abruptly.
+
+"What! Oh, Dita, you must not! Why, it is the height of folly! My dear
+child, it is quixotic to the verge of idiocy." All his moodiness had
+vanished. He was arguing her case fervently enough now. "You have had
+your head turned by the success you and Maud have enjoyed in this
+venture this winter, but that is purely ephemeral. You were a fad, a
+novelty. How long do such things last in New York? And here is Hepworth
+willing and anxious to endow you with houses and lands. Dita," and never
+had she heard him plead his love with such fervor, "Dita, you must not
+ruin your whole life by a blind whim. You must listen to advice. You
+must be guided by your friends in this matter.
+
+"It is true, of course," he continued, "that I make a very large income,
+but I lay nothing by. It is impossible. I must keep up an
+appearance--the painter prince, and all that sort of thing. It is
+expected of me. It is a part of my stock in trade."
+
+"Then you consider, 'Gene," her voice was calmly, reassuringly
+reasonable now, "you consider that fully to enjoy life we must both
+possess more than an ordinarily large income?"
+
+"Dearest Dita," he bent forward with his tenderest, most ingratiating
+smile, "do not for one moment mistake me. I think, I know we could be
+happy without a centime between us, but viewing life as it is lived and
+considering your tastes and my tastes, the mode of existence to which we
+have accustomed ourselves and all that, I think we, like most other
+people, would do well to avoid the perilous experiment of comparative
+poverty. Whether we wish to believe it or not, really to invest life
+with romance and interest and charm requires more than mere imagination,
+of which you and I possess an abundant store, Dita. It also requires
+money."
+
+"It would require a great deal more than that for me, Eugene," she rose
+to her feet now and stood looking at him as if from mountain heights, so
+remote and distant she seemed. "Remember the old legend of my
+amulet,"--she lifted it and swung it to and fro as she talked,--"that
+sooner or later it would force the one who possessed it to reveal
+himself in his true character? Well, it has proved its ancient claim.
+You apparently possessed it long enough for it to force you to reveal
+your true self; or perhaps that was inevitable under any circumstances."
+
+"What do you mean, Dita?" he, too, had sprung to his feet, and stood
+facing her, both fear and chagrin in his eyes.
+
+"This," she flung out her hand with the amulet in it; "while I sat here
+talking to Cresswell, I was turning this square bit of crystal this way
+and that, watching it catch the light. Suddenly, as I held it between my
+thumb and forefinger, I saw you, it reflected you quite clearly. You
+thrust your head a little forward from the door, down there," indicating
+by a gesture the door at the lower end of the room, "anxious to hear the
+better what Cresswell was saying and quite sure from the position of our
+chairs that we could not see you. Then I sent him away and waited. I
+knew, I knew instinctively, that you would do just as you did, Eugene,
+and--so I waited. I knew that I should hear that outer door close, that
+I should hear you walk across the floor, I knew it."
+
+The moments pulsed like heartbeats between them.
+
+"I shall not deny it," he said at last, "but Dita, Dita, I did it for
+you. I felt that you would follow some quixotic course, which you would
+regret for a lifetime. I know so well your mad, impulsive recklessness.
+Oh, Dita," he stretched out his arms to her.
+
+There was no responsive movement on her part. She stood mute, immovable,
+eyes downcast, as if she could not bear to look upon his humiliation.
+
+The long chain had slipped through her fingers, and the amulet swung at
+the end of it, to and fro between herself and him, like the pendulum of
+an inflexible fate.
+
+"Dita," his voice was irresistibly appealing, "you will not thrust me
+thus out of your heart, oh, not for this!"
+
+"You never had a place in my heart, Eugene, I know that now."
+
+She swept across the floor, but as she put up her hand to pull aside the
+curtain before the door, she paused. "I--I'm sorry, Eugene," she
+faltered and by an effort of will lifted her eyes to him at last.
+
+But they fell neither on the shamed nor the conquered. His head was
+thrown back, his eyes met hers. He was smiling, and his smile held
+unfathomable things. It spoke of a spirit eternally young and yet which
+had felt the weary weight of all dead and crumbling centuries. It was
+sad, disillusioned, yet eagerly joyous. It had tasted all things and
+found them vanity, yet pursued an unending quest with infinite zest.
+
+"Dear Dita," he murmured, "never doubt that I loved you, love you still,
+but as the artist loves, not the plodder. You or any woman can only be
+to him the 'shadow of the idol of his thought,' the mere symbol of
+beauty, but what he really loves, Dita, is beauty's self."
+
+[Illustration: Before she knew it, his arms were about her.]
+
+He spoke now with a sincerity almost stern. "You or all the world may
+think me false," his head lifted lightly, "it is nothing to me. To the
+one thing I know as truth I am eternally true. I really, fundamentally
+do not care that," he snapped his fingers, "for the rest of the show. I
+have always the dream and before me lies the great achievement. So out
+of your house, out of your life, out of your heart I go." He came near
+her as he spoke, his voice was like music. Before she knew it, his arms
+were about her and he was kissing her hair, where the copper shadows
+rippled into gold above her temple. "Beautiful and still loved Perdita!
+Good-by."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+WAITING FOR PERDITA
+
+
+Perdita committed an unpardonable social sin that evening. She, the
+hostess, was late in her own house. In fact she had sent down word that
+they were to begin dinner without her.
+
+The three of them then, Maud, Wallace Martin and Hepworth were sitting
+gazing at one another in a rather mournful and embarrassed fashion, when
+Mr. and Miss Fleming were announced. Fuschia had stipulated that she was
+only to remain with them until the appearance of the roast. That was the
+signal for her departure, the definite limit of her stay. She was due at
+the theater before eight and it was her custom never to eat anything
+before the evening performance. This was the first time any of the group
+had seen her since her tremendous success of a few evenings before.
+
+"Hands up!" she called from the doorway, her gay, delicious voice
+pealing through the room, "hands up, I say," making an imaginary pistol
+of her thumb and forefinger and covering the three. "I don't want either
+your money or your life, but I do insist upon seeing who has blisters on
+his hands. I shall accept no other proof of friendship."
+
+Hepworth and Martin promptly held up their hands. "I'm entitled to first
+honors," said Hepworth, "I've sprained both wrists, can't write my
+signature and have to have my food cut up for me."
+
+"My hands," said Wallace Martin proudly, "are trained. They no longer
+show wear and tear. You could drive a dagger against them and it would
+splinter harmlessly. From long practice in trying to make my own plays
+go by virtue of my own applause they have acquired the substance and
+fiber of hickory."
+
+"But dear Miss Fleming," cried Maud, "I deserve more credit than they,
+for I recklessly sacrificed my most beautiful fan. When the curtain went
+down for the last time and we climbed off our seats and stopped howling,
+I held in my hand a limp shred of something and discovered that I had
+beaten my poor, exquisite, fragile fan to bits."
+
+Fuschia's eyes were full of starry twinkles, her smile was a revelation
+of joyousness. She drew a long, ecstatic breath, "Boys and girls, it was
+nice, wasn't it?"
+
+"Nice!" exclaimed Hepworth pushing a chair forward for her, "Nice! Is
+that the only word you can find to express your pleasure in the fact
+that the curtain rose thirty times amid continuous cheers, and New York
+simply took you to her heart and hugged you?"
+
+"Good old New York! She knew her own little Fuschia by the strawberry
+mark on her left arm, didn't she? I heard Caruso sing for the first time
+the other afternoon, and when they asked me afterward how I liked it, I
+said I only knew of one thing more heavenly and that was the sound of a
+great audience clapping and shouting. There's no music like that."
+
+Dinner was announced, and Maud, with a slightly worried expression,
+began explaining to Fuschia that Perdita had been detained; but as they
+moved toward the door, Hepworth noticed that Fleming had not stirred
+from the remote corner he had sought upon entering the room.
+
+"Jim, what is the matter?" said Hepworth with some concern; "you haven't
+interrupted Fuschia once since she came in and you know it's always a
+neck and neck race between you to see which can talk the faster?"
+
+"He's been asleep," said Fuschia, taking her seat at the table. "Poor
+papa! the gay life, you know!"
+
+Fleming eyed her indignantly across the bank of primroses in the center
+of the board. "The gay life! I've had no sleep since I struck New York,
+that's true. I've had to keep going, and take these poor little
+pick-me-ups of cat-naps whenever I can get them; but why? For a week
+before this great first night, I had to sit up with Fuschia and hold her
+hand and tell her what an unparalleled success she was going to have and
+then that night, after all the excitement and anxiety I suffered as her
+father, and the exhaustion incident upon being first _claqueur_, why she
+drove me out into the cold, damp, rainy streets with one of your New
+York blizzards just setting in, to buy her the first morning papers,
+and since then I've had to celebrate her triumph. I'll tell you what it
+is, friends, I'm a raveled sleeve of care and no kind sleep to knit me
+up."
+
+"Do you know what has really happened?" said Fuschia, in calm
+explanation. "Dear papa can't help putting in those Dumas and Poe
+touches, but come to me for the straight truth. It's really the funniest
+thing about papa. His luck always comes right along with mine. Now what
+do you think?"
+
+"He's made a million since he came to New York," said Wallace Martin.
+
+"Lost the other fellow's million, you mean," said Hepworth with feeling.
+
+"Wrong. It's the most unexpected thing you ever dreamed of," Fuschia's
+voice was triumphant, "papa's got a social success. Yes," nodding
+impressively, "just look at him closely and you'll see that he's lost
+his natural, unconscious man-look. He now has a drawing-room-pet
+expression and he's wearing his hair differently, and throwing out his
+chest. Oh, you needn't laugh, Mr. Hepworth, it's true. 'Hyperion curls,
+the front of Jove himself.' When we were coming on I determined that I
+would always be very kind to papa. I'd never neglect nor ignore him, no
+matter how famous I became; but, of course, he'd just be Fuschia
+Fleming's father. But what are the real facts of the case? Father sits
+in the seats of the mighty, flattered by great ladies and avoids mention
+of his humble actress daughter. King Cophetua and the chorus girl!"
+
+"I had to come to New York to find out that the feminine boycott against
+me wasn't complete," said Mr. Fleming with emotion. "I tell you, Hep,
+it's a wonderful experience suddenly to realize that the entire crew of
+petticoats the world over don't look at you as if they all had glass
+eyes in their heads instead of real ones."
+
+"How do you account for it, Jim?" asked Hepworth.
+
+"From camp to court, my boy, has ever been but a step, although
+sometimes it's a mighty long one," returned Fleming oratorically. "Now
+this is the way I've explained it to myself. You see, I've got that
+wild, free, above-timber-line flavor about me that simply locos the type
+of woman that keeps husband hobbled to a stake under the big tree by
+the back porch where she can keep an eye on him from the kitchen
+windows. Now, personally, the catnip and parsley kind of woman never did
+appeal to me; but these New York orchids are different. They know how to
+appreciate the Rocky Mountain edelweiss, and seem grateful to me for
+taking their husbands off their hands now and then. And they're so
+interested, too, in the little every-day incidents of an old
+prospector's life."
+
+"You just ought to hear papa Othelloize those Ophelias," said Fuschia,
+deftly seizing the first opportunity to get into the conversation.
+"He'll tell them about being carried down a thousand feet in a mighty
+snowslide and escaping unhurt, and of the fabulous properties he's
+discovered, and of frequent encounters with enormous grizzlies, where
+he'll tap them lightly on the jaw and advise them to hasten home and
+then if they get too familiar, he gives them a twist of the wrist that
+sends them howling back to the woods."
+
+"Fuschia," said her father sternly, "you talk entirely too much, and
+there's a day of reckoning coming for you. Just wait till you get to
+London. There you'll be sneaking in at the back door and eating a cold
+biscuit in the pantry while you're waiting to do a few recitations for
+the ladies and gentlemen; while I'll be sailing in to dinner with a
+belted earless on one arm and a tiaraed duchess on the other."
+
+"I'm afraid I see your finish, Jim," sighed Hepworth. "You'll end as a
+leader of cotillions. Your head is badly turned."
+
+"There's no denying, Hep, that we are apt to set and undue value on what
+we've never had, and these late-blooming feminine smiles are like a
+bottle of champagne in the desert."
+
+"Oh, dear, here is the roast," cried Fuschia disconsolately, "and
+Cinderella must run away. Is there no hope of seeing Mrs. Hepworth this
+evening?" turning to Maud.
+
+Maud hesitated a moment, then, "I really do not know," she confessed
+frankly, "she--she has not been particularly well all day." She simply
+could not plead for Perdita the conventional bad headache while
+Hepworth's steady eyes were fixed upon her.
+
+Fuschia, who happened to be looking at him, saw a quick shade of
+disappointment pass over his face, and her impulsive sympathy was roused
+by the depth and poignancy of that immediately suppressed emotion. She
+threw herself into the breach.
+
+"Oh, I want dreadfully to see her to-night about the gown I am to wear
+when I play the scheming adventuress next week. We were to have decided
+it to-night. She is thinking of putting me in green instead of the usual
+black with touches of scarlet, and the accustomed badge of the
+adventuress, high-heeled scarlet slippers. And I am so anxious to know
+if Mrs. Hepworth has decided upon green, a wonderful, wicked, dazzling
+green, with strange blue lights in the shadows. Oh, may I send a message
+and ask her to see me just a moment?"
+
+But before Maud could answer, Perdita entered the room. She pleaded the
+usual headache, which Maud had so carefully avoided, and that threadbare
+social fiction was for once upheld and substantiated. Dita's appearance
+fully bore it out. Her face was pale, her eyes heavy. She promised,
+however, to give a full consideration to the question of Fuschia's green
+gown the next morning, and the actress who had already overstayed the
+limits of the time she had allotted herself prepared to take her
+departure.
+
+"Oh," she cried from the door, "I forgot to announce my two important
+bits of good news. Mr. Martin is going to write me a comedy and Eugene
+Gresham is going to paint my portrait."
+
+A faint smile hovered for one moment about Perdita's lips. "When did
+Eugene make his request?" she asked in her usual low tones, although her
+head lifted suddenly.
+
+"This afternoon," replied Fuschia, and Dita's smile deepened. "And he is
+going to give me a fęte in his studio."
+
+"The usual ball in the artist's studio?" laughed Maud looking at Martin.
+
+"Don't you dream it," Fuschia laughed irrepressibly, also; "not the
+stage kind with its crowd of maskers. This is to be patterned after an
+afternoon among the great artists in Japan. You wear Japanese things and
+crawl through a little door into a room with nothing in it but just one
+perfect flower in a perfect vase, and we will all sit on the floor and
+drink tea."
+
+"It sounds very much like him," said Maud, "but is it true Wallace that
+you are really going to do a play for Miss Fleming?"
+
+"It happily is," said Martin, "a comedy."
+
+"Not a problem play?" The light of hope dawned in Miss Carmine's eyes.
+
+"Oh, dear me, no," cried Fuschia; "and he's going to write it just as he
+talks."
+
+"I'd very much prefer to have you talk it as I write," said Martin, but
+she had already vanished.
+
+In a very few minutes the others followed her example, Fleming leaving
+the house with Maud and Wallace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+WITH MY HEART'S LOVE
+
+
+Scarcely had the hall door closed behind them when Hepworth turned to
+Dita inquiringly. "Would you not very much prefer that I left you?" he
+asked. "I can see that you are not well, and we can discuss anything
+that remains to be talked over at any other time."
+
+"No," she shook her head, "I am quite well. I have not even the headache
+I claimed, and I must, indeed I must, talk to you to-night."
+
+"But if our conversation this morning so upset and unnerved you," he
+urged, "would it not be wise to defer this?"
+
+"Our conversation didn't," she replied with emphasis. "It was another
+conversation. Cresswell, will you answer me a question or two?"
+
+"Anything you wish to know," he replied.
+
+She got up, and, after a fashion she sometimes showed, perhaps
+unconsciously copied from him, began to walk restlessly up and down,
+occasionally stopping to pick up and examine some ornament quite as if
+she had never happened to notice it before.
+
+She had picked up a small jade vase from the mantelpiece and was now
+bestowing upon it what appeared to be an exhaustive observation. In
+reality she was hardly conscious that she held it in her hand.
+
+"Cresswell, why did you marry me?"
+
+He started ever so slightly and then answered unhesitatingly, "Because I
+loved you, Dita."
+
+A little spasm of some emotion he could not fathom passed over her face.
+"It was not because you wished to see how the flower blooming in a tin
+can in a tenement window would bloom in a wonderful lacquered vase in a
+marble court? It was not from curiosity or pity, Cresswell?"
+
+"It was love, Dita."
+
+Again that wave of emotion over her face, and then she looked about her
+with sad, tear-wet eyes and a trembling mouth.
+
+"And my caprices, my stupidity, my inadequacy, soon destroyed that?"
+
+"Never," he repeated. "Believe that. I was no gardener trying
+experiments. It was the flower I loved, Dita; the flower whose happiness
+I longed for, whose happiness I still long for. You do not need my love,
+do not care for it, why should you? But give me the happiness of still
+being able to assure for you the marble courts and the lacquered vases."
+
+The little jade vase dropped from her fingers and fell unheeded to the
+rug at her feet. The tears were pouring now, down her white face. She
+made no effort either to conceal or to staunch them.
+
+"Ah, blind and wasteful creature that I am!" she cried. "Why, why should
+you have chosen to love me?"
+
+She stepped toward him and with both hands unwound the slender
+old-fashioned gold chain from her throat. She lifted her face,
+quivering, broken with feeling, and still streaming with tears, to his.
+She held out the amulet toward him. "Cresswell," poignantly, "will you
+take this now, my old talisman, with my heart's love?"
+
+He made one quick movement as if to take her in his arms and hold her
+close, close to his heart for ever. His face was irradiated, his cold
+eyes glowed with a warmth and fire that more mercurial and mutable
+natures can never know.
+
+Then the light went out of his eyes and face. It did not fade, it was as
+if it were extinguished by some strong effort of will. His arms fell to
+his sides.
+
+"My dear, my dear," his voice trembled, "how like your sweet, generous,
+prodigal nature! I see it all now, the reason for your pallor and heavy
+eyes. You have spent the day, since I left you this morning, in accusing
+and denouncing yourself until you have reached the frame of mind where
+you can only appease your offended and tyrannical conscience by some act
+of high sacrifice. And do you think I would accept it, poor, heroic,
+overwrought Dita? All day," that swift, flashing, heart-breaking smile
+of his gleamed a moment, "you have been convicting yourself of
+ingratitude, merely because I was offering you some of my money with
+the entirely selfish motive of securing my own happiness."
+
+"You are wrong, wrong," she cried vehemently, passionately. "What can I
+do to convince you? Oh, of course, you think that I am a creature of
+moods; you have every reason to think so; but what can I do, what can I
+say to convince you that I am not speaking from one of them now?"
+
+"Say nothing, dearest," he murmured deeply, soothingly; "say no more. I
+shall always remember the sweetness of this moment."
+
+"But I will not have it so," she cried. "You must, you must listen to
+me. You think that I love Eugene, that I have always loved Eugene. And I
+did not know, I did not know what love was. Eugene is charming and
+famous, and there was a sympathy between us, on one side of our natures.
+We have the same love of color. It is a passion with us. It spells music
+and poetry and all sorts of untranslatable things. It is something
+instinctive with us, something we were born with and we see shades and
+harmonies and values that other people do not. But this absolute
+understanding between us was only on one side of our natures, and yet
+sometimes it was so--so encompassing that I thought it embraced them
+all. So I did not know my own mind. I was puzzled, confused, always in
+doubt. And then, when I began really to--to flirt with Eugene, or so
+people construed it, it was when I was beginning to be bored with my
+marble court and my lacquered vase. I got so bored with being amused,
+just amused all the time."
+
+"Ah, that was where I made my great, my unforgivable mistake," he
+interrupted.
+
+"Yes, you made a mistake, in not letting me know you as you really are,"
+she conceded, "but then, with all the boredom, I had that sense of
+futility, of failure behind me. Failure behind and nothing to look
+forward to but an endless succession of marble courts. No beautiful,
+dazzling unexpected. Just the same thing over and over and over. And
+then you went away and for a time I was frightened and forlorn, so Maud
+and I started our venture. Ah!" she clasped her hands together, the
+amulet dangling on its chain, "I have told you what work and success
+meant to me. You understand that; but gradually, as I got used to it, I
+began to see that it wasn't enough. No," she shook her head sadly, "it
+wasn't enough--there must be love. But I had got the idea into my head
+that it was Eugene who would speak the magic word, that magic word that
+I believed in and waited for. Yet all, all the time, from the moment you
+left me, you were in my thoughts. You see," with a faint smile, "I
+understood Eugene, but you were the unsolvable problem. I was always
+thinking about you, trying to understand you, and last night," her face
+glowed with a lovely light, "when you talked to me of the big, wonderful
+things, when you made me feel that I was an intelligent human being and
+not merely a pretty woman, why, my whole heart went out to you and I
+knew it was you, you alone that I loved. It is not the man who can
+conquer a city, many cities, with his grace and charm and genius. Not he
+who can win my poor heart, but the man who can conquer his own spirit.
+Ah, Cresswell," she held out the amulet again to him, "will you not take
+this now?" "Perdita!" he cried deeply and held her close.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beauty, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beauty, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Beauty
+
+Author: Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
+
+Illustrator: Will Grefe
+
+Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37549]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figleft">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figright">
+<img src="images/spine.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+<h1>THE BEAUTY</h1>
+
+<h2><i>By</i> MRS. WILSON WOODROW</h2>
+
+<h3><i>Author of</i> The Silver Butterfly, etc.</h3>
+
+
+<p class="center">WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY<br />
+WILL GREFÉ</p>
+
+<p class="center">INDIANAPOLIS<br />
+THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY<br />
+PUBLISHERS</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright 1910<br />
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span></p>
+
+
+<p class="center">PRESS OF<br />
+BRAUNWORTH &amp; CO.<br />
+BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS<br />
+BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus1.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Perdita</h3>
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table width="75%">
+<tr><td align="right">I </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">A Bachelor's Bride</span> </a></td><td align="right">1</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">II </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">A Far World of Dreaming</span> </a></td><td align="right">14</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">III </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Pink and White Existence</span> </a></td><td align="right">35</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">IV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Our Loving Friends</span> </a></td><td align="right">55</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">V </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">Perdita's Talisman</span> </a></td><td align="right">64</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">Sirocco</span> </a></td><td align="right">75</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">The Gift of Freedom</span> </a></td><td align="right">84</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">VIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Fools' Laughter</span> </a></td><td align="right">98</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">IX </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">A Telephone Call</span> </a></td><td align="right">114</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">X </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X"><span class="smcap">Out of the Gilded Cage</span> </a></td><td align="right">125</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">A Doll or a Box of Candy</span> </a></td><td align="right">137</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">Fuschia Fleming</span> </a></td><td align="right">150</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">Shocking the Hewstons</span> </a></td><td align="right">165</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">Publicity</span> </a></td><td align="right">175</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">A Widow's Smile</span> </a></td><td align="right">192</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">Father and Daughter</span> </a></td><td align="right">206</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">Do You Love Me?</span> </a></td><td align="right">219</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XVIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><span class="smcap">Playing the Game</span> </a></td><td align="right">231</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XIX </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><span class="smcap">He Calls on His Wife</span> </a></td><td align="right">243</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XX </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><span class="smcap">The Magic Word</span> </a></td><td align="right">256</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXI </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><span class="smcap">Two Announcements</span> </a></td><td align="right">268</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><span class="smcap">Hepworth Misunderstands</span> </a></td><td align="right">278</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIII </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><span class="smcap">Its Ancient Charm</span> </a></td><td align="right">289</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXIV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><span class="smcap">Waiting for Perdita</span> </a></td><td align="right">305</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="right">XXV </td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><span class="smcap">With My Heart's Love</span> </a></td><td align="right">316</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>THE BEAUTY</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>A BACHELOR'S BRIDE</h3>
+
+
+<p>If the proper statistics of bachelorhood were accurately tabulated they
+would show that at certain fixed and recurring periods, a confirmed old
+bachelor, say one in every ten, casts his dearly-bought experience, his
+hard-won knowledge of the world and women to the four winds of heaven,
+and chooses for himself a wife; and, as his friends and relatives
+invariably protest, a bungling job he makes of it. He may, before the
+world, walk soberly, discreetly, advisedly and in the fear of God in
+every other respect, but when it comes to selecting a companion for the
+rest of his life, he follows, apparently, a predestined leading, some
+errant and tricksy impulse, and from a world of desirable and waiting
+helpmates, eminently suitable, he will, in nine cases out of ten, fix
+his heart upon the one inevitable She who can keep the pot of trouble
+ever boiling for him.</p>
+
+<p>This, according to Mr. Cresswell Hepworth's old and intimate friends,
+was exactly the course which he had followed; nor was even one voice
+upraised in dissent from this opinion, as they frankly discussed the
+matter over their champagne and truffled sweetbreads at the breakfast
+following the wedding.</p>
+
+<p>It was but natural that they who were rarely in complete agreement on
+any subject which commended itself for discussion among them, should
+hold a unanimous opinion on this matter which involved the happiness of
+their lifelong friend. But although the opinion was unanimous, it was
+not unprejudiced. Hepworth had had his distinct niche in their homes and
+hearts for many years, and now as they gazed metaphorically at the empty
+space, it struck a chill to their affections.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless they did not, could not fail to join in the little gasp of
+admiration which breathed through the church as the bride swept up the
+aisle on the arm of Mr. Willoughby Hewston, the well-known banker and
+intimate friend of the bride-groom. She had been stopping, it was
+understood, with Mrs. Wilstead, another friend of Hepworth's, for
+several weeks.</p>
+
+<p>There were those in the large audience who saw a certain pathos in the
+fact that she was given away by one of Hepworth's friends, thus exposing
+the lack of either relatives or friends of her own, but there was
+nothing in her bearing to indicate that she was conscious of her
+isolated position as she advanced, leaning lightly on Mr. Hewston's arm.</p>
+
+<p>The world, Hepworth's world, and it was a large one, was tingling with
+curiosity. He was a great figure, looming immense upon the financial
+horizon; but no one had ever heard of the bride. The invitations to the
+wedding were the first intimation of his impending marriage, and the
+bride's name, Perdita Carey, conveyed nothing to anybody. By dint of
+careful collection of scraps of information, it gradually became known
+that she was young, of southern birth and extremely pretty. Bare facts.
+No more.</p>
+
+<p>It was also considered rather an odd reading of the customary
+conventions on Hepworth's part, this crowded church wedding exposing the
+bride's poverty in relatives, the breakfast to follow, at his town
+house, thus making equally plain her homeless state; but when this view
+was set before him, sighingly, by Isabel Hewston, and vivaciously by
+Alice Wilstead, he became obstinate in the insistence of his plans. He
+seemed possessed of some masculine idea of getting things over, of
+having all his friends meet his wife en masse, so to speak, and having
+the matter settled.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was, "Nice customs curtsy to great kings"&mdash;or millionaires.
+The audience then of his friends&mdash;there was none of hers present, if
+indeed she possessed any&mdash;sat with heads turned at an aching angle and
+awaited, with concealed impatience, the choice of Cresswell Hepworth.</p>
+
+<p>The weight of opinion leaned to a sunburst of a woman, darkly splendid,
+opulently graceful, and instead, when the stately strains of the
+wedding-march echoed through the church, the guests lifted their
+astonished eyes to a brown and slender girl; but no matter what the
+expectation had been, each realized that he gazed on a more poetic
+loveliness than he had dreamed.</p>
+
+<p>Another unhesitating mental admission. Obscure, unknown she might have
+been, but she could never be considered ordinary. It had taken
+generations of cultivation to give that pose of the head and shoulders,
+that arch of the instep, that taper to her slender wrist. And what
+intimation of individuality! Few women could have borne more regally the
+weight of heavy and lusterless satin or a diadem of flashing jewels; but
+this girlish bride of a millionaire had insisted on being married in the
+white muslin her own scanty purse had furnished; and wore as if it were
+a crown of diamonds the wreath of white jasmine flowers which held her
+long tulle veil close about the cloudy masses of her hair.</p>
+
+<p>For once the entire interest of any occasion which he happened to grace
+was not centered on Hepworth, who, with his usual invincible composure,
+awaited the bride at the altar, fortified by his best man, Wallace
+Martin.</p>
+
+<p>But the owner of millions&mdash;unctuous sound&mdash;is worth more than a mere
+dismissing word. Let the bride continue to advance, he to await her,
+while he is presented in a lightning sketch.</p>
+
+<p>Cresswell Hepworth was far from old, not fifty. He had more than three
+generations of cultivated ancestry behind him. In type he was American,
+approaching the Indian; tall, slightly aquiline of feature, somewhat
+granitic and imperturbable. His hair, which had been brown, was almost
+white, his eyes were gray, trained to express nothing, but startlingly
+penetrating when he chose to lift rather heavy lids with a peculiarly
+long droop at the corners.</p>
+
+<p>Emerson says somewhere that "a feeble man can see the farms that are
+fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the
+possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun
+breeds clouds."</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth was a strong man. He saw possible houses and farms,
+externalized them and became the acquirer of vast and profitable
+tracts of land&mdash;a fair map blackly dotted with mines and scrawled
+with the angular lines of intersecting railroads. In this yellow
+triangle, a great wheat farm. Here, in this square of living green,
+irrigated and profitable ranches. He stood, this "Colossus of
+Finance"&mdash;journalese&mdash;with his feet planted firmly on this solid
+map-basis, and, with a golden rake, drew toward him from countless
+clutching hands securities, stocks, bonds, curios, pictures (he was an
+ardent collector), loot of every description, and, it was even whispered
+through the church, his young and lovely bride.</p>
+
+<p>But now he stepped forward to meet her with a smile that enlivened his
+whole face, even his eyes. The service flowed on. With that air of sulky
+geniality which represented his most urbane manner, Willoughby Hewston
+gave away the bride. The responses were duly made, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Cresswell Hepworth turned to walk through an aisle of smiling and
+nodding friends.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the mellow October sunlight fell through the stained
+windows enwrapping Perdita in a regal and impalpable vesture of scarlet
+and gold; and again a murmur of admiration rippled and echoed at this
+fresh revelation of her beauty. She had been pale as she walked up the
+aisle, but now her color had risen and the crimson on her brown cheek
+was the hue of a jacqueminot rose. Her hair, a deep chestnut at the
+temples, flowed into copper, dark in the hollows, gold where it caught
+the light. Her coloring was a harmony of all soft, warm, dusky shades,
+and one looked to the eyes to focus these tints in light or darkly rich
+topaz; but Perdita's eyes were gray, handed down perhaps from those
+Irish kings to whom her father had laughingly traced his descent.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky girl!" murmured Alice Wilstead an hour later to the group of
+Hepworth's intimate friends who sat together at one table during the
+breakfast that followed the wedding. "Just think of it. He has no family
+encumbrances. Never an 'in-law' will she have to cope with."</p>
+
+<p>It never struck her that Hepworth's little circle of close friends had
+gradually assumed about all of the intrusive and proprietary
+prerogatives of the nearest and most affectionate relatives.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Wilstead was a widow, dark, slender, piquant, versed in the
+secrets of grace and the art of wearing her jewels so that they
+accentuated her sparkling eyes and her one precious dimple without
+eclipsing them. Warmly sympathetic and impulsive, she had been overcome
+by the vision of Perdita's isolation as the girl walked up the aisle on
+the grudging arm of Willoughby Hewston; and had pressed her
+handkerchief lightly to her eyes, a moment of emotion viewed with
+callous interest by a misinterpreting world which regarded it as a last
+tear shed for a lost opportunity, a shattered hope.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hewston, finishing his sweetbreads and preparing to begin
+on the next course, "it went off very well. I was all right, wasn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"You were perfect, dear," his wife hastened to assure him, "and it was a
+beautiful wedding."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hewston was gray and pink and plump like her husband; and this
+morning her grayness and pinkness and plumpness were underlined, thrown
+into high relief by a violet gauze gown, heavily spangled in silver.
+Isabel Hewston resembled nothing so much as a comfortable, placid,
+fireside cat, purry and complacent. If she possessed claws, which is
+doubtful, they were always well concealed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a beautiful wedding and a beautiful bride," she murmured, with a
+little sighing inflection habitual to her, "so young, so&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" interrupted her husband, with as much of a snort as a mouthful
+of game would permit, "I tell you it's a pretty tough thing for all of
+us to see old Hepworth looking so happy." He thrust out his lower lip
+and wrinkled up his eyes until he bore a grotesque likeness to a baby
+about to cry. "Hepworth's my best friend, and to see that look of almost
+boyish joy on his face was pretty hard. There are some things you can do
+and some you can't; now one of these things that no man can afford to do
+is to marry outside his own class. I could have told Cress so."</p>
+
+<p>The other members of this intimate little coterie of friends, five in
+all, looked at one another and burst into involuntary laughter.</p>
+
+<p>Wallace Martin, an old young man, a magazine writer, who would fain be a
+playwright, gave the single bark of mirth which served him for an
+explosion of laughter. It sounded particularly derisive now.</p>
+
+<p>"I would give my little all to have the new Mrs. Hepworth hear you say
+that," he chuckled. "Dear old Hewston, she would not in a thousand years
+consider any of us in her class. She belonged, let me inform you, to one
+of the oldest of southern families. Her mother was a cotton princess of
+the loveliest and haughtiest variety. One of the famous belles of her
+day. Her father, too, was of the old South."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what are you talking about?" growled Hewston irascibly. "She
+hadn't a dime&mdash;was a beautiful cloak model or something of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>"She painted dinky things for a living, if you mean that," said Martin
+carelessly, "lamp-shades and menu cards and such."</p>
+
+<p>"If she only had some friends, even one relative," deplored Mrs.
+Hewston, "it would look so much&mdash;er&mdash;nicer, you know. Relatives do add a
+background." She shook her head regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to be her relatives," said Maud Carmine, a niece of Mrs.
+Hewston and a plain rather faded young woman of pale and indefinite
+tints and many angles. Her claim to distinction rested on the fact that
+she was a drawing-room musician of&mdash;strange anomaly&mdash;real musical
+feeling. It was her misfortune always to be explained by those who found
+her tact, good nature and practical common sense useful, and who drew
+heavily on them, as, "not attractive looking, you know; but pure gold,
+and one of the most dependable persons," and this damning tribute of
+friendship served as an admirable check to further curiosity concerning
+her. "Yes, we must be her background." Her glance lingered for a moment
+on Wallace Martin, but he returned it briefly and indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"A young woman who has just married millions needs no family group,"
+remarked Alice Wilstead lightly. "The most effective background is her
+husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Gad!" Mr. Hewston put down his knife and fork to glare at her. "The
+idea of looking at Hepworth as a background. He who has always been in
+the front of everything. A background! And for a snub-nosed chit of a
+girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Willoughby, dear, not snub-nosed," expostulated his wife mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Snub-nosed, I said," insisted Willoughby. "Didn't I walk up the aisle
+with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, dear, hush," murmured his wife. "Here she comes now."</p>
+
+<p>The bride was leaving. Passing through the handsome, stiff apartments
+like a white cloud, to make ready for the journey before her, she
+stopped a moment for a word or two with Maud Carmine as she paused at
+that table.</p>
+
+<p>Hewston rose reluctantly to his feet. "I once heard of a wedding," he
+said confidentially and hopefully to Wallace Martin, "where the bride
+went up to change her gown, and never showed up again."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did she go?" asked Wallace with interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Dunno," returned Willoughby. "Old lover. Fourth dimension.
+Unexplainable, but fact, I assure you."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>A FAR WORLD OF DREAMING</h3>
+
+
+<p>The bride had passed through the admiring groups with a smile here, a
+word there and was already half up the stairway, above the voices, the
+heavy flower scents, the sentimental melodies which stole from the
+musicians' bower. On, a white, mystic figure, her veil floating behind
+her; on, without undue haste, but most eagerly, as if she climbed some
+mount which led from the world to a desired solitude.</p>
+
+<p>On the first landing she paused, leaning for a moment, Juliet-like as
+from a balcony, and looked down on the moving mosaic of color beneath,
+the gay, light tones of the women's gowns thrown into relief by the dark
+coats of the men. The gazers paid her the tribute of involuntary "Ohs,"
+and barely restrained themselves from applause as if at the appearance
+of their favorite actress. As usual Perdita had made a picture of
+herself, an involuntary and unpremeditated picture; but in effect beyond
+the calculations of the most vigilant stage manager.</p>
+
+<p>She stood with one arm lightly upraised holding her bouquet of white
+jasmine above her laughing face. Behind her, a stained glass window,
+before her the marble balustrade. Then the bouquet, its white ribbons
+waving and circling, whirled through the air, over the sea of upturned
+faces and white clutching hands and straight into Alice Wilstead's arms.</p>
+
+<p>With the laughter and clamor of voices ringing in her ears, Perdita,
+hidden from sight now by a turn of the staircase, followed, with
+unconcealed haste, the crimson velvet pathway which led to solitude.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the stairs she hesitated briefly, glancing right and left.
+She had been in the house but twice before, both times under the
+chaperonage of Mrs. Hewston, and she was not sure of the exact
+geographical position of her own suite of apartments.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment her maid, engaged from that morning, stepped forward and
+threw open a door. Perdita smiled approval. It would have been
+difficult to withhold it. Olga, a paragon of maids, if references and
+experience count, showed no signs of the wear and tear of previous
+mistresses. She was delightful in appearance, rosy-cheeked, amiable,
+immaculate, with that air of trained capability which invites
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Perdita paused before entering. "Are all my traveling things out?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madame."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, I shall not need you for a few moments. Remain here and when
+I want you I will ring."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, madame."</p>
+
+<p>Perdita drew a breath of relief as the door was closed gently behind
+her. At last she was alone, away from eyes, eyes that were everywhere.
+She had felt all morning as if she were encompassed by them, appraising
+eyes, envious eyes, unfamiliar, inquisitive eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She looked slowly about her. And these were her own apartments, these
+beautiful, cold, unlived-in rooms, as empty of life or individuality as
+a shell.</p>
+
+<p>Yesterday she had walked through them with Isabel Hewston, pleased,
+admiring, but a little overawed. She had not realized before what a
+wizard's wand Cresswell wielded. He had but waved it and great
+architects and decorators, their disciplined and cultivated imaginations
+stimulated by the prospect of unlimited expenditure had devised for her,
+penniless Perdita Carey, all this beauty and luxury. She had only
+stipulated timidly that she might be environed in her favorite rose
+color, a mere suggestion for those who had the matter in charge. It was
+enough. Her bed chamber bloomed with the pale but vivid flush of pink
+roses, La France, accentuated with cool, suave, silver notes, like the
+delicate, contrasted phrasing of a musical theme. The result of color
+and arrangement was youthful, joyous, spacious. Beyond a softly falling
+curtain, she caught a glimpse of her sitting-room. American beauty, a
+radiant spot with delicious water colors on the walls, bowls of roses,
+the sunshine falling through the windows, and shelves of books, each
+volume bound in creamy vellum.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the long mirrors which reflected her graceful figure from
+every angle she saw through an opposite door her dressing-room and
+bath, with its elaborate appointments, more inviting and luxurious than
+any of which the proudest Roman beauty could have dreamed. She looked
+about her with a faint, strange smile. What a contrast were these cold
+and splendid rooms, not yet animated by her personality, to that little
+apartment with its two or three tiny chambers, high up under the roof,
+where she had lived and worked!</p>
+
+<p>Then she turned back to her reflection in the mirror. It was extremely
+becoming to her, all this background of rose and silver. Perdita
+realized that as she unfastened the white flowers from her hair and let
+her long veil fall like a cloud about her. With a deft movement she
+caught it and tossed it on a chair for Olga to fold later. She slipped
+out of her wedding-gown next and laid it more carelessly still upon a
+couch. Then she leaned forward, her elbow on the dressing-table, her
+chin on her hand, and regarded herself steadily, that faint, strange
+smile still on her lips.</p>
+
+<p>Well, she had fulfilled her destiny, justified Eugene Gresham's
+prophecy. She heard his words to her, spoken the last time she had seen
+him, three months before, as plainly as if his voice still rang in her
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Perdita, your destiny is written on your face. It includes marrying a
+millionaire and having your portrait painted by me."</p>
+
+<p>Fateful words! She had just married the millionaire, but even here, upon
+the threshold of this new life, she was constrained to halt a moment and
+cast one backward glance, "just for the old love's sake."</p>
+
+<p>It was the night before Eugene Gresham sailed for Europe to paint the
+portraits of "Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin." Again she
+awaited him. Again she heard his step on the stair without, a quick,
+light step with an odd halt in it.</p>
+
+<p>He was coming, and her heart beat. How it beat as she stood there
+breathless beside the window!</p>
+
+<p>"Perdita!" Eugene's voice. He was across the room in a flash, both her
+hands in his. "Here, let me see you in the light." He drew her toward a
+lamp. "Two years, two years since we have met, and me wasting time
+painting in the desert places when I might have been with you. Time is
+not in the Far East. Ah, my cousin!" (the relationship was remote) he
+sighed. "Why, as I live," with a quick change of tone, "you've got
+another dimple, and that makes you a new and lovelier Perdita."</p>
+
+<p>She flushed adorably. "How nice and southern," she cried with an attempt
+at lightness, "and how exactly like you, just like the old 'Gene."</p>
+
+<p>"The old 'Gene," his eyes still holding hers, "has never changed."</p>
+
+<p>"How&mdash;how&mdash;are the pictures going?" withdrawing her hands from his.</p>
+
+<p>"Beautifully!" he said carelessly. "The glassy eyes of the millionaires
+are all turning toward me, and I have more commissions to make beautiful
+on canvas their pug-nosed, fat-faced wives than I care to accept. Those
+ladies hail me as a great psychological artist. Their mirrors are so
+cruel to them that when my brushes flatter them they say that I paint
+their souls; strip away the husk of the flesh and reveal enduring
+loveliness."</p>
+
+<p>He struck a match to light a cigarette and then hastily shielded it with
+his cupped hand from the breeze which blew through the open window. The
+light flared into his down-bent face, bringing out its dissonances
+almost grotesquely in that small, momentary flash. Pick Gresham to
+pieces and he was incontrovertibly convicted of sheer ugliness, but the
+fact bothered him not at all. He knew that few ever arrived at the cool,
+dispassionate frame of mind regarding him where they were capable of
+that exhaustive analysis known as picking to pieces. He was slender and
+rather small of stature, not more than medium height. One shoulder was
+noticeably higher than the other and he walked with a slight limp, the
+result of an injury received in boyhood. Coarse, blue-black hair with a
+sort of crinkle in it stood out from his head like a cloud. His skin was
+swarthy, his features irregular, even his eyes, dark eyes, were only
+occasionally brilliant. But he might have been appreciably uglier,
+almost as hideous as the Yellow Dwarf or Beauty's Beast,&mdash;it would have
+mattered no more than his present lack of beauty, and well he knew it.
+His was the magic gift of glamour, and all the dissonances and
+inharmonies of appearance as well as of character seemed but the
+italics emphasizing his charm. His mind was supple and flexible, his
+wits nimble, even subtle. He was as vivid, as veering, as fascinating as
+flame.</p>
+
+<p>His match, the third he had struck, blew out before it had lighted his
+cigarette, and he threw it away with a petulant gesture. He did not
+answer her, as he was again attempting to light his cigarette, this time
+with success. Then he began to saunter about the room.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of her penury Perdita had yet managed to invest her little
+workshop with both daintiness and charm. The walls were hung with pink
+and white chintz and here and there were bits of fragile china and rare
+old silver on claw-legged mahogany tables, while from dim canvases in
+tarnished silver frames smiled the sweet, dark eyes of haughty southern
+beauties of a generation unused to life's struggles.</p>
+
+<p>"You really saved some of the best things from that hideous auction,
+didn't you?" picking up a bit of china to scrutinize it more carefully.
+"I was horrified when I heard of it across the world, several months
+after it was all over. If I'd only been there to buy the whole lot in.
+Plucky little girl you were, Perdita, to come on here and manage to keep
+the gaunt, gray wolf at bay."</p>
+
+<p>"What else was there for me to do?" she asked without turning her head.
+"Aunt died, the place had to go. As for the wolf, if you look sharp,
+Eugene, you may see his paws thrusting under this door."</p>
+
+<p>In the center of the room was a large table covered with paint brushes,
+colors, a litter of candle shades, cotillion favors and cards in various
+stages of completion. Eugene carefully cleared a space on that edge of
+the table nearest Perdita's chair, and perched upon it, looking down at
+her with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"My stars, Dita!" he cried with the truest conviction, "you are a
+beauty! The moment I return, I mean to paint you again. And this time
+I'll set the world afire. Do you remember how many portraits I have made
+of you? Why, just to see you brings back my boyhood,&mdash;the hopes, the
+struggles, the effort, the haunted days, the feverish nights. I used to
+think, 'If I can just learn how to get this effect, I'll know the whole
+secret.' I've got past that now. There's always a new and more
+difficult riddle every day. But Dita, Dita, the dreams of my youth you
+recall!"</p>
+
+<p>The smile died from her face. Her eyes grew wistful. "The dreams of our
+youth," she repeated. "I'm young yet; but they haunt me. They were
+beautiful dreams down there on that gray, old river. Can't you shut your
+eyes, Eugene, and see the terraces sloping down to the water, the
+lovely, neglected garden with its tangle of roses and jasmine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I remember?" His eyes looked deep into hers. "I swear I never smell
+jasmine without thinking of the old place and you. Perdita, do you ever
+think what life might have been for us if it hadn't been for our
+accursed poverty? If we'd only had just a little between us. It's a
+question of courage. If we'd only had the courage to face things hand in
+hand we'd have got along somehow, I dare say. But we didn't have that
+quality, did we? We didn't believe enough in our dreams. That's the
+worst of life. She won't let you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the dreams!" she scoffed. Her color remained high, her eyes
+glittered, but with irritation, not tears. She suffered from an old
+laceration of the heart, the more wounding in that, for pride's sake,
+she must ever deny it expression. Eugene always took the attitude as if
+they together had renounced a mutual love, and often implied, without
+rancor, but with a forgiving, almost understanding tenderness, that the
+responsibility of their marred lives lay on her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Perdita was of the twentieth century, but she was also a southern woman
+of many traditions, and she could not say the words which rose to her
+defensive lips: "Eugene, you have never asked me to face life hand in
+hand with you." He would with a glance, she could see it, feel it,
+convict her of blunted intuitions, of an inability to discern exquisite
+shades of emotion; and then he would express his love for her in
+glowing, passionate phrases, confusingly evasive, elusive beyond
+definition, committing himself to nothing.</p>
+
+<p>And if this shifting of responsibility on her, this ardent skirting of a
+definite issue were premeditated or his unavoidable, temperamental way
+of viewing the matter, she could not tell. Conjecture was idle. Her
+knowledge of his character, her ready mental accusations and equally
+ready excuses, these comprising the sole weight of evidence, merely held
+the scales steady.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene began to pick up, first one, then another, of the favors on the
+table, a smile, tender yet humorous, about his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, these are not so bad! They are rather stunning. You always did
+have a lot of feeling for form and color, Dita, but you wouldn't work.
+You weren't willing to drudge and to starve if necessary. That was
+because you lacked the clear vision. It wasn't always before you, a
+pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." None might doubt
+his sincerity or conviction now. It was mounting as flame. "Artistic and
+appreciative you are, Dita. All this trash shows it, but you lack the
+creative impulse. You were never meant to be a barefooted, tattered
+follower of the vision, a lodger in a new palace of dreams each night.
+You should build your house on the rock of substantial things,
+bread-and-butter facts.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do not toss up your head in that wounded-stag manner. Good Lord!
+Isn't it enough that you are beautiful? And how beautiful! I'm almost
+tempted to cancel my passage and, instead of sailing to-morrow morning,
+stop here and paint you again. Really, I am. But what would it profit
+me? I'd just be sowing the seed for a new harvest of heartaches.
+Perdita, your destiny is written on your face." It was as if he willed
+to speak lightly. "It includes marrying a millionaire, and having your
+portrait painted by me. You'll never have an international reputation as
+a beauty until you do both." But in spite of his smile and his flippant
+words there was bitterness in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She did not see that, but the lightness of his words and tone pricked
+her to an immediate decision, a decision which she had, unconsciously,
+postponed until she had seen him. Her face paled, her lips folded in a
+tight line.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to marry the millionaire," she said firmly enough, although
+there was a slight tremor in her voice. "It depends on you whether or
+not there is a portrait of Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth by Gresham." There
+was triumph in her eyes and voice as thus she lifted her pride from the
+dust.</p>
+
+<p>"Cresswell Hepworth!" His astonishment was unbounded. "Perdita! I throw
+my hat at your feet. Cresswell Hepworth! The pick of the bunch.
+Wonderful! But," looking at her curiously, "how on earth did you meet
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"He heard of my amulet through a man I met at old Mrs. Huff's, Mr.
+Martin. He has a wonderful collection of amulets, and he wanted to buy
+it of me."</p>
+
+<p>"But you didn't sell it?" he said quickly. "No, of course not. H'm-m.
+That old amulet. You laugh at my superstitions, Dita, but you must admit
+that it's queer the way it's interwoven with the history of our family."</p>
+
+<p>He began to roll cigarettes and lay them with neat and exquisite
+regularity on the table beside him. His eyebrows were raised, his mouth
+twisted in a sort of rueful yet whimsical grimace. When he had finished
+rolling the sixth cigarette, he laid it in line with the others, an
+exact line, his eye was so true. Then at last he looked at her, and his
+cynical, earnest, mocking, enthusiastic face softened. His eyes
+enveloped her with tenderness. There was a heart-break in his smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, star-eyed Perdita, how shall I give you up? The only woman!" He
+mused a moment, and then repeated: "The only woman! If we had but had
+the courage to take the bitter with the sweet, Perdita."</p>
+
+<p>Unwitting goad! It struck too deep for her to conceal the wound.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not say 'can,' I observe, Eugene," she said laughingly, but
+there was an edge to her voice like that on finely tempered steel.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he returned, his fingers busy with a rearrangement of the
+cigarettes; "you see it involves you and me. Not John Jones and Jane
+Smith, but you and me. Do you know what that means? Well, it means that
+it involves the inheritance and training of a good many generations. Do
+you think I do not know how you loathe all this?" He flicked with his
+fingers the dainty trifles on the table. "I know well the craving of
+your nature for splendor and beauty, how necessary they are to you, and
+how dinkiness and makeshifts irritate and depress you, take the heart
+out of you. That is one you, one Perdita. There is another. I saw her
+when I came in to-night. God, I wish I hadn't!" His voice dropped on
+this exclamation and she did not hear it. "She is young. Her beautiful,
+dark eyes ask love and give it. Her heart dreams of it. It is in every
+tone of her voice. These two are at war, the natural woman and the woman
+with her inherited love of ease and luxury and cultivated, artificial
+desires. Which is the stronger? Why, to-night"&mdash;he picked up one of the
+cigarettes and prepared to light it; his hands trembled, his face was
+white&mdash;"the woman who is ready to love. She would listen to
+me&mdash;to-night. I would hold her. Oh, what's the use?" He twisted his
+shoulders impatiently. Then he bent forward and tapped the table lightly
+but emphatically, as if to add weight to his words. "You'd listen to me
+to-night, I know that; but as sure as to-morrow's dawn I'd get a little
+note from you saying that the morn had brought wisdom. But, oh, I am
+glad I'm sailing to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," she flashed out. "You think&mdash;you take too much for granted,
+Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say." His voice sounded flat. "No one ever appreciates
+renunciation. Well, it's out into the night in more senses than one." He
+rose and looked at her as she sat with downcast eyes, and half stretched
+out his arms toward her. Then as she too rose, he clasped his fingers
+about the back of her head and drew her face toward him, although she
+strove to avert it from him. "Good-by, sweetheart." Even she must
+believe in the ardor and sincerity of his tones. "Good-by, Perdita of
+the South." He kissed her lightly on one cheek and then the other.
+"Good-by, my jasmine flower."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated a moment in leaving the room, as if to turn and clasp her
+to him and bear her away; then he shut the door gently behind him and
+she heard his halting, hurried step upon the stair. She sat listening
+until its last echoes had died away, and then, casting her outstretched
+arms on the table, sending the favors and menus and candle-shades in a
+shower to the floor, she burst into a storm of tears.</p>
+
+<p>There was a low, discreet, respectful knock, Olga's knock on the door
+leading into Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth's splendid apartments. Perdita
+started violently and came back to the present from her far world of
+dreaming. She had not even begun to dress, but still was sitting, chin
+on hand, gazing with apparent intentness at her image in the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"It is almost time for Madame to start," Olga smiled from the doorway,
+"so I ventured to remind."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Perdita spoke hurriedly, rising at the same time. "Get me into my
+gown quickly, please, and tie my shoes."</p>
+
+<p>Olga was deft and practised, and Perdita's dressing was the work of a
+few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"My veil now," said the new Mrs. Hepworth, "and&mdash;oh, I almost forgot."
+She turned to lift from her dressing-table an exceedingly quaint and
+striking ornament, depending from a long, thin chain. It was a square of
+crystal about an inch and a half in diameter, set curiously in strands
+of silver and gold, twisted and beaten together, and, as must be
+apparent to even the casual observer, was of ancient and unique
+workmanship. This was Perdita's amulet, the old charm, which Eugene with
+his superstitious fancies had always longed to possess, and which had
+excited also the desire of the collector in Hepworth; but in spite of
+many temptations to part with it, Dita had always retained possession of
+it. It was her one link with the past, a personal link, but also a
+traditional and hereditary one. She wound the chain several times about
+her neck, and the crystal pendant gleamed dully against the dark blue
+cloth of her gown.</p>
+
+<p>"You also are ready, Olga?" she said as she passed through the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Madame."</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth was waiting for Perdita at the head of the stairs. He was in
+his heavy motoring coat, his cap in hand.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled as he saw her. "Just in time," he said. "I'm afraid we will
+have to make haste, rather. Ah," as his eye caught the talisman, "you
+are wearing the amulet, are you not? Blessed old thing. If it had not
+been for that, I should never have met you."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you only married me to get it," she replied with an answering
+smile, "you are such an insatiable collector."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe that? Do you?" he asked. "Because if you do, you are as
+stupid as you are pretty, and you have no idea what that implies."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>PINK AND WHITE EXISTENCE</h3>
+
+
+<p>So Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth whirled away in the big motor and for
+the next few months wandered about the globe. Perdita, who had seen
+nothing but an old southern plantation and New York, the latter from the
+curb, as it were, must see everything; so in pursuit of this aim, the
+Hepworths were constantly stepping from huge, magnificent boats to huge,
+magnificent motors, thence to huge, magnificent hotels. And cities, the
+open country, villages, mountain peaks, strange peoples, were as debris
+strewing the pathway of Perdita's avid flight through new experiences.
+It was tremendously stimulating, even heady, she found, to hold the
+world between one's thumb and finger, and turn it this way and that to
+catch the light. Headier still to discover that to wish is to realize,
+but proportionately a shock to find that the life of infinite variety
+may only be lived within circumscribed boundaries. What is more
+disillusionizing than to learn that money has its limitations? It can
+merely buy the very best of things, the superlatives of the commonplace,
+but these, in the last analysis, remain food, lodgings, clothes,
+conveyances, ornaments, no more. Money can not buy stars or dreams, or
+love or happiness.</p>
+
+<p>Perdita's soaring youth resented it. But she was adaptable, enormously
+interested and the ground within the boundaries was new, affording daily
+opportunities for fresh exploration. And she, quick to observe and
+compare, had profited by her new experiences. Money became to her merely
+the medium of exchange for any beautiful thing she might want. Speedily
+she lost her first, fresh pleasure in making it flutter its little
+golden wings and fly; but her love of art deepened and strengthened, and
+at many famous shrines she offered her heart's homage. She took up the
+study of designing, and worked at it systematically with an ardor and
+intensity which at first amused and then puzzled her husband.</p>
+
+<p>On their return from their travels Perdita occupied herself in
+altering, refurnishing and redecorating one or two of Hepworth's country
+places and his town house. She worked in consultation with a great firm,
+and succeeded in changing the weary acquiescence of "our Mr. So and So"
+to interest and an astonishment bordering on enthusiasm. She was not the
+average rich woman who had gone in for being artistic, with a head full
+of glaringly impossible ideas and a flow of helpful suggestions which
+set the professional teeth on edge.</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, this girl, Mrs. Hepworth, really knew a few things and
+was willing to learn more. She was a student. "The only woman," murmured
+dazedly "our Mr. Smith-Jones," "the only woman I ever met who realizes
+that decoration must conform to architecture, not defy it. You usually
+have to fracture their skulls to make them understand that pompadour
+prettinesses are not suitable in a Gothic chapel."</p>
+
+<p>But when she had finished the houses, and designed more costumes than
+she could wear, she looked about her for fresh worlds to conquer, and
+discovered that she was up against the boundaries. Walls everywhere!
+She could do anything she chose, travel, buy clothes, motors, an
+aëroplane if she wanted it, only she did not. She next went through a
+phase when she decided that the people with whom she was thrown were
+intolerable, representing a frivolous and empty-headed society. Her
+imagination dwelt on the class who "did things," "the dreamers," she
+called them to herself, who adorned a brilliant, picturesque,
+delightfully haphazard Bohemia, where, at feasts, principally of red
+wine and bloomy, purple grapes, laughter pealed to the rafters, and the
+conversation sparkled as if sprinkled with stardust. She strove to enter
+this Olympian vagabondia, and found herself entangled in the nets of
+many fowlers, sycophantic, impecunious, and, unsated of their many
+banquets, physically hungry.</p>
+
+<p>She began to have seasons of ennui and depression, increasing in
+frequency. What was the matter with her world? Nothing, she would hasten
+to assure herself, it was the best of all possible worlds, and she, a
+darling of fortune&mdash;once, unforgetably, the waif of chance&mdash;was the most
+contented of women. Only&mdash;what was the matter with this perversely
+empty and uninteresting world?</p>
+
+<p>It was not always so. It was once invested with wonderful things, and
+such simple things, too. She remembered how she used to stand at the
+window of her little work-room watching the day fade, marveling at the
+miracle of the twilight. While the sun was high, she had seen only
+commonplace, dusty streets, crowded with people, and had heard only a
+crazy, creaking old piano-organ grinding away on the pavement beneath,
+but in the soft indefiniteness of twilight these solid houses and
+buildings would become unsubstantial, mere shadowy arabesques on the
+spangled gloom of night. There were purple vistas, glittering lights and
+fairy towers. She would hold her breath, almost expecting to hear a
+nightingale. It was all mystery and magic, life and romance, that
+eternal romance her starved youth asked. How she used to dream of the
+unexpected, the dazzling unexpected!</p>
+
+<p>And then Cresswell had come, and, as she thought, offered it to her. To
+do Perdita justice, she had not married Hepworth merely because of his
+great wealth. She was incapable of such sordid and callous calculation.
+But Cophetua had met this beggar maid at her most disheartened and
+despairing moment, and without difficulty had succeeded in first winning
+her interest and then enchaining her imagination.</p>
+
+<p>In her two years of struggle to earn her livelihood Eugene had become
+more or less a memory, and, in spite of the fascination and interest he
+had always had for her, she did not blind herself to certain erratic
+tendencies of his. He might appear at any moment, so she judged him,
+with vows of eternal love, and straightway, if the mood seized him,
+begin a new picture and forget her. And so she married Hepworth largely
+that life might become a successive series of introductions to an ever
+varying unexpected. Instead, although her quest was feverish, she
+encountered only the commonplace. She was like a mouse which has
+discovered the inadequacy of cheese to quench its soul-yearnings. What
+remained?</p>
+
+<p>The truth of the matter was that Perdita's world, which seemed so
+hopelessly askew to her, had an architectural defect. It lacked that
+sure antidote to ennui&mdash;a Bluebeard's closet.</p>
+
+<p>Now Perdita was young and healthy. She had great curiosity, and a
+certain insatiable mental quality which would have successfully riveted
+her interest to life, but for one fact, her heart was as ardent and
+insatiable as her intelligence&mdash;and her husband bored her. There is no
+record of Bluebeard boring any of his wives.</p>
+
+<p>She became more and more conscious of a continual little plaint running
+always through her consciousness, like the sad, monotonous murmur of an
+ever-flowing stream, a little unceasing plaint against life in the
+abstract and life in its personal application.</p>
+
+<p>"There must be as many worlds as there are points of view," so ran the
+stream, "but my life's like a wedding-cake, all white and sparkling and
+overdecorated, and absolutely insipid. Candy! That's what it is ... my
+rooms are all pink and white, and I'm crusted over with pink sugar."
+Perdita always thought in color. "I'm tired of all this pink and white
+and baby-blue existence. I'd welcome a little scarlet and black sin for
+a change. Oh, it's just your corsets over again. You're put in them when
+you're about fifteen and you never get out of them again. We women think
+in corsets, breathe in them. We live in them mentally, and accept all
+their constrictions and restrictions as a matter of course. We take in
+drafts of air, and expand our lungs and say we're emancipated, but we
+only expand as much as the corsets allow. We've put our world in
+corsets, to confine us still more ... mine used to be mended, frequently
+washed, with some of the bones broken; now I have many pairs, brocade,
+satin&mdash;cloth of gold, if I want them&mdash;but they are the same thing,
+corsets, corsets on our bodies and brains and lives.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at Cresswell. He doesn't wear corsets. He has an interesting,
+absorbing, unfettered life. He's using the muscles of his
+brain&mdash;strengthening them on some resisting substance. He's in the thick
+of it.... What fun! Planning, visioning things in his mind, and seeing
+them take form in the external. He's a builder. He wears an
+imperturbable mask. That's for defense; but behind it I sometimes see
+keen, powerful, calculating gleams in his eyes, and I want to know about
+them, but I can't.... I can't talk to him about any but surface things.
+I can't show him what is in my heart.... The corsets are between us.
+He's one of the great powers, and he's mine, a possession like the
+Kohinoor, but I do not fancy that the Kohinoor constitutes the queen's
+happiness.</p>
+
+<p>"What are Cresswell and I to each other, anyway? Why, he's my Kohinoor,
+a possession of great price which endows me with distinction, and runs
+my credit up into the millions. He's as brilliant and cold and secretive
+as his prototype. And I&mdash;I'm his doll, a very jewel of a doll. One of
+the prettiest in the world, wonderfully dressed, exquisitely marceled,
+faultlessly manicured. I can smile enchantingly, and open and shut my
+mouth to ask for what I want and what I don't want, particularly the
+latter, and lisp 'thank you' when he drops a diamond necklace or a ruby
+tiara into my lap.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate a man that puts me on a pedestal. Any woman does. He thinks I'm
+sugar and salt and will melt and break. I wish he'd come to me, just
+once, with some enthusiasm and hug me breathless. I'm tired of his
+everlasting chivalry and deference.... When he begins to treat me with
+reverence and guards my youth and all that, I'd like to swear at him
+like the disreputable parrot of a drunken sailor.... Wouldn't I surprise
+him? I wonder what he would do if I'd cut loose? Oh, dear, I wish he'd
+come home drunk some night and smash up some of this junk and&mdash;what is
+that phrase of Wallace Martin's&mdash;swipe me one; and then be penitent and
+remorseful and ashamed and human&mdash;instead of always being like a darned
+old statue of the American statesman with one hand thrust in the bosom
+of his frock-coat.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder&mdash;I wonder&mdash;what kind of a husband Eugene would have made. Not
+one of the amiable, benign, deferential ones, anyway. What were those
+lines 'Gene used to say?</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'Each life's unfulfilled, you see,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">And both hang patchy and scrappy.<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">We have not sighed deep, laughed free,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy!'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"That's it&mdash;that's it&mdash;that's life. To sigh deep&mdash;to laugh free; to
+make your bed in hell, and then soar on the wings of the morning.... I'm
+young, beautiful. I have everything but experience. I mean to have
+it.... No wonder Eve took the apple the serpent offered, if she was as
+bored in the Garden of Eden as I am. I'd have bitten more than one,
+though. What is the use of living if you don't live?"</p>
+
+<p>And while Perdita raged in inward rebellion, the world, viewing things
+from the outside, took an entirely different view of her matter.</p>
+
+<p>Popular opinion inclined to the belief that the good fairies had too
+heavily dowered this young woman at her cradle, and consequently a
+readjustment was inevitable, probably by the gracious means of ennobling
+tribulation. The dramatic event was rather eagerly anticipated. Not that
+envy had any part in it or that any of Perdita's friends or
+acquaintances wished to see a fellow being punished for the liberality
+of Providence. On the contrary. It was merely a sane desire to mark the
+balances of the universe in faultless equilibrium and to have the
+comforting assurance that the mills of the gods still ground with the
+proverbial exactness.</p>
+
+<p>Youth, health, wealth, beauty, happiness, all unlimited! An exasperating
+spectacle! How could all be right with the world as long as Hebe
+continued to pour most of the nectar into one glass, while so many
+thirsty, deserving souls were denied even a sip?</p>
+
+<p>And Perdita went her way and smiled alike on those who caviled and those
+who applauded. She had accepted her husband's friends as her own with a
+sort of careless, indifferent good nature and the relations existing
+between herself and the closely cemented little group were sufficiently
+harmonious under the circumstances. Maud Carmine and she had struck
+"leagues of friendship" at once, and Maud's prediction that Hepworth's
+friends would have to serve as Perdita's relatives would seem to have
+been verified.</p>
+
+<p>And Maud, through constant association, appeared to have reflected some
+of Dita's beauty, for there was evidenced the most remarkable change in
+the plain Miss Carmine, her name no longer prefaced by that deplorable
+adjective, however. Alice Wilstead explained it by frankly giving the
+credit to Perdita. It was she, Alice asserted, who had had the faith and
+the courage to take Maud vigorously in hand and make of her a new
+creature as far as the outward presentment was concerned. The results
+had been so mutually satisfactory as to rivet the friendship between the
+two; for Dita had proved by her works her belief that there was not the
+faintest necessity for any such creature as an unattractive woman; and
+Maud, having lost all faith in the willingness of nature to better her
+original handiwork, had turned hopefully to art, with the result that
+she was now one of the most talked-of women in town. By men, because she
+had recently grown attractive enough for them to discover that she was
+also extremely agreeable and sympathetic. By women, because they ached
+to discover her secret. They remembered as easily as the men forgot that
+for twenty-eight years of her life Maud had been as a weed by the wall,
+a lank and sallow weed, oppressed by the sparseness of her leaves and
+the entire absence of either flowers or fruit, and suddenly she had
+acquired an art, an air, the trick of dress so subtle that it imparted
+distinction even to her worst points.</p>
+
+<p>But when Perdita proceeded to verify, a little tardily, it is true, the
+hope of Mrs. Willoughby Hewston, sighingly expressed at the wedding
+breakfast, and furnished herself with a relative, the coterie gasped. It
+was not perhaps just the selection Mrs. Hewston would have made for her,
+but, nevertheless, Perdita had produced a relative, although, it must be
+confessed, of a rather dubious and indefinite nearness.</p>
+
+<p>If Mrs. Hewston had been questioned on the subject she might have
+confessed that the relative she had in mind, as presenting an admirable
+background for a young and lovely girl, was either a silver-haired
+mother with a white lace cap, and a hair brooch fastening the snowy lawn
+collar of her black gown; or, in lieu of her, a maiden aunt. Indeed, had
+Mrs. Hewston been given free choice, she would have inclined toward the
+latter. Unquestionably, a maiden aunt is the best possible promoter of
+that nice sense of the proprieties, those right feelings and carefully
+graduated moral sentiments which are indispensable to a homeless,
+penniless young woman scrambling for a living. But Perdita, in
+presenting her relative, had almost flippantly disregarded these
+considerations involving a sense of universal fitness. It was a far cry,
+really an almost revolutionary distance, one felt, from the
+silver-haired mother or rather acid maiden aunt to Eugene Gresham.
+Eugene Gresham! Fancy!</p>
+
+<p>For Eugene had returned to his native land with the recognition of Paris
+and London, even their acclaim&mdash;golden bay leaves and purple cloaks.
+Therefore was he thrice welcomed of New York. Therefore, the next
+presumption followed as naturally as the first. It was out of the
+question that Mrs. Hepworth, whose beauty was a matter of international
+comment, should lack a Gresham portrait, a distinction now unattainable
+save to those upon the mountain peaks of noble birth, enormous wealth,
+great achievement, remarkable beauty or superlative notoriety.</p>
+
+<p>As Alice Wilstead pointed out, no one could cavil at any relative Mrs.
+Hepworth chose to set up, however regretable might be Perdita Carey's
+claim of kinship with this particular person, and she had certainly, as
+far as one knew, been discreet enough not to flaunt him during her
+scrambles. Now, as Mrs. Hepworth's cousin (how many times removed,
+dear?) he was one more jewel in her crown.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hewston sighingly acquiesced. "Yes, really. As Mrs. Hepworth's
+relative, yes. But hardly as the guide, philosopher and friend of youth,
+feminine youth, anyway." Only the happily married might safely claim
+him, for Gresham, with his fame as a painter of beautiful women and his
+almost equal reputation as a fascinating person, would not have been
+commended by any maiden aunt for either right feelings, nice moral
+sentiments or a discriminating taste for the proprieties.</p>
+
+<p>As for Cresswell Hepworth, he looked after his vast and varied
+interests, kept up his collections, especially his collection of
+amulets, in which he was greatly interested, and occupied his leisure in
+seeing that his wife was sufficiently entertained and amused to gratify
+the requirements even of her eager youth.</p>
+
+<p>Did she hint a longing for the Roc's egg? It was cabled for within the
+hour. Did she breathe a desire for the moon? Orders were given that an
+aëronautic expedition capable of securing it be manned at once.</p>
+
+<p>And yet in spite of all this obvious contentment and happiness, Mr.
+Willoughby Hewston in the rôle of raven had never ceased to flap his
+wings and croak. He was particularly in this favorite vein of his one
+afternoon when he shuffled into his wife's sitting-room, where she and
+Alice Wilstead sat over their tea-cups. They heard him sighing heavily
+as he came.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't want any tea," he said, letting himself down slowly into an
+easy chair, "you know I never touch it.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Cress!" He shook his head gloomily at a spot in the carpet.
+"Well, it's just as I predicted. That wife of his is the talk of the
+town!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed his wife. She, loyal soul, never failed him as
+audience. A quick glance passed between Mrs. Wilstead and herself, as if
+he had mentioned the subject uppermost in their minds, and, no doubt, in
+their conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come now, Willoughby," said Alice, instinctively choosing the best
+method of drawing him out, "you know it's nothing like so bad as that."</p>
+
+<p>Hewston scowled heavily and laid one hand gingerly upon his rheumatic
+knee, which gave him an especially sharp twinge at the moment. "It's
+probably worse," he replied with even more than his customary acerbity,
+"worse than we, any of us, know. Didn't I see them walking up Fifth
+Avenue together this afternoon, and didn't a fellow speak of it to me?
+And Cress out of town!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let me tell something, dear," said his wife soothingly. "Cress
+will very soon be in town again, for here are invitations to a dinner
+the Hepworths are having next week. Quite an informal affair. Perdita
+writes me, 'Just the little group of Cresswell's best friends, which I
+hope I may also claim as mine,'" reading from the note she had picked up
+from the table. "Very sweet of her."</p>
+
+<p>"A dinner, eh," growled Hewston, "with all of us, and I suppose that
+painter fellow. Well, I only hope it will not fall to me to open poor
+Cresswell's eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Willoughby!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not shirk my duty if it does. You can understand that. What
+evening is this dinner? Next Thursday! Humph! Who is that?" as the
+curtain before the door was pushed aside and some one entered.</p>
+
+<p>"I!" said Wallace Martin, "only poor little me. They told me to come up.
+What's happening next Thursday?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Hepworths' dinner. There is probably an invitation awaiting you at
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"No, there is not," he said. "It's in my pocket now. I picked it up as I
+was leaving. From what Maud Carmine has just told me, I imagine it's a
+touching family group composed of ourselves and Eugene Gresham."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me," deplored Mrs. Hewston, "I do wish she would consider
+Willoughby more. She must know that he can not endure the sight of Mr.
+Gresham."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not her fault," said Martin quickly, "as far as I can make out
+from what Maud told me. Cress became imbued with the idea that he
+wanted his dear old friends clustering about the board, and made out
+the list himself."</p>
+
+<p>"How like a man!" remarked Alice Wilstead gloomily. "But why, just now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's been adding to that pet collection of amulets of his, and he
+wanted to show us his new acquisitions. That's the root of it, I fancy.
+I don't imagine the lovely Perdita pined for us. She has been a creature
+of moods lately. Very hotty-like with me."</p>
+
+<p>"She was actually almost impertinent to Willoughby the other day." Mrs.
+Hewston spoke with a hushed mournfulness. "I'm afraid all this luxury
+and adulation has turned her head, and Willoughby spoke so gently to
+her, too, did you not, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh! Humph!" quoth Willoughby.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>OUR LOVING FRIENDS</h3>
+
+
+<p>AS it chanced the Hepworths were not particularly fortunate in their
+choice of an evening for the dinner so gloomily anticipated by their
+guests. The weather was unpropitious. All day rain had threatened, and
+the air had been almost sultry, a parting word flung over her shoulder
+to autumn by a mischievous July who should long ago have vanished. As
+the evening wore on clouds banked more densely upon the horizon,
+occasionally muttering thunder, and this electric hint of storm in the
+air had in some way communicated itself to the mental atmosphere. A
+sense of foreboding, a consciousness of discord, seemed to swell
+ominously now and again beneath the smooth and colorful surface of the
+dinner. Even the dullest of the guests felt that, and to the intuitive,
+the stately progress of the meal was nerve-racking.</p>
+
+<p>When the hostess rose, every individual sigh of relief involuntarily
+exhaled became a chorus, shocking in volume.</p>
+
+<p>They winced nervously, but in spite of it, each guest stood by his guns.
+They had, apparently with one mind, and certainly with one voice,
+decided against bridge. The ordeal of dinner bravely borne, licensed
+them, they felt, even bestowed the accolade of privilege on them, to
+escape the prevalent atmosphere of unrest as quickly as possible.</p>
+
+<p>In the brief time they had allotted themselves to remain, barely
+skirting the limits of conventional decency, Alice Wilstead, Isabel and
+Willoughby Hewston and Wallace Martin had elected to take their coffee
+and cigarettes on a small balcony opening from the drawing-room by long
+French windows and giving upon a garden, quite half of a city block,
+with thick, close-cropped lawn, and black masses of dense shrubbery
+permeating the damp and sultry air with the mingled fragrance of earth
+and leaves and some late-blooming flowers. Maud Carmine, good-natured as
+usual, had seated herself at the piano, across the length of the room
+from the balcony, to play a ballad of Chaminade's at her host's
+request.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth, who alone appeared to be oblivious of the sinister atmospheric
+influences, leaned his elbows on the piano and listened, occasionally
+unhesitatingly breaking the flow of the music with conversation.</p>
+
+<p>With their friend and host thus comfortably within sight, yet out of
+earshot, the group on the balcony felt at liberty to speak with freedom;
+no danger of sudden appearances, consequent jumps and hot wonder at what
+might have been overheard.</p>
+
+<p>"Gad!" said Mr. Hewston, more gray and pink, puffy and heavily financial
+than ever, "when will people learn to eat and drink without flowers on
+the table?"</p>
+
+<p>"No flowers!" repeated Alice Wilstead. "It would look dull, would it
+not?" From her tone it was evident that she had paid little heed to his
+words.</p>
+
+<p>"What difference does that make?" he argued irritably. "You don't go to
+dinner to look at the table decorations. But if they must have 'em, why
+can't they have the artificial kind or those paper things. Anything but
+the beastly, smelly, live ones."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you really care for them?" she asked, laughing. "I thought every
+one loved flowers. To tell the truth, they were about all that made that
+unending dinner bearable to me. They were so exquisitely arranged."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that," in grudging admission, "goes without saying in this house,
+but," fretfully, "they were all the loud smelling kind."</p>
+
+<p>"She always arranges them herself," said Mrs. Wilstead, "she has
+wonderful taste, wonderful. Her house, her clothes, even down to the
+smallest detail of the table. Marvelous!"</p>
+
+<p>"Humph! she doesn't show the same taste in men," grunted Hewston. "No
+brains at all."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wilstead leaned forward to tap his arm with her fan.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not make any mistake on that score," her voice was emphatic, "she
+has plenty of brains."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" more scornfully than before. "Then I wish they'd keep her from
+making the fool of herself that she is doing now."</p>
+
+<p>"Hs-s-sh," Alice looked as if she would like to thrust a handkerchief
+into his mouth. "Ah!" glancing up with relief as Isabel and Wallace
+Martin turned from their contemplation of the garden over the balcony
+railing. "Sit down here," she motioned to two chairs beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, Alice," said Martin, "isn't your face tired with the effort of
+keeping the corners of your mouth turned up and the sparkle in your
+eyes? The only person who seems calm and serene this evening is dear old
+Hepworth. What do you think it is on his part, the quintessence of pose
+or simple, uncomprehending, fatuous ignorance?"</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" growled Hewston explosively. His wife started nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Willoughby dear, not so loud! Wallace," in what was as near a tone
+of reproof as she could achieve, "I do wish you wouldn't say those
+reckless things before Willoughby. You know how emotional he is."</p>
+
+<p>Alice also shook her head impatiently. "Don't you think we are a lot of
+old gossips magnifying matters enormously? You may expect so beautiful a
+young woman as Dita Hepworth to be more or less talked about; but there
+is probably a perfect understanding between herself and Cress. Lord
+help her if there isn't," she added almost under her breath, "I've known
+him many a year."</p>
+
+<p>"'When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect?'"
+quoted Martin impressively. As a would-be playwright he had the
+dramatists at his finger-tips.</p>
+
+<p>"Wallace, you are too bad," expostulated Mrs. Wilstead. "No wonder you
+quote from <i>The School for Scandal</i>. Here we are a lot of old wreckers
+doing our best to shatter a reputation. Why Dita Hepworth and Eugene
+Gresham have known each other ever since they were children. Naturally,
+she shows her pleasure in his society."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh pish!" scoffed Wallace Martin, "those unconcealed glances she
+bestowed on him at dinner spoke not of sisterly affection, and how we
+all squirmed under them and wondered miserably if Hepworth was seeing
+them too."</p>
+
+<p>"He always did see everything without appearing to," murmured Mrs.
+Wilstead gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Now merely as a sporting chance, which would you bet on," said Martin,
+drawing his chair a bit nearer, "the rich, middle-aged husband, or the
+fascinating artist, the painter of beautiful women, in the zenith of his
+fame? It is the same old plot you know, and the oft-told tale may have
+just two endings. First, she goes off with the artist, lives a squalid
+and miserable life abroad, falls ill, and dies, holding the hand and
+imploring the forgiveness of her husband, who conveniently and
+miraculously appears. In the second ending, she makes all preparations
+to flee and then something occurs which causes her to see the
+sculpturesque nobility of her husband's character and the curtain
+descends to slow sweet music while they stand heart to heart in the
+calcium light of a grand reconciliation scene."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Wallace, do forget for once that you are trying to be a playwright.
+Forget the shop." Mrs. Wilstead was irritable. "I do wish she would join
+us," looking about her nervously, "I want to go home. Is she utterly
+careless?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only absorbed," returned Martin calmly. "Didn't you hear her ask him
+before they left the room, to come and look at the picture gallery where
+he is to paint her portrait? She wanted him to judge of the lighting&mdash;a
+night like this. I thought I saw the flutter of her white gown in the
+garden yonder a bit ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh do, for goodness sake, change the subject," said Alice Wilstead
+hurriedly. "I am sure Cresswell must think it queer the way we are all
+sitting out here with our heads together, in the teeth of that
+approaching storm."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," Martin reassured her. "Don't you see that Maud is doing
+her duty heroically? Maud isn't the wife's confidante and dearest friend
+for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it perfectly wonderful about Maud?" commented Mrs. Hewston. "You
+all know what a plain, angular creature she was, nothing really to
+recommend her but her music and she always spoiled that by playing with
+her shoulder blades."</p>
+
+<p>"She's an extremely stunning woman," said Wallace Martin shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"And all due to Dita Hepworth," announced Mrs. Wilstead. "Wonderful! I
+never saw a woman with such a genius for dress and decoration. If her
+beauty wasn't such an obvious quality, I should think it was due to her
+almost uncanny knowledge of what is becoming and&mdash;Ah, thank Heaven, here
+she is!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>PERDITA'S TALISMAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>Perdita Hepworth had entered the room, with Eugene Gresham just a step
+or two behind her, and, after a glance in the direction of Maud Carmine
+and her husband, had moved toward the little group on the balcony.
+Gresham was used to any amount of attention and admiration, but the
+adulatory interest which he may have merited and had, in fact, grown to
+regard as his due, was always conspicuously lacking when he appeared
+with Perdita.</p>
+
+<p>"The picture gallery is the chosen spot," she announced as if bearing
+some intelligence for which they had long been waiting, "and the
+sittings are to be begun at once. I remember when I first knew Maud
+Carmine, she said to me, 'Fancy what it must be like to have your
+portrait painted by Eugene Gresham!'" Her low laughter rang with a sort
+of triumphant amusement. "'Dear child,' I answered, 'I have had my
+portrait painted by him so many times that there would be no novelty
+whatever in the experience.' You know," to Mrs. Hewston, who looked
+faintly puzzled, "'Gene and I have always known each other." She looked
+over at Gresham who was seated on the arm of a chair talking to Maud
+Carmine and Hepworth. "Has Maud been playing for Cresswell?" she asked
+suddenly. "He is so fond of her music."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she has been playing delightfully," answered Mrs. Wilstead, "and
+she looks charming to-night. Maud who was always regarded as an ugly
+duckling has suddenly become a swan."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, why not?" said Perdita carelessly. "Maud hadn't the faintest idea
+how to make the most of herself. She gave the effect of hard lines and
+angles, and hair and eyes and skin all cut from the same piece, a dingy
+dust color. Like every other woman of that type she has a perfect
+passion for mustard colors and hard grays. Ugh!" she shivered. "The only
+thing to do with Maud was to make her realize that she must look odd and
+mysterious, you know. That was all. Oh, she is beckoning to me. They
+want something."</p>
+
+<p>She crossed the room with that grace of bearing which nature had
+bestowed upon her and with the added poise and assurance gained within
+the last two years. She still gave the effect of extreme simplicity in
+dress but it was retained as by a miracle, for although she wore no
+jewels her white gown was of the most exquisite and costly lace. But her
+head was undeniably carried a trifle higher than usual, and a very close
+observer might have read boredom in her eyes, defiance in her chin,
+rebellion in her shoulders. As she turned from the little group on the
+balcony, she bit her lip irritably, before she again composed her
+features to the conventional smile of hostess-like cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Wilstead followed her with puzzled eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very difficult to understand a beauty," she said plaintively to
+Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it more correctly," as he blew a cloud of smoke. "Say, it's
+difficult to understand a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do not find it so," she smiled. "I'm one myself. I'm on to all
+our various vagaries, but Dita Hepworth puzzles me. Look at this house.
+There are effects here in decoration, so beautiful and unusual that
+every one says Eugene Gresham directed them. I know he did not. Look at
+Maud Carmine, and yet Dita herself usually wears the plainest of gowns."</p>
+
+<p>"I must confess," said Martin, "that I do not follow you."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," she mused, then with more animation. "Come, Wallace, tell
+me exactly how she impresses you."</p>
+
+<p>"That is easy," he replied. "She is one of the prettiest women I ever
+saw in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, of course," in annoyance, "but I didn't mean that. That is no
+impression of character."</p>
+
+<p>"Mm," he pondered. "It isn't much of one, no."</p>
+
+<p>Alice leaned back in her chair. "I seem to discern depths in her that
+the rest of you refuse to see. You stop at her beauty and are content
+with never a peep beneath the surface."</p>
+
+<p>Martin tossed his cigarette over the railing into the garden. "Frankly,
+I think that you are searching for something that isn't there," he said
+abruptly. "The gods never bestow all their gifts on one person. Since
+you profess to know your own self so well you should realize that women
+so very pretty as Mrs. Hepworth are rarely clever. Why should they be?
+It is enough of an excuse for existence that they are beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"It is indeed," growled Hewston, who had been absorbed in sulky
+meditation for some time. "I'd be contented if I thought she had enough
+head on her shoulders to keep straight and not involve good old Hepworth
+in God knows what."</p>
+
+<p>Wallace laughed. "I'll lay you a wager, Mrs. Wilstead," he whispered,
+tapping her fan with his finger-tips, "that the way things are going now
+there will be a split in the Hepworth household within three months."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say it," she cried quickly. "I can not bear to think of such a
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you heavy odds, too," he went on cynically, leaning forward
+to regard the group at the piano. "I'll make it a bracelet against a box
+of cigars, provided I'm allowed to choose the brand of cigars."</p>
+
+<p>"You might as well put in another provision then," she retorted,
+"provided I am allowed to choose the bracelet. My taste in ornaments,
+dear Wallace, is both unique and expensive. I like only odd jewelry."</p>
+
+<p>"Odd jewelry! That is an old fad of yours, Alice," said Hepworth's voice
+behind her.</p>
+
+<p>She started slightly, she had not noticed his approach. "And your own,"
+she smiled up at him. "Have you secured any new amulets lately,
+Cresswell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, one. It is a beauty, a scarab. I must show it to you; also
+another, a carved bloodstone set in very curiously wrought iron. I got
+that from a Gipsy woman. It is an old Romany talisman."</p>
+
+<p>"Do let us see them," pleaded Mrs. Hewston.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I shall be delighted to. Excuse me a few moments. I will get
+the box myself. Naturally I would not trust it to the servants." He
+smiled at his weakness.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," said Hewston. "Come, let us all get into the drawing-room
+to look at them. It is beginning to rain anyway."</p>
+
+<p>It was only a few moments before Hepworth returned bearing a large,
+black leather box. He placed it on a table just under the light and then
+choosing a key from a ring, fitted it into the lock.</p>
+
+<p>"I hold one key," he said to the group pressing about him as he lifted
+the lid, "and Perdita the other. That is in case she may want to wear
+any of these trinkets."</p>
+
+<p>Alice Wilstead had been looking at Mrs. Hepworth at the moment her
+husband entered the room and she alone had noticed that Dita started
+violently when her eyes had fallen on the box and that all the rich
+color had fled her cheek, leaving her, for a second or two, white as a
+ghost.</p>
+
+<p>The box held a series of trays, each padded and velvet lined and upon
+these were fastened Cresswell Hepworth's noted collection of amulets.
+Most of these talismans were very ancient, many of them revealed the
+most beautiful workmanship. All of them were distinctive. Each one,
+almost without exception, had a history, strange, romantic or sinister,
+and these were all duly catalogued, but it was never necessary for
+Hepworth to refer to this written history. He had not only the symbolic
+significance of his favorite toys, but also the vicissitudes through
+which they had passed, at his finger ends.</p>
+
+<p>The top trays held scarabs, one of the most remarkable collections of
+them extant, commemorating certain mighty and fallen dynasties; or this
+reign or that of remote Egyptian rulers long crumbled to dust, and
+Hepworth lifted them lovingly from their trays and turning them deftly
+in his fingers explained their histories and expatiated on their beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath the scarabs lay the jade talismans exquisitely carved and handed
+down from distant centuries. The hearts that had once beat beneath them
+had long been dust, but the talismans, with no stain of time upon them
+to dim their luster, would still serve as emblems of good luck to future
+generations. Then there were quaint amber charms preserving the warmth
+and flooding radiance of the sunlight that sparkles on sea foam in their
+depths, and opals delicately clouded with mystery, their "hearts of fire
+bedreamed in haze," carbuncles, jasper and hyacinth, all in their time
+the almost priceless possessions of their owners because of the mystic
+significance attaching to them. And then there were trays containing a
+somewhat heterogeneous collection of old pieces of beaten silver and
+iron with odd characters on them, representing periods of even greater
+antiquity than scarab or jade.</p>
+
+<p>These amulets were in many instances the memorials of bitter feuds and
+hot duels, fought on the moment, at the gleam of a talisman which both
+contestants claimed. More than one had been hastily rifled from the
+dead, and more than one had been bestowed by a great lady on an untitled
+lover of empty purse to aid him in winning fame and fortune.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, Alice," said Hepworth suddenly, "you have seen Dita's
+amulet, have you not? It is almost, if not quite the gem of the
+collection."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have never seen it," Mrs. Wilstead's whole piquant face was alive
+with interest. "But I have heard of it. It was through it that you met,
+was it not?"</p>
+
+<p>Dita nodded. The color had come back to her face. "It was that old
+talisman he was really interested in," she said. "I always tell him he
+married me to get it."</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth laughed. "It is well worth any one's interest. It has been in
+her family for generations, and there are all sorts of legends and
+traditions connected with it. It is said to give his heart's desire to
+whomever possesses it, isn't it, Dita?"</p>
+
+<p>"More than that," she replied, a little strangely, or at least so it
+seemed to Alice Wilstead. "He to whom it is given&mdash;and it can not be
+bought or bartered, it must always be bestowed&mdash;must sooner or later
+reveal himself in his true character, either his baseness or his
+nobility."</p>
+
+<p>"Fascinating!" cried the women in chorus. "What is it like?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a square of crystal set in silver and gold. About the silver is
+twined one of those old Celtic chains which can only be seen with a
+microscope, where the links are so tiny that we have no instruments
+delicate enough to fasten them together and which were believed to have
+been made by the fairies. And now for a sight of it."</p>
+
+<p>He was about to lift the next tray, when Dita laid a detaining hand on
+his arm. "It isn't there, Cresswell," she said in a quick, low voice.</p>
+
+<p>As if he had not heard her or had not taken in the full import of her
+words, he laid the tray carefully upon the table, disclosing the one
+beneath. Like the others, it too was full of curious amulets, but one
+space was empty. Perdita's talisman was indeed missing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Dita!" he exclaimed. "You did not mention to me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She shot a quick, unmistakable glance at Gresham. "Didn't I?" she
+interrupted before he could go further. "It's being mended."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, those antique bits, they are always coming to pieces, at least I
+know mine are," said Mrs. Wilstead with hasty fluency. "But, Cresswell,
+there is still another tray, and I must see its contents before I go
+home."</p>
+
+<p>"Make it a month," said Martin in her ear. "I said three, didn't I?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>SIROCCO</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Good night, Hewston, good night, Alice. Don't go yet, Gresham."
+Hepworth laid a detaining hand on the artist's arm. "Sit down and smoke.
+We haven't had a moment to discuss this portrait matter yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said Dita, moving toward the door, "that I shall leave you
+two to discuss it and go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear," her husband detained her with the same light touch with
+which he had held Gresham. He pushed an easy chair forward so that she
+should be seated between Eugene and himself. "We are going to get all
+the details of the portrait settled to-night. A portrait of you and
+painted by Gresham is sure to bloom and be admired for a century or two
+at any rate."</p>
+
+<p>Dita looked at him quickly as if suspecting him of some intention
+beyond the discussion of the contemplated portrait, but meeting the
+smiling blankness of his expression, turned away, not in the least
+reassured, but more puzzled than ever, and sinking listlessly into the
+chair sat staring moodily before her with veiled eyes and compressed
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene glanced at her uneasily, a frown between his brows. He knew her
+like a book. She had always, always from childhood, been a creature of
+moods. He was perfectly familiar with the various stages of the sirocco,
+as he had long ago named her outbursts. She would become restless,
+abstracted, absent, and then she would sit and brood as she was doing
+now, until finally the sullen and threatening atmosphere would be
+cleared by a burst of storm, a swift cyclone of anger.</p>
+
+<p>Gresham gave the faintest of sighs and an almost imperceptible shrug of
+the shoulders. This was a situation which he foresaw would require all
+his tact and ingenuity.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the picture gallery all right? Did you find it satisfactory?" asked
+Hepworth.</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent!" Eugene's brow cleared. He spoke with enthusiasm. "Yes, I
+told Perdita that the lighting there will be perfect. I've about decided
+to paint her in white. Yes," scrutinizing the indifferent object of the
+discussion narrowly and yet remotely, as if he were visualizing his
+finished portrait of her, "white velvet, I think, and rather a blare of
+jewels. You see I want to bring out the dominating quality of her
+beauty, harp on it, you know, so I want to present her eclipsing and
+reducing to their proper places all the splendid accessories with which
+we can surround her."</p>
+
+<p>Her husband nodded approvingly. "What do you think, Dita?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, by all means," she roused herself to answer, but making no effort
+to conceal the irony of her tones. "Let Eugene give me all the
+distinction and grace he is noted for bestowing on, you observe I do not
+say perceiving in, his clients, or patients, or patrons, whatever he may
+call them. Make the stones of my tiara and necklace even bigger and
+whiter and more sparkling than they are, Eugene. Or better still, I'll
+wear my diamond collar and my string of rubies and my rope of sapphires,
+all shouting hurrah at once, three cheers for the red, white and blue!
+Make me all glittery, Eugene, throw my sables over my shoulders."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" cried Gresham, interrupting her, a white flash of enthusiasm
+across his face, "you may not dream it, Dita, but that's it exactly.
+You've hit it."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she went on satirically, "and present me in the middle of all
+this splendor, overcome by the 'burden of an honor into which I was not
+born.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But you were born to it," interposed her husband quickly, "no one more
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," she sighed a little, her eyes and voice grew softer, "but at
+a time when the outward manifestation had vanished."</p>
+
+<p>The glow had lingered, even become intensified in Gresham's face. "By
+Jove!" he cried again, "you were trying to be sarcastic and all that,
+Dita, but it was a great idea of yours just the same. I will paint your
+portrait and it shall be hung side by side with my working girl. They
+shall be companions of contrast. You see," explaining his idea to
+Hepworth, "I am going to paint my working girl in the city streets just
+at twilight on a winter evening, hastening home after the day's long
+toil. The lights and colors of the shop windows dance and glitter about
+her, blurred by the falling snow. Everything, lights, buildings,
+passers-by, are all in that blurred, indistinct atmosphere, and she,
+herself, is a part of the blur, looking through it, with her young, worn
+face and wistful eyes, craving the beauty and the joy of life."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" cried Dita suddenly. Rising, she moved rapidly up and down the
+room, her head bent, her finger at her lip. "No!" she cried again, her
+voice deeply vibrating. "I reckon you've just missed it, Eugene, it's
+too&mdash;too conventional. I can imagine something truer than that. My
+working girl, if I were painting her, should not be born to toil, not
+always have regarded it as the great fact of existence, an inevitable
+portion of her days and years from which she has never dreamed of
+escape. No, I would picture her delicate, highly nurtured, with
+traditions of race and breeding behind her; but poor, oh, very poor. And
+she shouldn't look out on life with resigned, wistful eyes, but with
+passionate, demanding ones, rebelling that her youth, her wonderful,
+beautiful, dreaming youth was passing in a tomb of tradition, a green
+and flowery tomb perhaps, maybe an old southern garden, but nevertheless
+a place of dead lives, dead memories, dead customs. And she, this girl,
+hates it, the dust and must of it. She hears always in her ears the
+surges of that mighty ocean of life. And she can't resist it. She can't.
+Then because her heart is set on it, she comes to a great city like
+this, comes with all her high hopes and her untarnished confidence in
+herself; and all this magnificent swirling tide of life, with its
+mingled and mingling streams, seems to bear her onward to the highest
+crest of the highest wave. Then she begins to hear, at first faintly and
+then ever louder and more menacing, the voice of New York, with its
+ceaseless reiteration of one theme, 'pay, pay, pay.' She turns
+desperately to her little accomplishments, those little, untrained,
+unskilful things that she can do, straws on that ocean; and expects them
+to save her.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" she drew her hand across her brow, her face contracting a moment.
+"Then comes the grind between the millstones, the continual
+disappointments, the terror by day and night, the rent, that rolls like
+a snowball, the dreary evenings which she must spend alone in the dreary
+little room, while all the time she hears the mocking invitation of the
+great, glittering city to partake of her many feasts.</p>
+
+<p>"And she," again Dita sighed deeply, "she begins to believe herself
+doomed to dash her youth and beauty against the walls of a tomb. And she
+has to learn so many things, among them the hideous accomplishment of
+making both ends meet. What does she know of the use and value of money?
+Oh, of course all kinds of cheap, left-handed pleasures are offered her,
+because people consider her pretty, but it is an impossibility for her
+to accept them. She has been born in the traditions of real lace and
+real jewels. And the panic-fear! Ah!&mdash;" she broke off abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, Dita. You should have been an orator." For the past five
+minutes Eugene had been scarcely able to conceal his irritation,
+frowning, biting his lips, twisting in his chair and casting furtive
+glances at Hepworth. "I remember you used to be given to those bursts of
+eloquence now and then."</p>
+
+<p>"And what finally becomes of her?" asked Hepworth of his wife, ignoring
+Eugene's interruption. His voice was low, expressing nothing more than a
+polite interest.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Dita wearily. "A number of things. She may
+comfortably die, or marry, poor thing, any one who will have her."</p>
+
+<p>"Very dramatic," said Gresham dryly. "You always did have histrionic
+talent, Dita. I've often wondered that you did not attempt the stage."</p>
+
+<p>Perdita opened and closed her eyes once or twice as if she had just
+returned from a far country.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly wasn't much of a success at painting lamp-shades and menus,
+was I, Eugene, in spite of your early training?"</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged his shoulders without answering, made a slight, disclaiming
+gesture with one hand and rose to his feet. "What!" listening intently
+as a clock chimed somewhere. "I had no idea it was so late." His face
+cleared. He was evidently relieved at his chance of escape. He shook
+hands with Hepworth and then turned to Dita. "Remember that the first
+sitting will be at twelve o'clock Wednesday morning, and please don't
+keep me waiting. That is a fact that I have to impress on these charming
+women," he turned laughingly to Hepworth, "that I am neither their
+manicure nor hair-dresser. I am accustomed to keep them waiting if I
+choose."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be ready," she said indifferently, but Eugene noticed with
+apprehension, even alarm, that those deep vibrations which spoke of
+barely controlled emotion were still existent in her tones. "I'll be
+ready, velvet, diamonds, hurrah of jewels, if you wish, sables and all."</p>
+
+<p>Again a gust of wind swept through the room and Hepworth went over to
+close a window.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene took quick advantage of the occasion. "For Heaven's sake," he
+whispered, "pull yourself together."</p>
+
+<p>His words were too late. Too late by half an hour. The sirocco had done
+its work.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE GIFT OF FREEDOM</h3>
+
+
+<p>With the departure of a third person the situation immediately changed
+complexion. It became more intimate and therefore more embarrassing.
+With Eugene had departed the audience and the stimulus of playing to it.
+The star and the stage manager were left alone. Untrammeled emotional
+expression no longer seemed an heroic necessity. Under the calm,
+unreadable, steady regard of her husband's eyes it held its elements of
+banality and of sensationalism, of pseudo-emotion. Dita became sullen.
+"I think I shall go to bed," she said abruptly and for the second time
+and then turned to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment." His voice was courteous, pleasant, but it would have
+been a dull ear which could not have discerned the tone of command
+beneath its even modulations.</p>
+
+<p>It was new to Dita and arresting, and she paused, wavered a moment and
+came back to the chair she had left and folding her arms upon its high
+cushioned back, stood with still, sullen mouth and downcast eyes,
+exhaling reluctance. She was feeling the reaction from her late mood of
+exaltation, of dramatic visioning of poignant past experiences.</p>
+
+<p>He waited a second or so, and then said, "Your working girl was a far
+more dramatic conception than Gresham's. It might not lend itself so
+much to pictorial representation. It might be more literary." He
+appeared to give this question some consideration. "However," he
+dismissed it with a wave of the hand, "that is neither here nor there.
+What counts is this, were you the girl whose life you described so
+feelingly and dramatically?"</p>
+
+<p>There was silence between them for a moment. Dita's first impulse was to
+maintain it indefinitely; ignore this question with barely suggested
+contempt; with a faint gesture of dissent, signify that she considered
+it a crudity, almost a vulgarity, and lightly, languidly, indifferently
+dismiss the whole subject and leave the room. She knew how,
+intuitively. Behind her were generations who understood how to flick an
+unpleasant situation from the tips of their fingers, who would ignore
+and dismiss with amused disdain an invitation to exculpate themselves or
+explain, when to explain meant practically to retract. But false as she
+felt, with waves of shame, she had been to her traditions and upbringing
+in revealing her emotion, she was no coward. She lifted her head and met
+his eyes. Gray eyes faced gray eyes&mdash;but with a difference. Hers were
+the passionate, emotional Irish gray&mdash;with black beneath them, and the
+long curling black lashes, but his were like mountain lakes, reflecting
+a gray and steely sky. Hers revealed all the secrets she might wish to
+hide; his concealed all his secrets admirably&mdash;discreet windows,
+revealing nothing but what their owner desired they should reveal.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said with defiant brevity.</p>
+
+<p>He appeared again to give this reply due consideration. He had risen now
+and was walking up and down the floor. "What an impression it must have
+made on you!" he said at last, very gently.</p>
+
+<p>She plaited the lace of her sleeve. "You knew about me before we were
+married," she said. "Why&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite true, but sometimes something is said, it may be only a word, and
+one's eyes become, as it were, unsealed. One sees a perfectly familiar
+object or situation in an entirely new light. Your attitude now," he
+turned to her rather sharply, "is that I am about to blame you, to take
+you to task. Far from it. Why should I blame you for what has been
+beyond your power? Your words to-night have made me realize that it has
+been quite impossible for you to care for me, and that I have not been
+able to make you happy. Ah," lifting his hand as she was about to speak,
+"do not disclaim it. I know. You see, that very fact sends the whole
+house of cards tumbling. The bitterness with which you have spoken
+to-night would not have been in your mind, rankling, rankling all this
+time, if you had been a happy woman. It was bound to burst into flame
+sooner or later."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she broke out. "You have always won. You do not know what it is
+like to lose; but I&mdash;I missed every mark I aimed at. I came up from the
+South, so dead sure that I was a very gifted and accomplished person,
+and that all I had to do was to hold out my apron and all the beautiful
+and delightful things would tumble into it. But this great city surely
+taught me a lesson, and she's no very gentle teacher, either. And I used
+to sit up there in that tiresome little apartment among those
+candle-shades and cotillion favors and think how&mdash;how pretty I was," she
+flushed under his smile, "and rage, and get sick with disgust when I
+thought how I would look after about twenty years of that kind of life.
+I knew exactly how I'd look. I'd be one of those peaked, wistful-eyed
+old maids, with rusty black clothes turning green and brown, and a
+general air of apology for living. I could just see myself ironing out
+the ribbons of my winter bonnet with which to trim my summer hat, and
+then laundering my handkerchiefs and pasting them on the window-panes to
+dry. And life, life was like a great, wonderful river, flowing by and
+leaving me stranded on the shore. And then you came."</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth laughed. "I don't wonder that you took the alternative. I'm
+conceited enough to think it better than those ugly pictures your young
+eyes were gazing at."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they were ugly," she agreed. "Life just seemed like a dark,
+dreary, cobwebby passageway, but I always felt as if I might come to a
+door any minute and step through it into a beautiful garden. You seemed
+the door." She spoke the last words a little shyly.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at her again, inscrutable, unfathomable things in that gaze.
+"Ah, youth, youth and the waste of it!" There were tones in his voice
+that brought the tears to her eyes, but he did not see them. He was
+musing on the accident of her life, this flower of the dust, which he
+had taken from the dingy environment she loathed. He had lavished all
+the beauty and experience within his power upon her, and taken away
+perhaps the one thing that had redeemed her life. He had seen only the
+limitations and the makeshifts and how they had oppressed her dainty and
+fastidious spirit; but it had never struck him before that in lifting
+her away from them, above them, he had taken from her the one thing that
+might have glorified her life, that the sordidness and the scrimpiness
+were for her for ever haunted by the unexpected. That because she was
+young and beautiful and free, the dreariness must have been irradiated
+always by the rainbow tints of romance; and he had given her all the
+beauty and glitter his money could buy in exchange for the joy of a
+dream, and fancied that he had actually done something for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Dita, forgive me," he murmured, a curiously bitter smile about his
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive you!" she looked at him a little cautiously. She didn't
+understand the workings of his mind. He never gave her a hint either in
+eyes or expression that would seem as a clue for her to follow.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You should." Again he smiled at her. "You didn't get a fair
+exchange. I see that very plainly now."</p>
+
+<p>"You must not speak like that," she said quickly. "Believe me, it was a
+great deal more than a fair exchange and I have always regarded it so.
+Why do you think I have not been happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you have never really loved me."</p>
+
+<p>"But I&mdash;I have always liked you," she cried quickly. "But," forlornly,
+"you knew the truth at the time. Even if I had not, I should have had to
+marry you anyway. I was so deep in debt I couldn't help it. I could not
+manage any more than I can speak Sanscrit. So you see that there is
+nothing to forgive. Believe me, I am always grateful, for before I
+married you, I thought and thought, but I could see no other way."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again. He couldn't help it. He had a sense of humor and he
+seemed to see, in a flashlight of vision, shocked Romance gather up her
+skirts and shake the dust of Dita's threshold from her winged shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"You are so really fearless and honest, Dita, that I venture to ask the
+question." He put it with a rather diffident gentleness. "You have found
+it quite impossible to care for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," impulsively. "I have always liked you. I am really very fond
+of you. But I am always tongue-tied before you. I never can think of
+anything to say to you and I always say foolish things." She regarded
+him with a wistful timidity.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed ruefully. It was sorry mirth. "That is a proof of my
+stupidity, my child, not yours."</p>
+
+<p>He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Up and down the room
+he walked twice, three times, engrossed. Then having arrived at a
+decision, he put it into words. "Dita," he stopped before her and looked
+at her earnestly, "perhaps I am utterly rash and foolish, but will you
+answer me one question? But first get all melodramatic ideas of the
+state of my feelings out of your head." His smile was faintly cynical,
+obscurely so. "And believe me, that what really concerns me is your
+happiness. Are you in love with Eugene Gresham?"</p>
+
+<p>She started, cast one quick glance at him, and then stared frowningly
+before her, but he noticed that her hand trembled on the back of the
+chair. "Why do you ask me that? I&mdash;I am married to you&mdash;I&mdash;" her voice
+faltered, broke.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no conventional utterances, please," he cried quickly. "That is not
+worthy of you, not like you. There should be, there must be absolute
+sincerity between us now. Tell me, Perdita, are you in love with Eugene
+Gresham?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that I do not know." She looked beyond him and, still gazing, shook
+her head. "I do not know. I never have known, never been sure. We were
+boy and girl together, he a few years older. He is associated in my mind
+with the life of green old gardens and the smell of jasmine flowers. He
+lives in a wonderful world, a world of color that something in me always
+yearns toward. It seems to me sometimes as if I would rise to it, and my
+heart would blossom in purple and red. I seem doomed to talk foolishly
+to you," she exclaimed rather piteously, "but most people's hidden
+thoughts would sound foolish to others, would they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, my dear." Then his controlled utterance gave way. "For heaven's
+sake, why should you not feel that you can say anything to me? What kind
+of an idea have I given you of myself? But tell me," quickly subduing
+his emotion, "what is it you feel?"</p>
+
+<p>"As if&mdash;as if my heart were a flower which had never really bloomed&mdash;a
+cold, tightly folded bud, that yet held within the colorless outer
+leaves wonderful red and purple petals. All there, awaiting a sesame,
+and I sometimes dream that only Eugene can give me that sesame. But,"
+the glow left her eyes, her head drooped, "I don't know, I don't know. I
+thought I was sure once that I loved him. I do not know now."</p>
+
+<p>"Where was Gresham during the time you were struggling here?" he asked
+presently. And it struck her irrelevantly.</p>
+
+<p>"In the East somewhere, I think. Doing his desert pictures. I used to
+hear from him once in a great while."</p>
+
+<p>He said nothing. Then he came nearer and took both her hands in his.</p>
+
+<p>"Dita, my clear, I'm going to be egotistical and talk about myself for a
+minute. Let me see if I can explain." Again that worn and flashing
+smile, with a deeper touch of cynicism, flitted over his arrogant face.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"'King Canute was weary-hearted,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">He had reigned for years a score,<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Pushing, struggling, battling, fighting,<br /></span>
+<span class="i4">Killing much and robbing more.'<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>"Let us hope that it is not quite so bad as the last line infers; but
+it gives the idea, the picture. Well, Dita, I saw you, a beautiful
+flower, purple and red, if you will, although I do not think the
+combination of colors appropriate. And you were blooming in a tin can in
+a tenement window. It was insupportable, so I dreamed of transplanting
+the flower into its fitting surroundings, a marble court. That was what
+I crudely thought would mean your happiness. But I never secured the
+flower to adorn the marble court. Believe that. Above all, I wanted and
+I want its happiness. Dita, I'm weary-hearted, but I long&mdash;I long above
+all things&mdash;to make you happy. Take the poor surroundings that I can
+give you; but let your beauty have its meed, let your heart flower as it
+will. Feel free to meet, with outstretched hands, the romance your youth
+has dreamed of, for, Dita, I, who have only fettered you with jewels, am
+going to give you something really worth while, thanking God very humbly
+that it is in my power to do so, and the gift is freedom. You are free
+from now on."</p>
+
+<p>She started back, looking at him in frowning bewilderment and yet he saw
+deep within her eyes a wild gleam of hope, of joy. "Free!" she repeated
+uncertainly, "Free! How can I be free when I am married to you?"</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"Free! How can I be free?"</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>He laughed once more, and the dreariness of that laughter rang suddenly
+hours afterward in her ears. "Those things can always be arranged," he
+said. "But I am going to ask you a favor." Although he said "favor" her
+quick ear caught the ring of authority in his tone. "Since you are not
+sure that you love Gresham, I am going to ask that you wait a year
+before securing your legal freedom. You shall have it, whether you
+decide on him or not. Oh, believe that. Ah, one more request. Let me
+urge you not to have your portrait painted just now. In view of possible
+future events, it is much wiser, much safer to let that go for the
+present. I think you will have to trust my judgment here. There is no
+danger of your beauty waning." Again his worn and flashing smile. "And
+now, it is very late and I think you had better get some sleep. Good
+night." He smiled again, but she noticed how dreadfully tired he looked.
+She winced a bit in soul.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry that it has been such a fizzle," she turned to him with a
+sort of shy, girlish friendliness and impulsiveness.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled again and lightly touched her cheek with his finger. "Give no
+more thought to that." He turned abruptly away.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Dita," his voice arrested her from the threshold, "one more request
+I am going to make and that is that you get your amulet to-morrow. If
+not I shall have to see about it myself and I am really too busy to
+bother with it at present." Again that iron ring of authority was in his
+voice, but authority masked in velvet. "Will you very kindly attend to
+this, my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded mutely from the doorway, but did not lift her down-bent head,
+nor raise her eyes to his.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>FOOLS' LAUGHTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Dita wakened the next morning, it was very late, almost noon. She
+came slowly to waking consciousness over wastes of apprehension,
+oppressed by some heavy sense of disaster. What had happened? Ah, she
+remembered it, it was last night. She squirmed uncomfortably and then
+lay gazing with somber and introspective eyes about the beautiful room.
+Slowly, the chaotic and uncomfortable thoughts which thronged
+confusingly in her mind resolved themselves into two or three distinct
+facts as scorching to her sensitiveness as if written in letters of
+fire. First, she had let herself go unwarrantably. An electric storm
+always exerted a sinister effect upon her, inducing a wildness, a
+recklessness at first, eventually followed by melancholy and culminating
+either in tears or temper. And she had yielded weakly to every phase of
+this storm-induced mood.</p>
+
+<p>Why did events have to take the bits in their teeth and gallop madly
+along the road to ruin at the most placid and unexpected moments? Why
+should an electric storm have blotted the sky and flashed its jagged
+lightning over her nerves that especial evening? Why had she not
+mastered the sirocco, driven it off in its first stealthy approaches?
+But she melted to self-pity; Cresswell should not have taken her so
+seriously. He might have realized that the storm, and that tiresome
+dinner, and those tiresome people had goaded her unendurably. Grant them
+every virtue, every grace, admit that there might have been an
+attraction between herself and them in ordinary circumstances, but the
+fact that they were old friends of her husband changed the whole
+chemical situation. Attraction became repulsion, attempt to conceal the
+fact as she would. But self-pity ultimately merged into self-accusation.
+No matter what the causes, she had made a melodramatic scene. She had
+told a lot of bare truths, which, like all bare truths, were only half
+truths; about Eugene, for instance, practically admitting that she loved
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Well, did she? She sat up suddenly in bed and pushed the hair back from
+her brow with both hands. She pondered intensely a moment. She didn't
+know. She really didn't know. Was it love, this feeling she had for him,
+had had for him ever since she had been a girl of fifteen? It was a
+powerful attraction anyway&mdash;a sympathy, an understanding.</p>
+
+<p>And Cresswell had offered her freedom, freedom! What did it mean? Her
+heart began to beat quickly, excitedly. It meant the great adventure ...
+if one had the courage ... one need "mourn no joy untasted, envy no
+bliss gone by." She would throw off this ennui, this apathy which
+afflicted her. She was free, free to seek and meet the unexpected. The
+great adventure, a thousand adventures were before her. At last, she
+would live. Suddenly she remembered her amulet. She must get it. She
+gave this a moment's consideration, and then, before summoning her maid,
+she went quickly to the telephone in her sitting-room, and rang up
+Eugene Gresham's studio.</p>
+
+<p>To her relief, he was there and answered the ring almost immediately.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you there, 'Gene. I want to see you to-day, as soon as possible,
+within an hour or so. Will it be convenient for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, perfectly. But," there was anxiety in his voice, "nothing is wrong,
+I hope."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing much," she replied evasively, "only I want to talk to
+you&mdash;but not here."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not take luncheon with me," he replied, "at half-past one and
+where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not in any crowded restaurant," she answered a little impatiently.
+"At some quiet place. A tea-room&mdash;the Wistaria?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Then within an hour and a half."</p>
+
+<p>"And, oh, Eugene," her voice detaining him, "I want the talisman. Do not
+fail to bring it. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>If Dita wore as a protecting disguise the simple and conventional dark
+gown which has been prescribed by certain unalterable rules of fiction
+as the proper costume for a lady hastening to a rendezvous, it failed of
+its effect, but served instead to accentuate her beauty; nor detracted
+in the least from her as an object of interest and comment.</p>
+
+<p>And Eugene, with his fame, and his air, and his eyes, his lifted
+shoulder and his limp, the pointed laurel leaves seeming to gleam
+through his cloud of hair, handed her from her motor-car with the manner
+of courts, his hat in hand, to the admiration of the passers-by. The
+whisper ran: "Eugene Gresham and the beautiful Mrs. Hepworth." They
+passed through a gaping aisle. They entered the tea-room to the craning
+of necks. Poor souls! This was their measure of seclusion. Beauty and
+genius! Fame and wealth! It is a combination New York loves. She serves
+them up to her multitudes on a salver.</p>
+
+<p>They were successful, however, in finding a remote table beneath swaying
+purple clusters of artificial wistaria and a dimly mellow light. And
+while Eugene ordered the luncheon, Dita glanced about her with a
+sensation of relief; new surroundings always seem to hold out the
+alluring if frequently vain promise of new thoughts and this was the
+beginning of adventure, of that new life of infinite variety she meant
+to live at last.</p>
+
+<p>Eugene turned from the waiter, and leaning across the table narrowly
+observed her.</p>
+
+<p>"A trifle pale," he remarked. "Mad Dita!" reproachfully and yet
+tenderly. "I hope all that atmospheric unpleasantness&mdash;mental, I mean,
+did not come boiling and seething to the surface after I left last
+night. I hoped the sirocco had spent itself before I left. But doubtless
+Hepworth understands how you are affected by a storm."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I did make rather a scene," she admitted, her lashes on her
+cheek. "However, that is neither here nor there."</p>
+
+<p>He drew a breath of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is all over, the atmosphere cleared and we are to begin our
+sittings to-morrow." He smiled in anticipation and laughingly drew her
+picture upon the air.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she shook her head, and spoke more reluctantly than before,
+"Cresswell has requested me not to have my portrait painted just now. He
+is kind enough," her smile was shadowy, "to think that there is no
+particular danger of an immediate waning of my beauty and he desires me
+to wait a few months."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is impossible! Incredible!" he scowled with irritation and
+threw himself back in the chair. "Oh, what a sirocco, what a sirocco it
+must have been!" He shook his head back and forth and then dropped it in
+his hands, studying the pattern of the table-cloth as though it were the
+map of the situation. "To pass over my disappointment"&mdash;he lifted his
+head and mechanically pushed about some of the dishes the waiter placed
+before him on the table&mdash;"ignore it, let it go. I'm not going to press
+that now; but there are other things to be considered. It is known that
+I am to do your portrait. It was openly discussed last night. All this
+must be taken into account. That is for appearances as far as you are
+concerned. Then regarding me. I am not a paper-hanger or house painter
+to be engaged and then dismissed at the whim of a millionaire. I can not
+accept a commission from Hepworth and permit him to cancel it by a
+negligent message, sent through a third person. Absurd!" He frowningly
+bit a finger. "My plans and arrangements must be concluded for months
+ahead. They can not be thrown askew like this. Oh, Dita, what did you
+do, what did you say that brought this about? I worked like a Trojan
+last night to avert anything of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer, but sipped her tea with downcast eyes and he saw
+that the lashes on her cheeks were wet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Dita," his voice fell to a charming note of tenderness, a note to
+stir any woman's heart, with the purple and white of the wistaria
+clusters swaying above their heads and the mellow light reflected in his
+eyes, his eager eyes which pierced life's stained and sordid curtain and
+saw the wonder and miracle of beauty; and it was this power to discern
+the eternal vision which illuminated his ugly, irregular, fascinating
+face upon which work and dreams and experience had stamped their
+impress. "You can not fancy what it means to me to paint your portrait
+now. I've painted it before, crudely, in boyhood, and experienced then a
+casual delight in the effort to portray a beautiful thing, and wrest a
+few new secrets of art from the portrayal. That was all. But now," his
+voice without being raised, yet lifted exultantly, "but now&mdash;my heart is
+swept with insurgent seas at the thought of what it means. I am lover
+and artist, fused in a fire of white enthusiasm. The lover sees, divines
+what the artist can only guess at, and the artist offers to the lover a
+perfected technique. I feel the stirring of this power to catch your
+loveliness, Dita, and fix it on canvas imperishably. It would be the
+great achievement. That is in the background of every artist's thoughts.
+It is his pillar of cloud by day and his pillar of fire by night. The
+great achievement!" He dreamed over it a moment. "I would paint the
+South in you, Dita, 'warm and sweet and fickle is the South.' Ah! I
+thought I loved you then. I thought I loved you the evening we parted,
+but I know now that I have never really loved you before or I could not
+have given you up."</p>
+
+<p>They were almost alone, nearly every one had left the room. A long trail
+of wistaria blew before her eyes. The light glowed through the silken,
+yellow shades. The South! She smelled roses and jasmine. It seemed to
+her for one bewildering moment as if her heart had indeed blossomed in
+purple and red. She smiled lingeringly, sweetly into his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"The portrait's only postponed, Eugene, look at it in that way." The
+words recalled her to herself with a start. This was paper wistaria and
+electric light. She was no longer a girl in a flower-scented, green old
+garden about to pose for a boyish and impatient artist. Here she was, in
+spite of all her vows to the contrary, yielding to Eugene's spell
+without a struggle. She was quite sure of his charm and magnetism, but
+what she doubted now was her own heart.</p>
+
+<p>"'Ah, the little more and how much it is. And the little less, and what
+worlds away,'" she murmured beneath her breath, wondering unhappily if
+she were born to doubt everything.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't and I won't submit to a postponement." He was now both
+impatient and impassioned.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not final," she explained. "Do take it as a postponement, nothing
+more. He has his reasons&mdash;oh, they are not what you suspect. He is not
+jealous. He is too big for that. It is something I can not go into now."
+Her sentences were disjointed. She seemed almost incoherent to him. "Let
+it be so for the present. I implore, no, I insist, that there be no
+explanations. But I must go, it is getting late," she started as if to
+rise; then sank back in her chair and held out her hand. "Oh, the
+amulet, Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't got it," he threw out both empty hands and looked up at her
+from under his brows with the expression of a naughty child. "Now
+listen, Dita, before you get angry, although you're so wonderful when
+you're angry that any one might be forgiven for tempting you into that
+state; but after you called me up, the Nasmyths, those English people
+you know, mother and daughter, were at the studio, and I was so intent
+on getting them away in time to meet you, the mother is the most
+interminable talker, that I finally bundled them out of the door and
+came with them, with never a thought of the amulet."</p>
+
+<p>"'Gene, how like you!" Her face was full of dismay. "Cresswell
+especially asked me to get it to-day, and I don't think he believed for
+one moment that clumsy fib I told about having it mended."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go at once and get it, and bring it to the house," he said
+contritely. "You can make any explanation&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no more explanations," she said decisively. "They are perfect
+spider-webs, the most involving things any poor fly can tangle himself
+up in. They are, to mix metaphors, the quicksands of any situation.
+They make of the simplest matter a problem of complexities."</p>
+
+<p>"What does that go for?" Gresham tilted his head on one side and studied
+her. "Does it mean that you and Hepworth quarreled about me, last
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked back at him in inscrutable pondering, as if considering the
+point, wondering, in fact, whether she and her husband really had
+quarreled about him.</p>
+
+<p>"No explanations, Eugene, that's fixed."</p>
+
+<p>"As you will," in careless assent. "But, Dita," again that ardent note
+of tenderness, warming his voice, and stirring her heart with all those
+intimations of romance which she had never known. "We might as well
+accept the inevitable, accept it with joy, face the light quite
+fearlessly. We might as well see clearly at last, what for years we
+should have known and believed and welcomed with all our hearts&mdash;that we
+belong to each other."</p>
+
+<p>Her quickly lowered eyelids veiled the sudden glow of her eyes.
+"Perhaps," she whispered, "only I want time to think it out, to be sure
+of myself. I&mdash;I've grown cautious."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with the smile that could say so many things and to her
+said but one. "Take time then, Dita, but permit me to pray that it will
+not be long. And I&mdash;I shall await with what patience I may that dazzling
+morning when you will open your beautiful, dreaming eyes, and know at
+once and for ever that you are at last awake. When you will say, 'This
+is my day of love, this is my hour and Eugene's! The world may go.' Take
+your days or months, Dita. I give them to you, for I know that every
+hour that passes will bring you nearer to me."</p>
+
+<p>Famous artist, famous lover! Men saw his irregular, swarthy face, his
+lifted shoulder, his limp, and wondered. But women saw the experiences
+and aspirations and dreams that that face held, they saw the smiles
+which said so many things exquisitely, they felt the subtle, intuitive
+comprehension of every word, an understanding which held no
+condemnation, but was as warming and stimulating as sunshine. His
+love-making was as delightful and perfect as his art.</p>
+
+<p>But again she threw off the sweet, poignantly sweet influence and strove
+to think clearly.</p>
+
+<p>"You had your chance, Eugene, before I was married. I would have
+listened to you then, the night before you sailed for Europe, but you
+didn't believe in me, you showed it plainly." Angry tears glittered in
+her eyes at the remembrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, how could I?" His smile was at once cynical and tender. "I knew
+your temperament, that craving, artistic temperament. It is much like my
+own. We spring from the same stock, remember. You had all the inherited
+love of luxury and beauty as I told you then and you were starved,
+starved, Dita, and in a state of revolt. Your imagination was aflame
+with what Hepworth offered. And I&mdash;" he threw out his hands with a
+disclaiming gesture, "Where was I? My feet on shifting sands, I hadn't
+touched bedrock then. Ah, well, what's the use? The past is past. It's
+the future we face. My heaven, Perdita, what a future!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes held her, drew her. Involuntarily, she swayed toward him. Then,
+impatiently, as if resenting her own attitude, she rose to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>Dita drove home, with the faint smile still lingering about her lips,
+still dreaming in her eyes. She drove through the park, green still in
+spite of frost. A mist palely irradiated by the sunshine it obscured
+enveloped the landscape in a sort of opaline enchantment and
+unsubstantiality.</p>
+
+<p>It was with a sigh of regret that she entered her own house. She felt as
+if she had wilfully shut the door on the wooing and pensive autumn
+without and gone into the bleak and wintry atmosphere of regret and
+puzzle and doubt.</p>
+
+<p>But as she moved listlessly across the hall a servant handed her a note
+from her husband.</p>
+
+<p>She tore it open and read it. Then she read it again. It seemed to her
+that the rustle of the paper was like the crackle of thorns, and the
+fool's laughter associated with it. She had meant to manage this
+situation in her own way, to keep her hand well on the lever, and behold
+it was all arranged for her.</p>
+
+<p>Very briefly the letter informed her that Hepworth's western interests
+would require his personal supervision for several months. That he hoped
+she would endeavor to make herself as comfortable and happy as possible
+and arrange her time in any way that best suited her. That was all. But
+as she walked to her own apartments it seemed to her that the air echoed
+and rang with the arid and mirthless laughter of fools.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>A TELEPHONE CALL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Maud Carmine was slowly pulling off her gloves before the fire in the
+old-fashioned drawing-room of the old-fashioned down-town house where
+she and her mother lived alone. It was not five o'clock, but the
+evenings were so short now that she hesitated whether or not to turn on
+the lights, but the firelight was brilliant and so much more attractive
+than electricity, no matter how softly shaded that might be.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the firelight was so bright that in its radiance she could see her
+figure reflected in the long mirror between the windows with its ornate
+and early Victorian frame. She walked forward and standing before it
+gazed at herself with a little smile. She was not a pretty woman, but
+she was certainly a striking and attractive one and quite beautifully
+gowned. That was the most noticeable thing about her, the <i>dernier cri</i>
+worn with style and distinction. Her heart went out in gratitude to
+Perdita.</p>
+
+<p>While she stood there still surveying herself Wallace Martin was
+announced.</p>
+
+<p>"And no tea here for you," said Maud. "I've been out all afternoon.
+Mother is gadding somewhere at this unconscionable hour, so I suppose
+they thought I didn't want any. I'll send for some and it will be here
+in a jiffy."</p>
+
+<p>"I do want some, and some solid substantial bread and butter," confessed
+Martin. "I'm hungry. I'm dining out to-night, but the dinner is set for
+some unholy late hour, and I've been at a rehearsal all afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"A rehearsal of your own play?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. "My very own," he said. "One of the million or two I've
+written has actually been accepted."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Wallace!" She held out her hands, her interest and pleasure showing
+plainly in her voice. "I am more than delighted. It seems too good to be
+true."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be too enthusiastic yet," he strove to speak dryly. "It may be
+accepted by the managers, it is still a question whether it will be
+accepted by the public. It's run one gantlet, but whether it will run
+two remains to be seen."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Wallace," she cried again. "How can you be so pessimistic and calm
+and calculating and all that? Why, I should be off my head with joy."</p>
+
+<p>"I am," he said tersely. "Maud, don't tell any one, but I feel like a
+Wright aëroplane."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't breathe it," she promised gaily, "but please don't add to the
+fame I'm sure you're going to get from that play, by flying over the
+housetops to rehearsals. Oh, here is tea, muffins, bread and butter,
+cake. Anything else you'll have?"</p>
+
+<p>He sank back contentedly. "Nothing but to insist that you tell that 1820
+butler of yours that you're not at home to any one else. It's too
+deliciously cosy to be spoiled by women simpering and rustling and men
+lounging and clattering in. Just the firelight&mdash;it's a little early for
+fire, but this evening is quite chilly&mdash;and the tea-kettle singing in
+that nice homey way, and even a big Persian cat on the hearthrug. It's
+'ome and 'eaven. And what a contrast to last night! Better a dinner of
+herbs like this, where love is, than the stalled ox of yestere'en."</p>
+
+<p>A faint blush seemed to tinge Maud's cheek, but it may have been, after
+all, but the flickering firelight.</p>
+
+<p>"Last night wasn't awfully pleasant, was it?" she said with a little
+sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Pleasant! It was deadly. Poor Maud!" helping himself to more bread and
+butter. "How hard you worked!"</p>
+
+<p>"How silly you are!" she cried indignantly. "Perfectly absurd the way
+you all acted. Horrid-minded creatures, bored and trying to make a
+situation out of nothing. Eugene Gresham and Dita have known each other
+for years. There is even some kind of a southern relationship between
+them, quite near, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"La, la!" said Wallace, again helping himself generously this time to
+cake, "your loyalty is beautiful, but don't let it drive you to take a
+stand you may have to abandon."</p>
+
+<p>"Wallace!" she turned from him indignantly and the firelight showed that
+her eyes were full of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean it just the same." He placed his tea-cup on the table and bent
+toward her. "Look here, Maud, your friend, Mrs. Hepworth, is a very
+pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just where you are mistaken," she returned. "She is extremely
+clever but you don't seem to understand how much training and
+environment have to do with those things. Take a woman as pretty as
+Dita, a woman who has been beautiful and admired from her babyhood&mdash;she
+has always been the center of attraction, she has never had to observe
+people closely, to study their moods and characteristics, never has had
+to try to please." There was a depth of mournful experience in Maud's
+tone. "Therefore she seems to carry things with a high hand, seems to
+lack subtlety and finesse and deference to the opinions of others.
+Therefore, you, seeing this, immediately put it down to lack of brains.
+It is a stupidity unworthy of you, at least it is a snap-shot judgment,
+a lack of that careful, sympathetic study and analysis of character
+which I should fancy would be necessary to you as a playwright."</p>
+
+<p>He sat for a moment or two, with hands loosely clasped between his
+knees, gazing into the bed of glowing coals. This attitude and silence
+on his part continued for some minutes. "There!" he turned around so
+suddenly that she jumped, "I've given due and careful consideration to
+all you have to say and I will repeat my original statement. Mrs.
+Hepworth is a very pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one, not
+bright enough to be ordinarily discreet."</p>
+
+<p>Her shoulders twitched petulantly. "Wallace! The blot on your character
+is that you are a bit of a gossip, yes you are, and you mingle with a
+lot of idle people who have nothing better to do than to spend time that
+might be put to valuable uses in making mountains out of mole hills.
+Truly, it's an idiotic mental employment that is not worthy of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Maud, you rouse me to argument; you do, really. I am not talking about
+Mrs. Hepworth's very manifestly displayed interest in Gresham last
+night. That might be attributed to half a dozen different causes. She
+might have had a row with her husband or dressmaker, or have been so
+bored by the happy family group gathered about her that she was ready
+for anything. Any one could see that she was rather out-of-sorts,
+excited and reckless and all that. I am not even thinking of last night,
+and I will immediately withdraw any aspersions I may seem to have cast
+on Mrs. Hepworth's brain power, if you will tell me why she gave Eugene
+Gresham that old trinket, amulet, talisman or whatever it is?"</p>
+
+<p>Maud began to laugh, quite naturally at first, and then she stopped
+suddenly. She remembered the scene of the night before, the empty space
+in the tray. She remembered Cresswell Hepworth's surprise, and Dita's
+sullenness.</p>
+
+<p>"But you heard Dita last night say that it was broken and that it was
+being mended," she protested, but some way her protestations sounded
+flat and unconvincing in her own ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and you remember that she glanced quickly at Eugene Gresham before
+she answered. You also remember that Hepworth, in the innocence of his
+heart, explained that the old legend or tradition which had been
+connected with the charm for centuries had been that it could neither be
+bought nor sold, but that it could only be given away, given away with
+the heart's love of the possessor, and in that case it would prove a
+blessing to both him who gave and him who took."</p>
+
+<p>Martin stooped and lifted the Persian cat upon his knees. "Well, my dear
+Maud, the end of that story is that Gresham has the amulet."</p>
+
+<p>"If that is true," she flashed back, "he took it to be mended for her."</p>
+
+<p>"The circumstances do not seem to point that way," he said mildly.
+"Really, Maud, it's the deuce of a mix-up, and I'm simply trying to
+prepare you for the worst. You know those English people, the Nasmyths,
+in draggled tweeds and velveteens; the mother wears an India shawl, and
+the daughter a hat which looks as if it were made of carpet. Well, they
+were at the Hewstons' to luncheon to-day and they had just come from
+Eugene Gresham's studio where they had been pottering about the best
+part of the morning, although Alice Wilstead said their boots and their
+faces looked as if they had been chasing over plowed fields. Well, they
+were yelping about Gresham like all other women, and raving about the
+beautiful things he had, and Mrs. Nasmyth told how she got to poking
+about on a table and found your friend's amulet; and she, of course,
+made an awful scream about it, and Gresham, who, she naďvely remarked,
+didn't seem any too pleased at her discovery, explained that it was a
+good-luck charm, of very ancient workmanship, which had been given to
+him by a dear friend, and then he gently and firmly locked it up before
+her eyes in a little cabinet."</p>
+
+<p>"Horrid creature!" murmured Maud.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" said Wallace eagerly. "You can't possibly mean Gresham, do you,
+Maud? What!" his tones expressed a wondering delight as she mutely but
+emphatically nodded her head. "To hear a woman speak thus of that hero
+of romance! Never has such a grateful sound saluted my ears. Never!
+Maud, I am really afraid I am going to hug you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to do nothing of the kind." She could not help laughing,
+although she was seriously worried.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll waive it for the present," he conceded, again sinking
+languidly back in his chair, "but that isn't the worst. I told you that
+it was the deuce of a mix-up, and so it is. To continue now on page
+eight hundred and ninety-nine, the Nasmyths babbled all this out at
+luncheon, and old Hewston got perfectly apoplectic. He swelled up and
+became purple and emitted the most dreadful snorts and whiffles, and
+grunts and groans, until finally just as his wife and Alice Wilstead
+thought he was going to fall down in a fit, he got up and puffed away
+from the table, and Alice and Mrs. Hewston rushed after him, leaving the
+poor Nasmyths to take care of themselves. And not one thing could those
+two women do with him. You know what an obstinate, pig-headed,
+meddlesome old thing he is&mdash;and his head was set on jumping into his car
+and off to tell Hepworth as quickly as possible and, my dear Maud, that
+is what he did. Alice Wilstead said that she and Mrs. Hewston hung on to
+his coat-tails up to the very moment he entered the car, begging,
+praying, beseeching, imploring. She said he dragged them all the way
+across the sidewalk and literally kicked himself free from them." Martin
+threw back his head in a great burst of laughter in which Maud very
+feebly joined.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I'd been there," she said regretfully. "He'd only have got in
+that motor over my dead body; but, Wallace, when did you hear all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I met Alice Wilstead limping up the avenue, on her way home, and she
+told me about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish&mdash;" began Maud, but she was interrupted by a summons to the
+telephone. When she returned to the room a few moments later, her face
+was graver than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have to leave you, Wallace," she said. "You can stay here with the
+cat and the fire and the tea-kettle if you want to. Perhaps mother will
+come in, but Dita wishes me to come to her at once."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>OUT OF THE GILDED CAGE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Prompt as Maud was in responding to Dita's plea for her immediate
+presence, Dita was equally prompt in hurling herself upon her friend's
+sympathetic bosom.</p>
+
+<p>Maud had been shown at once to the sitting-room of Mrs. Hepworth's
+personal suite of apartments, and there Dita sat in the dim and
+depressing gloaming of the unlighted chamber, a figure of dejection.</p>
+
+<p>She had not even removed her hat, but sat brooding in the twilight until
+Maud's entrance roused her and she flung herself across the room and
+into the latter's arms with the impetuous rush of a cyclone.</p>
+
+<p>Dita was temperamentally far more given to anger than to tears, but the
+strain of the last two days had culminated now in a burst of wild
+weeping, and Maud found it necessary to soothe and calm her before she
+could venture to inquire into the immediate cause of her friend's very
+poignant and unfeigned distress; so she applied herself to the task of
+consolation with only vague conjectures as to the cause for grief.</p>
+
+<p>She was able, however, from Dita's almost incoherent statements, to
+patch together a fairly accurate idea of what had occurred.</p>
+
+<p>"Just read this letter," Dita thrust the sheets into Maud's hand. "Oh,
+you can not, not in this light. Wait a moment," she touched a button and
+the room was flooded with a rose-colored radiance. Maud stepped nearer
+one of the lamps and gave her most earnest attention to the words
+Cresswell Hepworth had written. His utterance through the medium of the
+pen, was brief, self-controlled, restrained and to the point. And as
+Maud read his well-considered words, something like a feeling of despair
+swept over her.</p>
+
+<p>"He has gone, actually gone," cried Dita, as Maud handed the letter back
+to her without comment. "Gone," she repeated the words as if the fact in
+itself were quite unbelievable. She crushed the letter in her hand and
+threw it on the floor. "He will be gone months, looking after his mines
+and railroads and I'm to stay here. He never even said good-by to me,
+and this," she touched the crumpled ball of paper contemptuously with
+her foot, "gives me very plainly to understand that it is a virtual
+separation. Oh," she jerked the pins out of her hat and sent that plumey
+velvet head-covering spinning across the room, then turned to her calm
+and sympathetic friend with a real fear and a real appeal in her eyes.
+"What am I going to do? For a few months it will be all right, and then
+people will begin to talk like everything. And you know how it will
+appear. Every one will say that Cresswell discovered that I was having
+an affair with some one, Eugene, of course, and that he, Cresswell, and
+I had a row and that he refused to live with me longer, but that he
+nevertheless was so chivalrous that he turned over this house and the
+country places to me. Oh, dear, why did I have to have a sirocco?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven knows," said Maud. "Let it be a lesson to you. Never have
+another one. There, there, dear, I didn't mean any reproaches or I
+told-you-sos. So stop howling or you'll mar your beauty permanently.
+Oh, now, don't lift your head and glare at me indignantly and say you
+hope you will, that it's never been anything but a curse to you. I've
+been too plain all my life to listen with patience to anything of the
+kind. Now, let me think." She sat with finger on lip deeply considering,
+while Dita still punctured the silence with loud occasional sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"You will have to travel," she said decisively. "Yup will have to travel
+until people begin to talk and then you will have to keep on traveling
+until they stop talking. But oh, Dita, can't you try and patch it up?"</p>
+
+<p>Her words gave fresh impetus to Perdita's gradually decreasing sobs.
+"You do not know him," she wept, "and to tell the truth, neither do I;
+but I have enough of an understanding of him to know that he always
+considers a step very thoroughly before he takes it, looks well into the
+chasm before he leaps, and it's no use trying to get him to change his
+mind when he has decided what course he means to pursue. Anyway, I do
+not wish it. I want to be free, but not this way. Oh, was ever a woman
+placed in such a position as I? I believe Cresswell would forgive
+anything but the sin of not knowing one's own mind and I had to confess
+to him last night that I wasn't sure of mine or of my heart either. He
+has a contempt for me, of course, and," rising restlessly and moving
+about, "I can't and won't accept his contempt, and I can't and won't
+continue to live on his money and potter about his old houses. I feel as
+if I would rather die."</p>
+
+<p>"But, dearest," cried Maud bewildered. "What else is there for you to
+do? What else can you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing apparently," she said. Her dark gown fell about her in the long
+lines of perfect grace. As she stood there, beautiful as the tragic
+muse, her great eyes transfixed Maud with her scorn, but the scorn was
+not for her friend, but for herself. "What can I do? I am about the most
+useless creature on all this green earth. I sit and cry at a situation
+which tortures my pride, instead of coming to a decision. I made a
+beggardly pittance trying to earn my own living, and I won't go back to
+that kind of life, a disgusting, sordid, scrimpy life, which stifled
+every generous impulse or spontaneous action. I will not go back, I will
+not give up all the things I love and have become accustomed to. I was
+born to this. I love it, and will have it, but not on these terms.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't been utterly futile here, as I was in those other
+circumstances. I have made Cresswell Hepworth's upholstery, stiff
+houses, 'decorated and furnished by the most expensive and artistic
+firms,' look really livable and lovely. Truly, haven't I? Great artists
+have raved over them. Oh, I'm not afraid of velvets and tapestries and
+embroideries. I have no burgeois reverence for them. Color was always
+like clay to me. I always long to take it and mold it into new
+combinations. Why, I couldn't keep my hands off a rainbow if I got a
+chance at it, even the angels couldn't shoo me away." She was in one of
+her swift, mercurial changes of mood, her mouth dimpling, her eyes
+sparkling. "I'm not afraid of all the splendor of color or of all the
+gorgeously rich materials that God or man ever devised. I ache to take
+them and combine them and melt them together and contrast them. I'll
+dare any combination to get an effect I want, an effect that haunts me,
+and is like music in my consciousness. Isn't it strange that I can do
+anything I like with great heavy draperies? I wave my hand at them and
+they fall into just the lines I want. I can get all kinds of effects in
+a room, but give me a little palette with little gobs of paint on it,
+and little, little brushes and I can't do even a decent lamp mat. That
+is one reason Eugene and I have always understood each other so well.
+He, too, knows the call of color. Oh, stop looking that way, as if I
+were going straight to shipwreck just because I mention Eugene. The
+important thing to consider now is what I am going to do."</p>
+
+<p>"I've told you once," said Maud, with settled conviction; "travel."</p>
+
+<p>"On Cresswell's money?" bitterly. "Well, I suppose you think it's either
+that or huddling into some black hole and attempting to earn my living
+again&mdash;a phrase that's the synonym for me of a cheap and nasty
+experience, but there must be some way out. No, I am utterly wasted,
+futile, ineffective. I do not believe, I solemnly do not believe, that I
+have one single, solitary gift in this world except being pretty."</p>
+
+<p>"Look at me!" said Maud with a rather whimsical, cynical little smile.
+"I think that I'm the living proof of one of your especial gifts. Why,
+Dita, my dear, I'm a creation of yours. I'm considered one of the most
+stunning women in town and about the best dressed and," Maud's really
+soft and attractive smile transfixed her face, "I've won, I am really
+beginning to dare to believe it, the interest and I hope the affection
+of the only man I ever cared for and who never gave me a glance when I
+was just 'that plain Maud Carmine, who is musical, you know.' Oh, I mean
+Wallace, of course," blushing. "I haven't got over the wonder of it yet,
+I assure you. I'm still mentally pinching myself and saying, 'If this be
+I.' Think of it, Dita! I know the treasures of the socially humble, if
+any one does. I always had position, but that amounts to very little in
+these days, unless one has other things to back it up. It has been
+gradually losing importance, pushed to the wall by money, the ability to
+entertain, personal charm and good clothes, an air, a flare, a wit;
+until now the poor, solemn, superannuated thing, so long unduly revered,
+is really trotted back into the corner. Yes, I had position, but not
+recognition. The back seats for me, so I rubbed along on my music and
+conversation as best I could, poor fool! And then you came, and waved
+your magic wand over me, took me in hand, and the world began to
+appraise me at your valuation."</p>
+
+<p>"That was nothing," said Dita carelessly. "I just have the knack of
+seeing people as they ought to be. I could do what I did for you with
+anybody, if they would only let me. You were nice and plastic and put
+yourself entirely in my hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Plastic!" echoed Maud. "You mean hopeless! But turn about is fair play.
+Take the advice I offer you, and travel. If you say the word we'll start
+for Japan to-morrow. And you needn't touch a penny of your husband's
+money either, my child. I have enough for both of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Maud, you're a darling." Dita smiled in warm appreciation. "But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Dita," Maud's voice held both fear and appeal, "if you do stay
+here, you will not, you must not see Eugene Gresham."</p>
+
+<p>Dita smiled at her again, inscrutably. "An idea has come to me," she
+said, quite irrelevantly, "a dazzling idea. I really believe that it is
+the solution of the whole matter."</p>
+
+<p>She considered this dazzling idea, her eyes growing brighter every
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Maud, Maud!" she cried, clasping her hands, "what an inspiration!
+I'm going on my own again. Yes, I am. Don't look so horrified. I know
+I've grouched and fussed a lot over my past efforts in that direction,
+but you see I tried to do things in a small way, cotillion favors and
+such, and it didn't suit me. It wasn't my <i>métier</i>, not my way. I loathe
+detail. I can do things on a big scale or not at all. You know that. And
+my present idea means the big scale. When I first came to New York I
+regarded it as the great adventure, but then I didn't know how to go
+about anything. I was as ignorant as a baby of everything&mdash;everything.
+The tremendous professional skill required, my own ineptitude, the utter
+inadequacy of my poor, amateur accomplishments, my entire ignorance of
+business methods, all frightened, dazed, stupefied me, but now, now, I
+just believe I'll have another try."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what <i>have</i> you got in your head now?" cried Maud in frightened
+resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"You see it's like this," Dita ignored the question and continued to
+follow her own train of thought. "New York demands one of two things of
+the stranger who comes knocking at her gates, either training or a new
+idea. She can take care of any trained person, but if she has to conduct
+the educational process, she does it with a club. Now I'm going back to
+her with my new idea. Oh, I was crushed a bit ago, but now I am really
+enjoying myself as I have not done since the first dazzle of marrying
+Cresswell and seeing his money turn itself so easily into the beautiful
+things I had longed for all my life. But I've been getting tireder and
+tireder of being the twittering canary in the gilded cage. Cresswell
+opened the door last night and now I'm going to fly put, but in a
+totally different direction from the one he expects me to take." She
+laughed delightedly. "Oh, do you think New York will listen to my new
+idea?"</p>
+
+<p>"She'll listen to Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth," said Maud dryly. "It won't
+make much difference about the idea, whether it's new or old." She
+thought of a conversation Hepworth's friends had held at the wedding
+breakfast and sighed reminiscently. "I'm afraid you're making Cress
+rather a background."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" said Dita cheerfully and defiantly. "Serves him right, going
+away in the fashion he did and putting me in such a position. 'Moses an'
+Aaron,' as my old mammy used to say, you needn't try to dissuade me.
+You'll be as crazy about the idea as I am when I unfold it to you. The
+twittering canary is going to hop out of the gilded cage, and build her
+own nest. It's the great adventure. It is to live. Won't Cresswell open
+those sleepy eyes of his when he sees this move of mine on the
+chessboard? I'm done with failure, this venture of ours is a success
+before it's begun."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>A DOLL OR A BOX OF CANDY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Perdita, being one of those ardent, mercurial creatures who run with
+winged feet to meet every event in life, whether it be joyous or
+disastrous, had encountered her bad quarter of an hour the morning after
+the dinner party.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth's, however, was postponed for a later and more lingering
+occasion. We euphemistically limit these seasons of judgment to quarters
+of an hour in speaking of them, but they are quite independent of time,
+and may continue through days.</p>
+
+<p>Perdita had a temperamental advantage. Hers were those swift changes of
+mood so disconcerting to the devils of ennui and depression; but her
+husband's period of reaction lasted, with but little mitigation, all the
+way across the continent.</p>
+
+<p>A most lusty and persistent demon of doubt and self-accusation boarded
+his car within a few hours after the train left the station, invaded his
+luxurious solitude and, indifferent to a chilling reception, there
+remained. To Hepworth, the demon's most searing insinuation was that,
+instead of a masterly retreat in good order, this departure of his for
+the other side of the continent was a virtual renunciation of all that
+he cared most to win and to hold. Fool and coward, the demon whispered,
+to quit the game just at the moment when his presence was an imperative
+necessity. But, although the demon was eloquent&mdash;it is an attribute of
+demons&mdash;and his suggestions were like red-hot pincers, it never entered
+Hepworth's head to turn back. On the contrary, it was characteristic
+that having decided on a certain course, he was not to be swayed by the
+demon's most subtle and ingenious arguments. He was merely rendered
+supremely uncomfortable by them.</p>
+
+<p>He had offered Perdita her freedom and he meant it without any
+reservations. She should decide on her own course, follow her own
+leadings according to the limits of her own folly or discretion, but
+free she should be, and free even from any shadowy influence that his
+mere presence might exert. Quixotic, scrupulously so: but then that was
+Hepworth's way.</p>
+
+<p>The demon laughed at this obstinately maintained, unalterable decision.
+What chance, it sardonically suggested, had any mere average man against
+a rival like Eugene Gresham? Women love glamour. Perdita especially
+adored it blindly. Most women, certainly Perdita, would rather follow
+the alluring, brilliant gleam of the will-o'-the-wisp, any time, than
+the smoky but dependable light of the useful household lantern.</p>
+
+<p>These gloomy reflections served to goad and stab like so many tormenting
+banderillos, but Hepworth's resolution to absent himself for a time, and
+thus insure Perdita a free hand, remained unalterable, in fact it
+hardened, became like iron.</p>
+
+<p>The journey over, his spirits improved; the demon was far less
+persistent and only occasionally showed himself. There were a number of
+business matters of varying importance requiring his attention, and
+these very fully occupied his mind. He had made his headquarters for a
+time at Santa Barbara.</p>
+
+<p>Then, suddenly, his busy, if rather monotonous and routine existence
+became diversified by a series of peculiar events which, in his most
+wildly imaginative moments, he would never have conjectured.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, as he sat before an open window in the villa he had
+taken, looking out over a wonderful garden, all fragrance and color, at
+the blue channel, the mountains, the distant islands gleaming fairy-like
+through their golden haze, the name of Mr. James Fleming was brought to
+him and served very effectually to rouse him from his spiritless
+daydreaming, on whose confines hovered the demon.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth sat up, care vanished from his brow, the depressed droop of his
+mouth changed to a smile. "Fleming! Jim Fleming!" he exclaimed. "Show
+him in at once," to the waiting servant.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fleming wasted no time in appearing and Hepworth pushed back his
+chair and rose, meeting him with a hearty hand-clasp and one of his most
+brilliant smiles.</p>
+
+<p>This was the effect the arrival of Fleming invariably produced. One
+might have thought from the way men greeted him that he was some great
+public benefactor. Quite the opposite. Hepworth, and no doubt many
+others, had, through him, lost thousands of dollars, but this did not in
+the least affect their pleasure in his society nor tarnish their
+confidence in his good intentions.</p>
+
+<p>Fleming was about Hepworth's age, rather tall and rather stout. He had a
+broad, clean-shaven face, and the mouth of an orator, large, mobile,
+stretching across his face in a straight line and turning up sharply at
+the corners. His eyes, which were blue-gray, had a most ingratiating and
+irresistible expression of camaraderie.</p>
+
+<p>During the course of his life many unkind names had been applied to
+Fleming, but by women, mark you, never by men. There were quantities of
+good wives and mothers who regarded him very much as the devil is
+supposed to regard holy water. Had they not reason? At the very mention
+of his name they had seen a certain wild, primitive gleam light the eyes
+of even their most staid and house-broken men, and at the sound of his
+voice the most tractable and responsible husbands would seem to hear
+again the pipes of Pan, and forgetful of duty, daily bread and family
+obligations would follow eagerly whither those wild notes led.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond question Fleming possessed that magnetic quality which opens all
+doors. He was at home in any society and where he was laughter flowed as
+wine. He had neither profession nor settled business, but always
+referred to himself as a "prospector&mdash;a prospector of the old school."</p>
+
+<p>The first gay greetings over, Mr. Fleming established himself in a
+comfortable chair, and said without preamble, but with his usual
+devil-may-care nonchalance, "I've come to ask a favor of you, Cress, a
+mighty big favor."</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth mechanically stretched his hand out toward his check book.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's not money I want this time," said Fleming easily. "It's no
+favor to me to lend me money. That's always spent on others. Anyway,
+I've got more than I can handle for once. You see, it's this way. I've
+got to go over to Idaho. I've just got wind of a big thing there, a big
+thing. Two boys I know want me to go over and look at it and I'm off
+to-day. Biggest thing that's been struck in years, they tell me. Both
+of them stone broke. Didn't have enough money to pay railway fare. Stole
+rides, practically no food for a week. If there's anything in it, I may
+be good enough to allow you to finance it."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see," said Hepworth reflectively, "according to the invariable
+law of ratio, I'm about due to win on some of these ventures of yours
+I've so obligingly financed."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Fleming solemnly and sadly shook his head. "Set a beggar on
+horseback and sooner or later he'll show his rags. The born millionaire!
+You show all the degenerate earmarks." He pointed the finger of scorn at
+Hepworth. "Even if I hadn't come along you would still have been a
+millionaire, climbed to it on some one else's shoulders. Entirely
+forgotten the old days, haven't you? Why who," explosively, "laid the
+foundation of your soul-deadening fortune? Me. Myself. Well, that's what
+a man has to expect in this world. But seriously, Cress, I do want you
+to do something for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't frighten me in this way then," said Hepworth. "If it isn't money,
+I'm getting apprehensive. You're in some scrape and I've got to take
+off my coat and work like a nigger to get you out."</p>
+
+<p>"Honest to God, no," said Mr. Fleming fervently. "It's just this. You
+see my little girl is here to spend her vacation with me&mdash;jumped across
+three states and got here day before yesterday, and under the
+circumstances it's kind of rough on her for me to go skating off this
+way leaving her all alone in a barracks of a hotel and in this place
+where she don't know a soul. Sure's I'm sitting here, Cress, I did my
+best not to listen to the boys," Fleming spoke earnestly. He always had
+the virtue of believing profoundly in himself. "It didn't seem fair to
+her, you know. But, oh Lord! What's the use? You know how it is when a
+new property swims into my ken. I get the fever so's I can't eat and I
+can't sleep, and it's 'my heart in the Highlands' so's I'm like to die
+unless I'm up and away to that little old new mine that's just been
+found, seeing what's to her, anyway. And you may believe it or not," in
+solemn asseveration, "but all the time I'm holding back and trying not
+to go. I've got the cramp in my feet so that I can't hobble, but the
+moment I yield, and take to the path again, it's gone. That's a fact.
+Now," the musical note of persuasion was strong in Mr. Fleming's voice,
+"now all I'm asking of you, Cress, is to look in on my little girl now
+and then and see that she has everything she wants. She's got a sort of
+vinegar-faced Sue with her that she calls her maid, so she's not
+entirely alone; but I want to be easy in my mind about her, to know that
+she's got some one to fall back on if anything unpleasant comes up.</p>
+
+<p>"She's pretty cute, you know. About on to everything that's going. Can
+take the best kind of care of herself. Has had to, poor kid. Her mother
+died, and you know, Cress, she might just as well have had a grasshopper
+for a father as me. Although I've tried, she'd tell you herself, I've
+tried, that is, as far as the limitations of my artistic temperament
+would permit. But when I feel the <i>wanderlust</i> and the <i>weltschmerz</i> and
+all that in my blood and hear the siren voices of new properties
+calling, why, the fireside fetters have got to fall, the white, clinging
+arms have got to unloosen their grip. That's all there is to it. You
+know in books how the father of a motherless daughter is always father
+and mother and brothers and sisters and grandmother, uncles and aunts to
+her? Well, I haven't been all those to Fuschia. I wouldn't have known
+how and she wouldn't have stood for it. She's got no particular use for
+fireside fetters, herself. Oh," optimistically, "I guess she'll be all
+right here. I'm leaving her all the money she can spend. But I just want
+you to keep an eye on her. Kind of see that the wheels are running all
+right and that she's amused and don't mope. You'll like her, you know.
+It's a funny thing, but everybody's just crazy and always has been about
+that kid."</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth was not proof against the appeal in his old friend's eyes,
+neither was he capable of shattering Fleming's simple faith that he,
+Hepworth, a jaded and middle-aged person, would find Fleming's daughter
+a delightful and interesting charge.</p>
+
+<p>Fleming's mind still ran on his child. "She's about the only thing in
+petticoats that has any real confidence in me," he said, with pride.
+"It's only been once or twice in my career that I've seen a look of real
+friendship in a woman's eyes. The first sight of me brings that wary,
+on-guard gleam way back in their blue or brown windows of the soul. You
+can't fool a woman. They've got those intuitions, you know, and they
+know instinctively that I'm a born missionary to the henpecked, that
+it's my mission in life to bring a little cheer into the lives of those
+poor shut-ins, the married men; scatter a little sunshine on their path.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," as if struck by a sudden thought, "you've married since I
+last saw you. Some slip of a girl, I'll be bound. That's what the
+middle-aged millionaire's sure to do. Well, hold on to your money,
+Cress. Don't trust to your own fascinations. And you keep an eye on my
+little Fuschia, won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Manfully concealing his apprehensions, Hepworth promised to do all that
+lay in his power to be a father to Fleming's daughter and had the
+consolation of seeing his old friend depart most jauntily and evidently
+with a weight off his mind.</p>
+
+<p>But when the door had finally closed on him Hepworth let his
+perfunctorily smiling face relax. But it did not remain merely grave and
+preoccupied, for as he continued to gaze fixedly, but unseeingly, at a
+large paper weight before him, his eyes narrowed and his brow contracted
+in a frown.</p>
+
+<p>He had neither the heart, time nor inclination to spend his leisure
+moments amusing such an utterly spoiled, untrained, undisciplined child
+as he was sure Fleming's daughter must be. Allowed to choose her own
+path from babyhood, wilful, headstrong&mdash;oh, well, what was the use of
+anticipating? He'd promised to look after her, and disagreeable duty as
+it was sure to be, he had to see it through, and that was all there was
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>He decided to look her up the next afternoon. Take her a doll or a box
+of candy. Perhaps, though, she was too old for a doll. How old was she,
+anyway? He had forgotten to ask Jim. Probably about twelve or fifteen
+years. Yes, certainly, the box of candy was safer. That was always
+acceptable and agreeable to any of the seven ages of women.</p>
+
+<p>He sighed again, and then, as if seeking distraction, he picked up the
+New York newspaper he was about to open when Fleming's card had been
+brought to him. He surveyed it languidly, his eye roving with
+indifference up and down the columns. Suddenly his attention was vividly
+arrested.</p>
+
+<p>His whole gaze, even further, his whole heart hung on a paragraph
+stating that Eugene Gresham had just sailed on the <i>Mauritania</i>. It was
+known among Mr. Gresham's friends that he had recently received a
+commission to paint the portrait of a princess of the royal house of
+Austria and that upon completing this he would go to England to finish a
+portrait, already begun, on a previous occasion, of the beautiful Lady
+Heppelwynd. Mr. Gresham, when seen on board ship a moment before
+sailing, would neither confirm nor deny these rumors.</p>
+
+<p>The frown disappeared from Hepworth's face. What commendable discretion!
+Whether the credit were due Dita or Gresham mattered little. It was the
+admirable restraint, this delicate and unexpected regard for
+appearances, which Hepworth applauded. To do him justice, that was his
+first thought, the sober second one was profound relief that the
+fascinating will-o'-the-wisp was as far away from the impulsive and
+curious Dita as was the smoky lantern. He put the paper down and rose to
+his feet. Fleming's little girl should have a box of candy that was a
+box of candy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>FUSCHIA FLEMING</h3>
+
+
+<p>Procrastination was a thief that had never succeeded in wresting much
+time from Hepworth. He was one of those rare and exemplary natures who
+never put off until to-morrow what they can do to-day. Never did he
+stand shivering on the edge of his cold bath, but plunged in immediately
+without pause for consideration. Obnoxious virtues these&mdash;prejudicial to
+any popularity among his fellow-beings, therefore it speaks volumes for
+him that he was able to overlive them.</p>
+
+<p>This all goes to show that although the duty of keeping an eye on
+Fleming's daughter became more repugnant to him the longer it remained
+in contemplation, he yet lost no time in looking her up, as he expressed
+it to himself. Neither did he waver in his promise to himself fitly to
+celebrate Eugene Gresham's departure for other shores, but kept his vow
+by selecting the most gaudily decorated and wastefully beribboned box of
+sweets he could secure, and armed with it, as a hostage to impertinent
+childhood, took himself to the big hotel where Miss Fuschia Fleming was
+stopping.</p>
+
+<p>He sent up his name to her and was very shortly informed that Miss
+Fleming was in the garden and would be delighted to have him join her
+there.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth curled his lip. What grown-up airs! Naturally, she had lost no
+time in turning up her hair and having her gowns lengthened since her
+father's departure, and he, Hepworth, would have to play up to this
+phase of missishness.</p>
+
+<p>He was dazzled for the moment by the bright sunshine, the brilliant
+flowers, and mechanically followed the page, threading his way through
+various groups of people. Before a table among the roses sat a young
+woman reading. The page stopped; Hepworth stopped; the young woman cast
+aside her book and rose.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Before a table sat a young woman reading.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mr. Hepworth?" She stretched out her hand with a boyish
+gesture, smiling into his eyes, and the sunshine grew dim. "Won't you
+sit down? I've just ordered some tea. If you don't drink it, won't you
+tell the man to bring you something else when he comes? Father said&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But father is surely not Fleming, Jim Fleming," he said, firmly
+determined to get this absurd mistake straightened out at once.</p>
+
+<p>"But father just is," she asserted as firmly. "And since you asked for
+Miss Fleming, I am she, Fuschia Fleming. That is my ridiculous name."</p>
+
+<p>But Hepworth had so far lost his mental equilibrium that he could not
+immediately recover himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Fuschia Fleming is a little girl," he insisted, although this time not
+half so positively, "and great Heavens," with one of his quick smiles,
+"I've brought you a box of candy and just barely escaped buying you a
+doll."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had," she said. "I love dolls, especially the kind that you
+would bring me." There was undeniably something heady about Fuschia
+Fleming's glance. "And as for sweets, they're grateful and comforting to
+any age. You'd better give me that box at once, and I'll give you a
+practical demonstration of my appreciation."</p>
+
+<p>Fuschia had the curliest mouth. There is no other way to describe it. It
+was all in ripples, not small, but looking smaller than it really was
+because it turned up quite sharply at the corners, like her father's.
+And the lashes that lay on her pale, smooth cheeks were the curliest and
+longest Hepworth had ever seen. Her eyes were blue, blue as the sea, and
+very cool and gay and inclusive. Without being sharp or speculative or
+inquisitive, they yet took in all the details of whatever they rested
+upon.</p>
+
+<p>But Hepworth was a keen observer, and he noticed at once that although
+her pale face was for the most part alive with laughter, there was yet a
+certain worn look about it, as if she had been recently over-taxed and
+fatigued. There were faint but undeniable lines about the mouth and eyes
+that time had never etched there; and that blythe assured bearing, her
+detached, yet ready manner, were not suggestive of the ease of confident
+youth. They bespoke training.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth's eyes, their droop rather more pronounced than usual, were
+fastened on an adjacent palm, as if he demanded from it the answer to
+this riddle. Getting no response there, he turned his speculating eye
+on a tree of magnificent crimson roses as if hoping for some
+enlightenment from that quarter.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you not tell me all about it?" urged Fuschia gently. "What's the
+use of trying to puzzle me out unaided? Father has evidently told you a
+lot of conflicting things. I really can throw more light on the subject
+than any one else."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was beautiful, soft and full and creamy, with all exquisite
+modulations and inflections, and its music cleared Hepworth's befogged
+brain. He released the palm and the rose tree from the third degree to
+which he had been subjecting them, and leaned back in his chair as if he
+relaxed his mind as well as his body, smiling back at her, as confident
+now, and as assured as herself.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't have to," he said. "I know. It's just come to me. You see your
+father didn't happen to mention that you are studying for the stage."</p>
+
+<p>"Studying for the stage!" she cried, as if to refute him, considered,
+and then nodded emphatically. "Of course I am, and expect to be until I
+die; but hardly in the sense you mean. My field of study at the present
+time includes a good deal of practical experience. I've been on the
+stage now for three years, ever since I left school."</p>
+
+<p>"On the stage!" he exclaimed. "But my dear child, under what name?"</p>
+
+<p>"My own," she answered. "Oh, do not look so puzzled. It is the most
+unlikely thing in the world that you should ever have heard of me. I'm
+far from a star, just one of the humble members of first this and then
+that western stock company. You see, my idea was to get my training and
+experience before I burst upon New York. But New York is beginning to
+seem too iridescent a dream ever to be realized."</p>
+
+<p>There was a fall in her voice, a touch of wistfulness, which Hepworth
+found rather touching because its pathos was both uncalculated and
+unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he asked in surprise. This note of resignation in her tones, of
+acceptance of a disappointing, inevitable circumstance, struck him as
+singularly out of character and aroused his curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"It's been the same thing several times in succession now," said
+Fuschia, a touch of superstitious gravity in her expression. "Just as
+father is preparing to stake me, and I'm getting a company together to
+take New York by storm as Rosalind, why, father loses his last dime on a
+dead-sure thing. There's a law about it. The biggest winning proposition
+in years, always comes along just as I am ready to cross the Alps and
+storm Italy. Uncanny, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What nonsense!" Hepworth clipped off the end of a cigar as if it were
+Fleming's head. "Do not let yourself be affected by such an absurdity.
+The only law, and I admit it's a strong and binding one, is Jim's
+selfishness and irresponsibility. Now my dear child," Hepworth was
+beginning to fancy himself enormously in the rôle of paternal adviser,
+"you make him give you as much as possible."</p>
+
+<p>"I do," she interrupted softly.</p>
+
+<p>"And you lay it all aside, very securely, never touching a penny of
+it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What about my clothes?" another interruption.</p>
+
+<p>"Never touching a penny of it," went on Hepworth firmly, ignoring these
+asides on her part, "until you have saved enough to finance yourself.
+Isn't that reasonable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ye-s," admitted Fuschia. "It is a very reasonable and sensible
+suggestion, Mr. Hepworth, that is," thoughtfully, "if you leave out
+father and me. But just get it into your head that at the moment I'd
+save a nice little heap, father would be hit with an overwhelming
+impulse to back the wrong horse, and, here's something awfully queer
+psychologically, Mr. Hepworth, I'd know as sure as I'm Fuschia Fleming
+that it was the wrong horse, and yet, I'd get inoculated with the mental
+virus before I'd know it, and beg him to let me in on it. And you know
+that father is incapable of staking half or even two thirds of his
+little all against any proposition he believes in. The only thing that
+can satisfy him and make his blood tingle is to stake the whole. No
+limit but the blue canopy of heaven. Limits do fret father."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hepworth slightly lifted his shoulders. Then he dropped another lump
+of sugar into a cup of hot tea she had given him.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to seem neither irrelevant nor impertinent," he said at last,
+"but can you act?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fuschia Fleming threw up her white chin and laughter bubbled
+unquenchable from her throat, not vain-glorious mirth, as if the fact of
+her superlative achievement mocked his crude question, but the
+unrestrained laughter of genuine amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"The idea of asking an actress such a question," she said at last,
+touching each eye lightly and deftly with a delicate handkerchief. "You
+may thank your lucky stars that I don't nearly drown you with
+picturesque and highly colored tales of my triumphs and then hurl the
+full scrap-book at you. My, but you are a rash man! To ask a
+professional if she can act!" Again her full-throated laughter rang out
+delightfully and so heartily that it shook the petals from the cluster
+of pale golden roses she wore on her breast.</p>
+
+<p>"But look here, seriously now," her laughter died quickly away, her face
+assumed a gravity he had not dreamed her mobile features could express,
+her gaze fastened upon him with a sort of hungry, passionate eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a horrible question of yours," she shivered, as if the breeze
+blowing over the gardens from the Elysian sea chilled her. "One should
+know intuitively, instinctively whether an actress can act or not. Good
+Lord!" she brought her hand down on the table. "If you don't feel it,
+know it, beyond all argument, why it isn't there, that's all.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I set you dreaming, unless I suggest in this or that varying
+pose or expression, the whole world of women, I'm not a born actress.
+Training, study can make a good mechanical nightingale of me, a clever
+imitation of the real thing. That's all. But unless I have the chameleon
+quality of reflecting my part, the unerring understanding of any type of
+woman I may be called upon to represent, how can I be an actress? What
+does it profit me to give the public a carefully studied, intellectual
+representation of Portia or Nora, or Juliet or Candida, wide apart as
+the poles as they may be? I must not only apprehend them, I must be them
+in every fibre of my being, in every cell of my brain, in every beat of
+my heart, or I'm nothing. Unless I can convince you that Camille and I
+are one in emotion and view of life, and then obliterate that
+impression when I speak to you as Rosalind, why I'm not an actress, not
+the kind I care to be, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, my dear," cried Hepworth, "you need have no doubts on that
+score." He had not felt the thrill of such genuine enthusiasm for many a
+long day.</p>
+
+<p>He forgot the delicate and uncertain state of his marital affairs,
+forgot the censorious world, his ennui and doubt and regret.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a conviction," he said, "that Jim is going to win a lot on this
+new proposition of his. If he doesn't, it's all the same anyway. Why
+should you waste your youth and your genius in twentieth rate stock
+companies?"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of these cheering words, her head continued to droop. Her face
+had grown paler, and sad were the eyes she lifted to his.</p>
+
+<p>"But you asked me if I could act. You weren't sure. You didn't see me as
+Camille or Rosalind. You just saw Fuschia Fleming all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did." His smile was most comfortingly reassuring. "But I
+saw Fuschia Fleming as Juliet and Portia and all the others. I merely
+asked you if you could act to see what you would say. No, no, my dear,
+your future is written so plainly that he who runs may read. No more
+one-night stands in dreary little towns, Miss Fuschia Fleming, but long
+engagements, crowded houses, enormous box-office receipts, wildly
+enthusiastic audiences. Can't you hear and see them? New York, London,
+Paris for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh-h!" Fuschia was herself again. She exhaled rapture in an ecstatic
+sigh. She rose. It is impossible to sit in moments of such high
+exultation. She positively seemed to soar, to tread on clouds. It was
+growing late and chill. Almost every one had left the garden, only a few
+absorbed groups remained. Fuschia was an actress. Self-expression was a
+necessity to her. She rested her hand, a snowflake, gratefully on his
+arm, she floated against him, a thistledown, and before he knew it had
+lightly, enthusiastically, unconcernedly kissed him on the cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"You dear," she cried, "I'll repay you by showing you what I can do. To
+tread the forest of Arden in New York! Oh-h! But you are not going. No,
+no, no!"</p>
+
+<p>That was what Hepworth, rather overcome by the unconventional and
+unexpected expression of her thanks, was preparing to do. He thought it
+best, but his decision was not adamantine, far from it. He always prided
+himself upon the open mind, and an ability to see all sides of a
+question, so when Fuschia suggested that he return later and dine with
+her, it struck him as a possible, even admirable solution of his daily
+puzzle how to put in the evening and he accepted without more debate,
+with an alacrity, in fact, bordering on gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>He was therefore on time to the minute and Miss Fleming was equally
+punctual.</p>
+
+<p>As they sat through a dinner, not elaborate, but as prolonged as if it
+were composed of all the courses on the menu, Hepworth was struck by the
+positive quality of Fuschia's beauty. It was not always so, evidently.
+She was as changeful as the chameleon she had spoken of. In the garden
+that afternoon, in her white serge frock, she had at first impressed him
+as a pale, rather attractive looking young woman whose charm was
+greater than her prettiness; but viewed in the rose-colored lights, and
+across the pink blossoms on their small table, she was a very wonderful
+creature. She was, in truth, wild with joy and her expression of it was
+delightful. Her eyes were blue as the sea when the sun is one vast
+sparkle over it, her mouth, made for laughter, grew curlier every
+moment. Her white evening gown was a dream.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to her admirable outward appearance, Miss Fuschia Fleming
+was a comédienne of unsurpassed gifts. She was also witty, well-read and
+sweet-natured, and when she chose to exert herself she could make sixty
+minutes seem sixty seconds by any one's watch, even that of the grimmest
+old curmudgeon, and Hepworth certainly was not the grimmest old
+curmudgeon. He was only a very lonely and sad-hearted man whose days had
+been hanging heavily on his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Jim," he soliloquized as he took his way homeward that
+evening. "He believed sufficiently in my friendship to come right to me
+when he was in a hole. Made no bones about it. Asked me to keep an eye
+on his daughter, sure enough of my affection for him to know I'd do it.
+I shouldn't wonder if this Idaho proposition is a good thing if it's
+properly financed. Jim's judgment is pretty sound. Well, we'll see,
+we'll see."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>SHOCKING THE HEWSTONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>As the winter wore on the weather in New York offered daily a more
+violent and odious comparison to the blue seas and balmy airs of
+California. The cold, sullen skies, dull, damp days and piercing winds
+set more than one dreaming of sunshine and summer, and among the many
+was Alice Wilstead.</p>
+
+<p>She was pondering thus, looking about her with surprise, one especially
+snowy, dreary winter afternoon as she took her way to Mrs. Hewston's. It
+was one of those thoroughly depressing days when nothing could really
+raise one's spirits but the inspiring glow of firelight. Mrs. Wilstead
+certainly looked as if she needed that and all positively cheering if
+not inebriating things as she entered Mrs. Hewston's drawing-room. Her
+piquant dark face was meant for smiles and gaiety, all of her features
+apparently designed to that end, for the corners of her mouth, the tip
+of her nose, the slant of her eyes, all inclined upward. It is a tragedy
+when a person of such countenance is in an introspective or melancholy
+mood. Sober meditations have an aging and blighting effect on the
+features of those born to look out upon the world with an arch and
+piquant interest.</p>
+
+<p>Isabel Hewston roused herself a little reluctantly. She was sitting
+alone most comfortably in a delightfully easy chair, she had on a
+becoming and loose Paris tea-gown. She had resolutely put behind her the
+haunting specter of increasing flesh, had taken an afternoon off from
+the persistent and continued battle she had been forced to wage with it,
+and now lay, a box of sweets on the table beside her, a new novel in her
+hand, enjoying to the full her temporary respite. It is to her credit
+that she put aside her book at the most nerve-tingling paragraph without
+a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Alice," she exclaimed, lifting herself on one elbow, "you have a
+bad-news look all over you, the very rustle of your skirt proclaims it.
+What can be the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give me some tea," said Mrs. Wilstead gloomily, "and let me sit down
+and rest." She slowly removed her furs. "My dear Isabel, do you mean to
+say you do not know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Know what?" asked Mrs. Hewston in bewilderment, ringing and
+mechanically ordering tea. "How could I possibly know anything after
+just getting off the steamer this morning? What has happened? You
+haven't been speculating, Alice, and losing all your money?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wilstead hastily disclaimed any such unforgivable crime and
+inconsolable grief as losing money. "Then really you have not heard,"
+she exclaimed. "Isabel, I am more worried than I can say. Lemon, please.
+It is stupid of you, Isabel, never to get into your head the fact that I
+couldn't be guilty of taking cream. To think of such a thing occurring!
+I had hoped that with Eugene Gresham out of the way, having the decency
+to go to England and France, and the papers full of his spectacular
+stunts, that all talk would cease and that when Cresswell Hepworth came
+back from that western trip that everything would be all right."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about?" asked Isabel Hewston with the calmness of
+despair. "If it isn't too much trouble, would you mind making a few
+explanations? Just one might suffice."</p>
+
+<p>"It is that absurd, undisciplined Perdita Hepworth. She has had her head
+completely turned by the success of Maud Carmine and now she and Maud
+have gone into business together."</p>
+
+<p>"Into business?" Mrs. Hewston made a tremendous clatter among the
+tea-cups. "Business! What can you mean? Cresswell has not failed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, no! But that is the reason he has been so long in the
+West. At least that is what every one says. Dita and Maud informed him
+of this scheme, and he, of course, expressed his opinion of the whole
+matter, refused to countenance it; but he couldn't do anything with such
+a headstrong creature as Dita, and so he simply cleared out; went West
+and has stayed there, while those two girls have gone stubbornly on and
+carried out their plans."</p>
+
+<p>"Business!" Isabel still rolled her eyes in dazed speculation. "But what
+kind of business? What could they possibly do? Lamp-shades, menu-cards?
+I'm sure I've always heard that Perdita didn't make such a brilliant
+success when she tried that sort of thing before!"</p>
+
+<p>"Menu-cards! Lamp-shades!" Alice laughed scornfully. "That's mere paper
+dolls to this venture. This is a business of their own invention,
+although Dita does take orders for house decoration also; but the main
+purpose is dressing the wealthy, telling the plain little daughters of
+the rich what to wear."</p>
+
+<p>"For pity's sake!" gasped Isabel. "What sort of place is it, beauty
+parlors or dressmaking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me, neither! Nothing so commonplace. They have taken a house
+just on the Avenue (they say it is a dream within), and you have to
+write for an appointment, and then if they will consider you at all they
+write back and set a time, and you go exactly as if you were calling,
+you know, and you are received by either Maud or Dita or both. Then you
+come again whenever they tell you, and all the time Dita is studying you
+just as a portrait painter would. Finally, when she feels that she has
+you thoroughly in mind, and is quite decided about the way you shall be
+clothed, she has designs made for you of hats and gowns, little water
+colors, you know, and sends you to her dressmaker. She also has your
+maid come and dress your hair before her, according to her directions.
+And it costs you!" Alice Wilstead pursed her mouth and lifted her brows,
+"It costs you! Oh, like the dickens!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" said Mrs. Hewston turning.</p>
+
+<p>"Only me," Wallace Martin replied modestly and ungrammatically,
+entering, as usual, unannounced, a privileged friend of the family, and
+greeting the two women with his usual barking cheerfulness.</p>
+
+<p>"I just walked up home with that pretty little Lolita Withers, and, as
+you were only a block or two farther, I came on here."</p>
+
+<p>The two women gazed at each other with a long, wondering stare. "Lolita
+Withers!" they exclaimed simultaneously. "Pretty!" Nothing could have
+been more eloquent than their tones.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Wallace," said Mrs. Hewston, finding her voice, "is this some
+new joke? Are you quite sane?"</p>
+
+<p>"He means it for a joke," said Mrs. Wilstead, who had been peering at
+him curiously. "He is going in for eccentricity, or else the success of
+his play has gone to his head."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it," replied Martin with unmoved smiles. "Lolita Withers
+is at present an obviously pretty girl. Any one would so consider her."</p>
+
+<p>"Obviously pretty." Mrs. Wilstead had found her tongue by this time, and
+acrid and scoffing it proved. "That skinny, ineffective little Lolita
+Withers! Dull-eyed, anćmic, with stooping shoulders and wispy light
+hair."</p>
+
+<p>"She looks like a dream of spring," said Wallace, helping himself
+lavishly to tea and cakes. "A sort of an evanescent beauty. Truly, yes,"
+he affirmed, "she's been to Maud Carmine and Perdita Hepworth." He gave
+a great burst of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"If they can make any one believe that Lolita Withers is pretty," said
+Mrs. Hewston dazedly, "they are indeed benefactors of the race."</p>
+
+<p>"Perdita Hepworth is a genius, a wizard. I always said so." Alice
+announced this with a sort of triumphant conviction. "She could make
+Aaron's rod blossom like the rose."</p>
+
+<p>"But where did they get the money?" Mrs. Hewston's mind turned always to
+practical things. "If Dita really quarreled with Cress, would he&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maud's money." Martin spoke with the assurance of one possessing
+authoritative knowledge. "Cresswell Hepworth! Oh, no, he went off in a
+terrible huff because the girls laid their plans before him and told him
+what they were going to do. At least," he amended, "that is the idea I
+got from the little that Maud has occasionally told me. Yes, it's Maud's
+money; but they'll lose nothing, plucky girls! Double and treble it,
+more likely. They've already had an overwhelming success."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to them," cried Isabel Hewston excitedly. "If they are so
+wonderful they ought to be able to make me look slender without my
+having to go to all the bother of being really slender."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to stand in line then; that old Mrs. Peter Huff is jumping
+for joy and calling down blessings on their heads because they've
+literally transformed her three ugly daughters. Maud said they were
+splendid material, and Dita did wonders with them. The old lady hopes to
+get them married off now."</p>
+
+<p>"Alice! When can we go to them?" Mrs. Hewston's voice was trembling with
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go now." There was a distinct fall of disappointment in Alice
+Wilstead's voice. "The truth is, I'm going to California with the
+Warrens the first of next week. Why, what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of some one wheezing, puffing, muttering without the
+door, and then the curtain was violently jerked aside and Mr. Hewston
+entered. His hair stood up white and ruffled about his head, his face
+was of a much livelier crimson than usual, and he was puffing out his
+lips as if blowing fire and smoke from his mouth. In one hand he was
+tightly clasping a newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>"Willoughby! My dear!" his wife rose in consternation. "What is it, what
+has happened?"</p>
+
+<p>For answer Mr. Hewston spread open the paper and struck it with his
+hand. "Read that," he cried tragically, "read that! My poor friend,
+driven from his home by the vagaries of a mad, irresponsible girl, his
+life ruined by the foolish, frivolous creature he married! Turned from
+his home, he was driven to this."</p>
+
+<p>Wallace had seized the paper, and the two women hung over his shoulder
+to scan the sheet before them.</p>
+
+<p>What met their eyes were huge, black head-lines above and below the
+pictures of Cresswell Hepworth and a very pretty woman.</p>
+
+<p>The head-lines announced that the two had been in an accident in Mr.
+Hepworth's motor-car at Santa Barbara. Both were thrown out, but neither
+sustained any serious injuries. The article went on to say that Mr.
+Hepworth had, during his stay in the West, evinced great interest in the
+career of this beautiful and gifted young woman, an actress of
+reputation in her part of the world, but unknown in the East. It was
+understood, however, that she was to play a New York engagement during
+the coming spring, making her first bow to a metropolitan audience as
+Rosalind in a superb stage presentation of <i>As You Like It</i>. There was
+no question of the beauty of the mounting of this famous comedy, nor the
+strength of the company with which the young star would be surrounded,
+as the capital behind her was practically unlimited.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>PUBLICITY</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the beautiful, young wife of a multi-millionaire takes advantage of
+her husband's absence on a prolonged and unavoidable business trip to
+embark upon a rather bizarre and eccentric venture of her own, it is to
+be expected the situation will be hugely discussed, especially in its
+three-fold phases&mdash;the lady first, the exact relations existing between
+husband and wife next, and third, the business itself.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps in this case the business should be put first, above the lady,
+and above any sentimental interest in marital misunderstandings, for
+Perdita's skill in "bedecking and bedraping" was well known among her
+sisters, whose ideals in bedecking were those of Paris, and who had no
+Greek longings to be "noble and nude and antique." And had they not for
+the past two years enviously regarded Maud Carmine&mdash;who had been as a
+walking <i>mannequin</i> among them, the living, breathing advertisement of
+Perdita's abilities.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore from the very first business bade fair to engulf the new firm
+and sweep the two partners off their feet, and if the list of those who
+daily assembled in "Hepworth and Carmine's" reception-rooms were to be
+published, it would look like a social registry or a page from <i>Who's
+Who</i>; that is, a page with all of the masculine names carefully culled.</p>
+
+<p>There were elderly ladies and young girls, and ladies in all the waning
+stages between the two. The elderly and waning ones all hoped before
+Mrs. Hepworth got through with them to look like the young girls, and
+the young girls, with all the enthusiasm of youth, hoped to look like
+Perdita Hepworth.</p>
+
+<p>There arrived then, one morning, at this palace of hope, Mrs. Willoughby
+Hewston, who, as she stepped from her motor, glanced nervously right and
+left and ascended the steps of the house Perdita and Maud had taken
+just off the Avenue with an agility of which her best friends would not
+have considered her capable. This nervousness, this hurry was due to the
+fact that only the day before she had mentioned her intention to her
+husband, with the result that she was thunderously ordered not to go
+near the place, under penalty of his worse than censure. He gave her to
+understand that this would be something too terrible for her imagination
+even to apprehend. Consequently, Mrs. Hewston wasted no time in getting
+to Hepworth and Carmine's as early as possible the next morning. She
+would have been less than woman had she not done so.</p>
+
+<p>The reception-room was spacious, sunny and restful, depending for its
+effect upon beautiful woods and long, unbroken lines; for color, there
+was the hint of ivory and tea-green, ineffably serene, and there Mrs.
+Hewston awaited Dita, her agitation subsiding somewhat under the calm
+influence of the place.</p>
+
+<p>But when Dita appeared it returned in full force. "Oh, my dear," she
+exclaimed, "what a charming spot this is! How original! How daring of
+you and Maud! Oh, my dear, if Willoughby knew I was here!" She raised
+her hands with a gesture full of meaning. "You know that he is in such a
+state anyway over those newspaper articles."</p>
+
+<p>"What newspaper articles?" asked Perdita. "Do you mean those that have
+appeared about all this?" she waved her hand comprehensively about her.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you seen them?" Mrs. Hewston looked frightened. "Oh, my dear
+child, how very stupid of me. Why, why did I mention them? I supposed,
+of course, that you knew. But if you do not, please do not ask me
+anything more, for I never, never will be the bearer of bad news."</p>
+
+<p>Dita stared at her in puzzled amazement for a moment and then she took
+her firmly by the shoulders. "Look here, Mrs. Hewston, you are
+frightening me dreadfully. I haven't an idea what you are talking about.
+Now you must tell me, indeed you must. Do you not see the state of mind
+in which you leave me unless you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear," Mrs. Hewston shook her handkerchief out of her bag,
+evidently preparing for its possible use. "I didn't mean to frighten
+you, and you shouldn't allow yourself to be so easily upset. Now,
+understand, no one was hurt, but those dreadful papers yesterday were
+full of a motor accident which occurred in California."</p>
+
+<p>"Cresswell's car?" interrupted Dita quickly. "Was he&mdash;" She was about to
+say "injured," but Mrs. Hewston took the word from her mouth, or rather,
+substituted another for it.</p>
+
+<p>"Alone? No, dear," shaking her head a little as at the regrettable, but
+to be expected frailties of men. "He was not alone. He was driving the
+car, it seems, with a beautiful young actress by his side. She must be a
+very&mdash;er&mdash;persuasive person, too, because the papers said that she is to
+appear here this spring in some superb production or other, and they
+strongly insinuated that Cress' money is behind the whole thing. But you
+see, that, as I said, there's nothing in it all, nothing really to worry
+over."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Dita, but slowly and without enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my dear," Mrs. Hewston had suddenly grown quite brisk, "let's
+forget all this and talk of something that is more interesting to you,
+because it's in your line. Perdita," in her most wheedling and cooing
+tones, "I want you to make me lovely."</p>
+
+<p>"You are lovely, Mrs. Hewston."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, in a middle-aged, broad, pink kind of way, but I want you to make
+me look slender and lissome and girlish without all this awful dieting
+and exercise and these dreadfully tight corsets that make one feel as if
+one were nothing more nor less than blanc-mange in a tin mold. And you
+know you do come out of them with your flesh all fluted, just like the
+blanc-mange when it's set."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall be quite lissome, I promise you that," said Dita consolingly,
+if rather absently. "Come to me again early next week and I shall have
+some designs for you to consider, beautiful, long folds and all that.
+But I can't perform miracles, you know, and you'll have to diet a little
+and exercise; yes, and wear the boned corset; you don't want to look
+like a&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Do not say it!" cried Mrs. Hewston nervously. "I am sure you are going
+to say either 'whale' or 'tub,' and I can't stand it. That's what those
+awful corsettičres always say when I protest the least bit against
+their tortures.</p>
+
+<p>"And Perdita, one thing more&mdash;my chin. I always say the chin is the
+greatest give-away a woman's got. She can get around anything else, but,
+no matter what she does, that chin sticks out like a cliff and reveals
+every year she's lived. Of course, you may try to draw off attention
+with a diamond dog collar or jeweled black velvets, but at the best
+they're only poor, miserable makeshifts; and one must wear evening dress
+no matter whether one has rolls of flesh or a gridiron of bones. If you
+don't, people either think you come from the woods or have something
+worse than bones or superfluous flesh to conceal. Just look at
+Willoughby!" Mrs. Hewston's emotions overcame her here and she dabbed
+her eyes carefully with her handkerchief. "He is fat as a pig. He
+shuffles and hobbles about with the gout. He eats anything he pleases,
+and never thinks of cultivating a pleasant expression. Yet if I should
+die, he could marry again without difficulty. Oh, it's a hard world for
+us women! But really, I must go, dear. Just look out and see if you see
+Willoughby by chance, either up or down the street."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she was assured of safety and had departed, Perdita, who,
+fortunately for herself and her customers, had no other appointments for
+the morning, sent for the papers of the day before and carefully
+considered the incident of Mr. Hepworth, Miss Fuschia Fleming and the
+motor-car as set forth in the various journals.</p>
+
+<p>"And so," said Perdita to herself with glooming eyes, when she had
+finished an exhausting perusal, "he is going to back this deserving
+young adventuress, who has, no doubt, played upon his sympathies, in a
+great spectacular presentation this spring, and in New York. Well, there
+will be something else spectacular. I will make this venture of ours a
+stupendous success now or I will know the reason why. Where on earth is
+Maud? She is never about when I really need her."</p>
+
+<p>She frowned a moment over Maud's delinquency and then happened to
+remember that Miss Carmine had expressed an intention of being present
+at a rehearsal of one of Wallace Martin's plays. Dita then decided on
+the moment to drive to the theater and consult with her partner at once
+on the new and spectacular policy of their house which she was mentally
+outlining.</p>
+
+<p>But first, before starting, she thoughtfully selected some of a number
+of photographs of herself and also of Maud. "I suppose I shall have a
+dreadful time persuading her," she reflected as she drove through the
+streets. "She has bred in the bone those old-fashioned ideals of New
+York when it lived in Bleecker and Houston Streets."</p>
+
+<p>But curiously enough, while events of one character had led Perdita
+strongly to consider the adoption of a certain line of action,
+circumstances of a widely differing nature had impelled Maud practically
+to the same conclusion. Which only goes to show how clever a weaver is
+Fate and how wonderfully she contrasts and combines all her various
+threads.</p>
+
+<p>For two or three hours Maud had been sitting in a dimly-lighted, empty
+playhouse, watching the rather dreary and disillusionizing progress of
+Martin's latest play.</p>
+
+<p>It was an odd thing, she mournfully reflected, that Wallace never got
+himself, his own, bubbling, merry, joyous self, full of quirks and
+quips, into his plays. They would seem to have been written by a
+secondary personality, for they were all, without exception, intensely
+serious and depressing, dealing with problems of the most complex and
+dun-colored character.</p>
+
+<p>Maud was extremely practical. She never dreamed of buoying up her
+spirits with any ambrosial reflections that this latest offering was "a
+distinct contribution to the more serious drama." Neither did she
+attempt to convince herself that there were enough high-browed folk in
+the town to keep the play on for, peradventure, three nights. No, she
+simply, and with her usual common sense, reserved judgment until the
+third act, and then after a moment of wonder that Wallace had found a
+firm of managers willing to undertake the production, with all the
+expense entailed, when they had just one chance in a million to win (in
+her opinion, at least), she turned to more practical issues.</p>
+
+<p>"Dita and I," she remarked mentally, "have got to make a stupendous
+success if I want to marry Wallace, which I do, and he is going to
+continue to write plays, which he is. But I'll have a frightful time
+persuading Dita to run her business along the lines of twentieth century
+advertising. She has all sorts of ante-bellum ideas about stately
+procedure and measured methods, derived, of course, from those
+generations of lazy southern aristocrats."</p>
+
+<p>While she mused, amid the terrific racket of moving things about the
+stage in preparation for the fourth act, she felt a light touch upon her
+shoulder, and looked up to see Perdita, pale but determined, standing
+beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll just slip into this seat beside you," said Mrs. Hepworth, suiting
+the action to the word. "I want to talk to you a few minutes. Now,
+Maudie, I know that you will not like it, but we've been doing
+awfully well lately, and I think it would be a good idea to put what
+we've made in advertisement. Of course, there's a lot we can get without
+paying for it. The Sunday newspapers will print pages about us,
+especially&mdash;especially if we let them have some of our most stunning
+pictures and allow those interviews where the artists sit and make
+sketches of you."</p>
+
+<p>Maud looked at her business partner as one who, bidden to rub a magic
+ring on his finger and wish, sees his wish come true. Here was Perdita
+approaching her tactfully, and timidly entreating her to do the very
+thing that was in her mind to accomplish. She could not grasp it, but
+sat staring at her companion in an amazement so profound that it bereft
+her of speech.</p>
+
+<p>Perdita misinterpreted the silence. "I've got to make a red-and-yellow
+success," she exclaimed with emotion. "I've&mdash;I've just got to be in the
+newspapers. Don't take it in this cold, reproving way."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Perdita," Maud spoke with crisp distinctness. "I'm not! It's
+your attitude of mind, not your sentiments, that surprises me. The
+latter are my own. You," she continued virtuously, "are probably
+actuated by your vanity; I, by my heart. Look at that!" she waved one
+hand toward the stage, "or rather don't look at it. Now let us come to
+an understanding. You know that I have always loved Wallace. You know
+that he has lately loved me. You also know what it costs me a year to
+be one of the best-dressed women in New York and maintain my newly
+acquired reputation for good looks; consequently the business has to
+make handsome returns. We live in the twentieth century under artificial
+conditions, and it's no use pretending it's Arcadia and the simple life.
+It's not. We're hothouse blossoms, Perdita, products of this great
+forcing bed, New York, and we might just as well adapt ourselves to
+conservatory conditions. Wallace wouldn't look at me if I were a hardy
+annual. He didn't when I was what God and nature made me. But Wallace
+suits me, child though he is, in many ways, and I can do a great deal
+with him. I may even," but Maud's tone had lost its high confidence and
+was a trifle dubious now, "I may even make a playwright of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, here he is now with&mdash;with Eugene Gresham," interrupted Perdita.
+This was but the second time Perdita had seen Eugene since his return a
+few days before.</p>
+
+<p>Out from the wings stepped the two men and then clambered over the
+footlights and the orchestra space, and hastened down the aisle to join
+Mrs. Hepworth and Miss Carmine, who had now a number of large
+photographs spread over their knees, intently studying them.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning," Wallace shook hands exuberantly with both women. "Went
+splendidly, didn't it? We're going to have the first act over again."</p>
+
+<p>"Very impressive, very," said Gresham, who looked in the best of health
+and spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Maud cast one withering look at him, but it glanced lightly off, turned
+aside by his smile. He saw it, however, and as quickly as possible got
+into a seat on the other side of Perdita.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen the papers?" he asked happily. "Blessings on Miss Fuschia
+Fleming. I shall do my humble best to keep the ball rolling. As soon as
+she appears in New York, I'm going to put in a request to do her
+portrait. Something bizarre, weird and splotchily thrilling, you know.
+Quite violent. That will keep a crowd around it from dawn to dark as
+soon as it's exhibited. It doesn't make the least difference whether she
+has any ability or not. She may be, and probably is, the most awkward,
+scrawny and nasal of western actresses; what of it? With Hepworth for
+her angel and Gresham for her painter, her vogue is secure. And Perdita,
+Rosita, your freedom is that much nearer."</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene," Perdita's eyes flashed, "I think it extremely bad taste, even
+vulgar, of you to talk in that vein."</p>
+
+<p>And Eugene hastened to retrieve his blunder, and soon Perdita, who was
+never long impervious to his spell, was smiling once more.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Carmine, however, was of sterner stuff. She did not wince, although
+she saw that there was no remedy for Wallace's malady but the knife, and
+he, unwittingly, wasted no time in precipitating his destiny.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing with all those photographs of yourself and Mrs.
+Hepworth?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We are going to give them to some reporters, who are getting up stories
+for the Sunday papers."</p>
+
+<p>"Maud!" Martin spoke in the deep, pained tones of his leading man.
+"Maud, I have said nothing. In fact I admired and approved when you and
+Mrs. Hepworth went into this business venture. But such methods for you,
+for her! Do you not feel that you owe something to yourselves, and that
+she at least owes something to Hepworth? Oh, of what are you thinking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Money," said Maud succinctly. "Something you evidently are not thinking
+of." She glanced toward the stage.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not," he answered stiffly. "Art&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Art, art! Don't prate about art." Maud did not intend to spare the
+knife. "Art must be an individual expression and your play is simply
+hash seasoned with reminiscences. Oh, dear, dear Wallace, you can write
+a good play. I know you can, when you will write as Wallace Martin, and
+not after Sudermann, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Shaw. Look at this act. Wallace,
+tell me, is there no other way of picturing the gay, irresponsible life
+than by a costume ball in an artist's studio? Must the <i>vie de Bohčme</i>
+always be thus presented? Then why does the lover in a problem play
+usually have to be a Russian prince in Moujik costume? And the heroine's
+midnight visit to his apartments! Couldn't you, wouldn't they allow you,
+to write just one play without it? And need the lady, after her past has
+been discovered and fully discussed, always go out into the tempest in
+search of her better self, and slam the door behind her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maud! Maud! You&mdash;you are pulling down the pillars of the temple,"
+gasped Martin. "It's blasphemous! Every one says the play is good. You
+can not judge from a rehearsal. Let us change the subject," with
+dignity. "Since you have not hesitated to criticize me, I feel that I am
+justified in again urging you not to go into these gaudy advertising
+methods. Willoughby Hewston seems to feel that Cresswell was terribly
+chagrined at his wife's going into business. And truly, you should urge
+her to show some consideration for him."</p>
+
+<p>"A fig for Willoughby Hewston." Maud fumbled in her bag and drew forth
+an envelope. "Here is a letter I got from Cresswell yesterday. He
+congratulates me on the enterprise we have shown, and says that he is
+delighted that Dita's interests have found so congenial and healthful a
+channel in which to flow."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>A WIDOW'S SMILE</h3>
+
+
+<p>One morning, a California morning, all sea-breezes and flower-scents and
+golden sunshine, Mr. Hepworth read, as he ate his breakfast, a letter
+from Willoughby Hewston. The letter, in itself, was a long one, and it
+also contained a bulky enclosure. This enclosure was the full page of a
+sensational New York newspaper. This exhibited enormous, black
+head-lines, screaming innuendo of the most blasting character. In the
+center of the page were pictures of Hepworth and a dark, heavy-browed
+young woman, with large eyes and strongly-marked Hebraic features. The
+page was further embellished by pen sketches surrounding these
+photographic reproductions, sketches of a startling and romantic nature,
+a wrecked automobile, a picturesque young woman in very high heels and a
+very long coat, fainting into the arms of a tall, rather elderly man,
+presumably Hepworth.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth had scowled and reddened at the first sight of this dreadful
+page, and his expression did not improve as he continued his perusal of
+it. Finally, however, his face cleared. He folded it neatly together and
+placed it carefully in his pocket-book. Not a pleasant incident, but
+closed. No use in crying over spilled milk. This newspaper account of an
+adventure had occurred nearly nine days ago and therefore any wonder it
+may have excited was practically over. He turned again to Hewston's
+letter and re-read it with mixed expressions in which amusement
+predominated.</p>
+
+<p>When Hewston set out to be profoundly serious, Hepworth always found him
+intensely funny. Finishing his friend's admonitory epistle, Hepworth
+next picked up one addressed to him in a smart feminine hand, Alice
+Wilstead's. He ran his eye over several pages, and then paused at a
+paragraph which he read over two or three times, his rather worried look
+changing the while to one of profound dismay, for Mrs. Wilstead not only
+stated that she was carrying out a long-cherished intention of visiting
+California with her friends, the Warrens, but, what was more, she was
+staying not upon the order of her coming, but coming at once.</p>
+
+<p>She digressed at this point to express her pleasure at the thought of
+seeing him so soon again. He bestowed upon these protestations of
+friendship one bare, ungrateful glance and rustled over the various
+sheets of her letter, hoping to gain, if possible, some more definite
+information; and there it was before his incredulous and resentful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She was, she explained, writing this "hasty note" (it was eight pages)
+within an hour of leaving. She expected to arrive in Santa Barbara on
+the Thursday afternoon train. Why, Great Heavens! He clattered his
+coffee-cup impatiently in the saucer. This was Thursday morning and he
+had made all arrangements to spend a rather diversified day, including
+golf and a luncheon at Monticito with Fuschia and her father, a little
+fęte in honor of Jim's triumphant return, with "the earth, by George,
+the earth and nothing less in my vest pocket."</p>
+
+<p>"And Alice," Hepworth clattered his cup again, he knew her of old. She
+was quite as inquisitive as her delicately-pointed tip-tilted nose
+indicated, and if he wasn't on hand to greet her, she would make life a
+burden to him until she discovered why.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth, however, was used to coping with difficult situations. He took
+what odds fortune offered him and coldly, nonchalantly played to win. He
+sat for a few moments in deep thought. He had no intention whatever of
+giving up his day's pleasuring. The only problem which occupied him was
+what to do with Alice. Inspiration followed thought. He rang the bell
+and despatched a hasty request that Mr. Hayward Preston come to him at
+once.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Preston was a favorite with all mothers, especially those with
+daughters. They spoke of him in an almost lyric strain. Naturally, one
+might expect to find him an egregious ass, and avoided of all men. The
+wonder is that he was not. He had an agreeable appearance, admirable
+manners, excellent business abilities. His virtues were all a little
+obvious and robust, and if one insisted on a flaw, it might be said that
+he lacked subtlety. So much the better. Subtlety destroys a healthy
+interest in the commonplace and makes of the straight and narrow way a
+tame and monotonous pathway too rocky for speed.</p>
+
+<p>"Preston," said Hepworth with his usual courteous charm when this
+younger associate in certain business enterprises appeared, "I wish to
+ask you a favor, or, to put it more correctly, I am going to do you a
+favor. I have just received a letter from an old friend of mine, Mrs.
+Wilstead, saying that she will arrive this afternoon on the three-thirty
+train. Unfortunately I have another engagement and can not meet her at
+the station, as, under other circumstances, I should very much wish to
+do; so," with another cordial smile, "I am hoping that you will be free
+to act as my proxy."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Preston was not free. He had something else on hand, but this fact
+he did not hint by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, relegated it to
+the background of his thoughts to be settled later. He was not letting
+any opportunities to do "the chief" a favor slip lightly by him.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be very glad to meet Mrs. Wilstead, if you can assure me that
+she will accept me as your proxy," he said with a frank smile. "Let me
+see. The afternoon train. And how shall I know the lady?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will send my chauffeur with you. He knows her. You are sure,
+Preston," solicitously, "that this does not interfere with any of your
+plans?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite sure," returned Preston with convincing sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Mr. Hepworth devoutly; he made a mental vow to the
+effect that Preston should never rue this day.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, it happened that Alice Wilstead, on stepping from the train at the
+conclusion of her trip across the continent, found, instead of her old
+friend, a good-looking young man awaiting her, a young man after her own
+heart, with that gravity and stability of mien, and the dependable
+smile, which, being in strong contrast to her own volatile self, always
+impressed her pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>Hayward Preston, on his part, gazed at the most attractive woman he had
+ever seen, of the type he particularly admired. Tall, graceful, her
+vivacious irregular face lighted by the gleam of white teeth and the
+sparkle of dark eyes, the air of the great world clinging about her as
+lightly as a perfume.</p>
+
+<p>To her joy, this delightful, wholesome-looking, grave man stopped before
+her. "Mrs. Wilstead?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him and smiled. It was the most effective smile in her
+whole arsenal reserved only for very special occasions.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hepworth was at the last moment detained by certain business
+matters which are holding him a prisoner at his office and he asked me
+to act as his proxy. This ought to identify me, ought it not?" with a
+smile, and he gave her the card upon which Hepworth had written a few
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>She barely glanced at it and then smiled again, the same smile, only a
+little diluted. She had seen at once that it was strong wine for
+Preston.</p>
+
+<p>"You must meet Mr. and Mrs. Warren," she turned to the two who were
+fussing over their luggage. Warren was a tall, good-looking man and his
+wife an amiable, attractive little person.</p>
+
+<p>Preston left the question open to them whether they wished to go to
+their hotel at once or would prefer to drive about, and see something
+of this new world, into which they had just stepped, and they decided in
+favor of the latter suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>Through the town they drove, exclaiming over the roses, along the
+palm-lined boulevard by the shore and then in a rash moment at Alice's
+request, they turned toward the mountains. A rash suggestion and one
+that Preston had cause to rue, for presently they passed a carriage
+being rapidly driven in another direction and all apparently in the
+highest spirits. It was a party of three, two men and a girl, a slender,
+tanned, laughing girl, who caught Alice's eye at once. The next glance
+revealed the man who sat beside her, and who was leaning toward her
+explaining something, to be Cresswell Hepworth. As Alice bent forward,
+doubting the evidence of her senses, this girl lifted a bonbon from a
+box on her knees and held it out toward Hepworth with a pair of tiny
+gilt tongs. He snatched it deftly in one bite, to the accompaniment of
+immoderate laughter from his friends, in which he joined.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, dignity! Oh, austere grief! What crimes are committed in thy name!
+In these days one might well paraphrase the famous lines from <i>The
+School for Scandal</i> and render them: "When a young girl marries a
+middle-aged man, what is she to expect?" The situation was graver than
+even Willoughby Hewston could have predicted. In the first surprise
+Alice had exclaimed, "Why, that's Cress!" And then to relieve Preston of
+embarrassment before the Warrens, an embarrassment which was manifesting
+itself in the deep flush which overspread his face, "He probably got
+through sooner than he expected," she said in a matter-of-fact tone and
+dropped the subject.</p>
+
+<p>But she thanked fortune that both Mr. and Mrs. Warren were talkative
+people given volubly to voice their enthusiasm over the beauty about
+them, and thus her rather stunned preoccupation passed unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>She had upon her journey, and even before she started, pictured herself
+as a sort of missionary, with the not altogether unpleasant task before
+her of cheering up poor Cresswell. She knew the strength of his few
+affections, his devotion to Perdita and therefore she had some idea of
+how deeply this breach between them had affected him. But like most
+women, even the experienced ones, she had never realized that the
+masculine and feminine attitude toward grief is as wide apart as the
+poles. They may both wear rue, but with a difference. Woman seeks a
+cloister that she may brood over her sorrow, commune with it, hug it to
+her heart in solitude, but man does his best to shake that black,
+haunting shape, tries to lose it in a crowd, and willingly sips any kind
+of a nepenthes which seems to offer him forgetfulness.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Wilstead had not expected that Hepworth would make any unmanly
+exhibition of his woes, weep on her shoulder or be excitingly dramatic;
+she knew him too well. But she had expected to see him a little older,
+perhaps; a little grayer, sadder, more quiet, with a hint of melancholy
+in his eyes. He might&mdash;occasionally she pictured the scene&mdash;open his
+heart to her now and then in a grave and reticent way and disclose a
+strong man's grief; but instead she had seen him sitting up in a very
+smartly appointed carriage beside a correspondingly smart young woman
+in a white serge gown, who was in the very act of popping an enormous
+<i>marron glacé</i> between his willing teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Men," said Mrs. Wilstead to herself, with cynical humor, "are all
+alike." A nugget of wisdom, by the way, which frequently falls from the
+lips of a sex prone to generalize from a personal experience.</p>
+
+<p>On arriving at the hotel, Mrs. Warren professed herself a bit weary and
+retired to her rooms, followed by her dutiful husband, but Alice
+Wilstead, afire with repressed curiosity, suggested, with another of
+those smiles, full strength now, that Mr. Preston take a cup of tea with
+her. She was more tired than she had thought.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments, Mrs. Wilstead spent herself in enthusiasm for the
+beauty and charm of the place. Such air! Such scenery! Such flowers!
+Then she was solicitous about Preston's tea; two lumps of sugar and two
+slices of lemon? What mathematical exactness! She took a sip of her own.
+Just the right strength and of excellent flavor. What interesting
+looking people at the table over there; she believed, no, she was quite
+sure that she had seen them, perhaps met them before. Yes, she
+remembered the daughter distinctly. It was in Switzerland, a year ago.
+She was completely absorbed in the scene before her. "Look at that
+absurd man yonder, Mr. Preston." Preston eagerly fell in with her mood,
+lulled to a false sense of security. Then without a minute's warning she
+opened fire.</p>
+
+<p>"A charming young woman," she began, "is a much more plausible, less
+hackneyed and convincing excuse than a 'pressing business engagement.'
+I'm surprised Cresswell did not think of it. But that would be telling
+the truth, and you men avoid that as much as possible in dealing with
+women, do you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have taught us that you prefer the other thing," he returned with
+some spirit, although his soul quaked within him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Wilstead, without preamble.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Mr. Preston miserably. He knew perfectly well that
+Mrs. Wilstead was too experienced to believe him, and would scorn his
+clumsy subterfuge. This confused him frightfully, but he hadn't the
+faintest idea what else to say, so he stumbled on with what he felt was
+yokel-like stupidity. "Really, I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, of course you would not know under the circumstances." Mrs.
+Wilstead's tone was sweet and sincere, but beneath the sugar-coating of
+innocence he discerned the bitter pill of her complete understanding.
+His ears burned and felt the size of an elephant's. He was very unhappy.
+He stirred his tea round and round, as if his spoon were an egg-beater.</p>
+
+<p>"Now that you are here," he said awkwardly, "she will be heard of no
+more."</p>
+
+<p>Although he never knew it, that speech advanced him leagues in Alice
+Wilstead's favor. The genuine sincerity of his tone would have warmed
+the heart of any woman standing with reluctant feet where the brook of
+<i>passé</i> joins the river of middle-age.</p>
+
+<p>Alice regarded the opals on her fingers (she was born in October) with a
+pleased yet humorous smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Accepting your inference, what chance has an elderly widow against a
+young and lovely actress?"</p>
+
+<p>Preston started. She had played trumps when he was least expecting
+them. "Then you know&mdash;" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"That Miss Fuschia Fleming is a star that will shoot madly from her
+sphere to brighten the firmament of New York this spring."</p>
+
+<p>"I supposed, of course, that was her game," he said soberly. But he was
+thinking not so much of Fuschia Fleming as of that after revelation
+which this delightful woman had made. A widow of charm, of sparkle, of
+money. One felt the latter. She unconsciously exhaled it. And best asset
+of all, the old and valued friend of Cresswell Hepworth. Preston was no
+cold-blooded schemer, neither was he an ardent, impetuous Hotspur. He
+merely calculated chances, not only by virtue of temperament but
+training, and when this jewel of a chance flashed its dazzling rays, he
+instinctively estimated its weight, the accuracy of the cutting and
+possible value.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore Mr. Hayward Preston made such hay in the next few minutes,
+that when he left, or rather when Mrs. Wilstead dismissed him, he
+received another of that particular brand of smiles and walked home with
+his head among the stars.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>FATHER AND DAUGHTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>One morning, shortly before she left for New York, Miss Fuschia Fleming
+and her father sat in the sitting-room of their suite in the hotel at
+Santa Barbara. The sunshine without lay broad and white and dazzling.
+Within it seemed to be reflected, although through many tonal shadings
+in subdued, but still golden points of emphasis. There were bowls of
+yellow roses, there were baskets of oranges and lemons, there was
+Fuschia herself in a morning gown as pale as the gold of her hair which
+looked paler than ever in contrast to a great tawny, orange-colored
+flower, which she had leaned from her window and plucked a short while
+before and thrust carelessly above one ear.</p>
+
+<p>Her chair was completely surrounded by newspapers, colored supplements,
+Sunday magazine sections. They billowed about her like waves. Whoever
+would reach her must cross a crackling sea. On the opposite side of the
+room, her father reclined comfortably in a large easy chair, smoking an
+excellent cigar and poring intently over a page of "past performances,"
+with pencil in hand poised above it.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness!" said Fuschia suddenly, "she's a dream!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?" asked her father, looking up.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Hepworth." Fuschia was gazing at a page which presented many
+pictures of the same lady. "Put down that dope sheet, papa; it's time
+wasted studying it. All your money is needed to back just one favorite,
+and copper just one bet, and that's me."</p>
+
+<p>"In common with my brothers, men, the workers and the shirkers, I am
+always ready with advice," obediently laying aside his paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Save it for the weak brother then. I want to talk to you, to clear out
+my own thoughts. Now Mrs. Hepworth&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Cress' wife?" her father interrupted with a show of interest. "What's
+the matter there, Fuschia? Why isn't she here?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's got a mission in life, just like you and me," Fuschia showed her
+beautiful even teeth in one of her widest, curliest smiles. "Yours, with
+the great motto inscribed upon your banner, 'Home-keeping youths have
+ever homely wits,' is to rescue your brother from the deadly thraldom of
+the home; mine is to reform the stage; Mrs. Hepworth's is to redeem
+women's clothes. She has all kinds of theories about color and design
+and she wanted to put them in practice. That nice Mrs. Wilstead says
+that she's an odd, capricious, undisciplined creature, but a genius in
+her line. Oh, I've learned a lot about her from what Mrs. Wilstead and
+all these newspapers have told me, and what Mr. Hepworth hasn't told me.
+Papa, dear, I never admired any one in my life as I do that man. I've
+tried every way but using a drag-net to get him to tell me the whole
+story, but he's stood every test. He'll talk freely on any other
+subject."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't happen to give you any inside talk about those Arizona
+properties, did he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He did not. You see he married the poor but beautiful girl, and then
+she got playing too gaily with Eugene Gresham, the great artist. You've
+heard of him surely. It was the triangle, you see. Same old dramatic
+motive. Then suddenly, just as every one was standing on their tiptoes
+to enjoy the view, why the triangle flew to pieces. The Cresswell
+Hepworth part landed out here, the Eugene Gresham part went to Europe,
+the Mrs. Hepworth part went into business with a Miss Carmine, and
+opened a big establishment in New York, and every one came down on their
+heels with a thud, and are still staring at each other wondering what's
+doing."</p>
+
+<p>"If Cress really wants her," remarked Fleming, flicking the ashes from
+his cigar, "he surely wouldn't be such a fool as to leave the field.
+He'd stay and fight for her."</p>
+
+<p>"That's man-talk," said Fuschia lightly contemptuous. "A crazy idea you
+all have, that you can make women love you. Don't you know how the
+leading man always walks about the stage clenching and unclenching his
+hands, and muttering, 'By heaven, I'll make her love me; I'll win her
+against all the wir-r-rld.' Poor souls, they think they can dazzle us
+into loving them; and many feel that if they only talk enough about
+themselves, and their great achievements, what they've done and what
+they're going to do, that they can't fail to fascinate us; and it often
+suits us to let them think so. Awfully funny, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never succeeded in fascinating 'em, no matter what line I took," said
+her father with feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Women don't care much for you, do they? Well, cheer up, Daddy, dear.
+They've never loved me. Once in a while, they're very nice to me, and we
+purr and purr and rub noses, but all the time we are watching each other
+out of our green eyes, and then one day there's the swift stroke of the
+velvet paw and the deep mark of claws."</p>
+
+<p>"Mighty little purr and velvet for me," Fleming's petticoat
+reminiscences were invariably gloomy, "mostly claws."</p>
+
+<p>Fuschia's unfeeling smile curved nearly up to her eyes. "How is that
+Idaho property anyway?" she asked with apparent irrelevance.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine, my dear, fine. I think Cress may really make something on it
+himself, but in any event, he'll have no difficulty in unloading it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll need a pile of money for my campaign." She took an orange from
+the basket and began tossing it from one hand to the other. "I've
+brought a good deal of study to bear on the arrangement of this
+checker-board. I always like to get on to the game just as much as
+possible. Why have I been traveling about with those miserable little
+stock companies putting up with all kinds of hardships? Just to get
+experience. Now I'm ready for New York!" She mused a moment, and then
+took up the subject with fresh enthusiasm. "It's helped me a lot, all
+this newspaper notoriety about myself and Mr. Hepworth. Puts me before
+the public as nothing else could. Just look at these pictures!" She
+plunged her hand down into the rustling sea, and held out a Sunday
+supplement to him. "There's a lovely picture of the auto tumbling over a
+cliff and me landing in a tree. Simply great! Now just as soon as I get
+to New York, Mrs. Hepworth's got to be a sister to me."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know she'll cotton to you?" asked Fleming.</p>
+
+<p>"What's that got to do with it?" His daughter opened her eyes in
+surprise. "I need her, for through her, I mean to have my portrait
+painted by Gresham. And his prices! La, la! Sure, you can put your hands
+on real money and plenty of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fuschia, my child," her father laid aside his "dope sheet" and bent
+impressively toward her, "this new proposition has more in it than even
+you can spend, and you know what that means. It's one of those
+spectacular properties that make a poet of a man. You can talk it
+beautifully, splash on the color, you know, and it writes as well as it
+talks. Shows up superbly in a prospectus, photographs like an artist's
+dream. Just the thing to capture the eastern imagination. You see, it
+matters very little whether the property is intrinsically all right or
+not. That is always problematical, and to be left in the hands of
+Providence. The great thing is to know what is going to capture the
+eastern imagination. That's what you're really dealing with, not the
+proposition itself, by Jingo, but the eastern imagination."</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what I tried to tell that unborn babe of a press agent this
+morning," cried Fuschia, nodding her head in emphatic agreement. "I got
+him because he was a Mayflower Yankee, just out of Harvard, and yet
+he's got no more idea of how to deal with his own people than a new-laid
+kitten. He came bounding to me an hour or two ago with a lot of stuff
+he'd been working over nights with wet towels around his head and a pot
+of black coffee at his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>"'I think I've struck it,' said he. 'It is both true and new!' Pop, it
+was like this. 'Miss Fuschia Fleming can really do things, therefore she
+does not waste time talking about them. One of the most competent of
+stage managers, she never loses her temper. Admirable self-control a
+striking characteristic. Thoroughly systematic and methodical.'</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, Papa! I felt sorry for the kid. It like to killed me, you know.
+Well, I waited a bit till the daze wore off and then I said, 'I'm sorry,
+honey, but it won't do. If I'd made good in New York and had 'em all
+rooting for me, it would be different, but they're effete Easterners,
+boy, used to ruts and routine, and you can't change their breakfast food
+on 'em like that. They won't stand for it. Give 'em the same good old
+press notices that mother used to make back in 1860. Don't talk about
+my "trim neatness." You won't believe it, Daddy, but the poor kid
+actually did that! I said, 'Say that my favorite house costume is a
+Mexican riding-suit hung with silver dollars, and that, in cold weather,
+I always wear a Navajo blanket over my shoulders. Have a sketch of me
+rolling a cigarette between the thumb and second finger of one hand and
+throwing the lariat with the other. Describe me, when only fifteen,
+playing Rosalind in the redwoods of the Yosemite before a wildly
+enthusiastic audience of miners and cowboys. Then say that once before,
+when appearing before the most brilliant audience ever assembled in a
+San Francisco theater, I became so overwrought that I began to shoot
+holes through the drop curtain.' Do you think that was all right, Papa?"</p>
+
+<p>Her father gazed at her with an almost awed admiration. "Honest to God,
+Fuschia," he said at last, "I don't know what to think of you. Here I've
+spent my life handling those Easterners, singly and in bunches, and here
+are you, without either experience or training, on to the game
+intuitively. Fuschia, this is a proud day for me. I've never told you,
+little girl, but sometimes I've had my doubts about your bringing up. I
+tell you after your mother ran away with my best friend and then
+divorced me for desertion and shortly died, leaving you, a two-year-old
+girl baby to me as a last bequest, it was a black hour. Like one of
+those Bible boys&mdash;Peter, wasn't it?&mdash;I went out and crew bitterly. 'If
+she was only a boy!' I said. 'What can Jim Fleming do with a she thing
+like this?' Then I took another look at you, in your white dress and
+blue shoes, smiling at me with your mouth all over your face, and, true
+as I stand here, Fuschia, you were the first thing in skirts that didn't
+seem to be looking at me across a great gulf.</p>
+
+<p>"And then I talked to myself a while. You see, if your mother had come
+to me as man to man and said, 'Jim, I'm tired of you and I want to marry
+Henry,' I'd have said, hard as it might have hit me, you know that,
+Fuschia, 'Kate, I don't blame you, and I'll do what I can to help you.'
+But she preferred the feminine route, a note on the pincushion and she
+gone with all her jewels and ten thousand I'd given her to buy a
+diamond necklace. But as I say, I looked at you in your white dress and
+blue shoes and that friendly grin on your little mug, and I said, 'God
+knows how it'll work, but this girl thing here ain't going to grow up
+thinking that there's fences built all around her and that she's got to
+coax and sneak and pretend to get her way. Poor Kate! With great price
+she obtained her freedom, but my little Fuschia, here, she's born
+free.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Good old Poppy-doppy!" Fuschia's tone was fondly approving and
+something like a tear glimmered in the depths of her turquoise eyes.
+"I'm glad you never tried the snaffle bit of parental training and home
+influences on me, because I'd sure have kicked myself free, and it
+mightn't have been pleasant. But to come back to the present, Mr.
+Hepworth is so splendid, that unless his wife is really in love with
+this boy-Raphael or whatever he is, I'm going to get into the game and
+make home happy for the Hepworths."</p>
+
+<p>"Cautiously, cautiously, daughter," admonished Fleming, looking a trifle
+alarmed. "That's all right on the stage; but in real life when an
+outsider tries to join the parted hands of husband and wife, he's
+likely to get a cuff on the ear."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, men are crude," sighed Fuschia. "You didn't suppose I was going to
+do the child at Christmas act, did you? No, what I mean to do, that is,
+if it's just her imagination and not really her heart that's captured,
+is to take her boy-Raphael away from her."</p>
+
+<p>Fleming gasped, and, lowering his head slightly, looked at his daughter
+from under his eyebrows. "Fuschia," he said, "there are few things that
+can feaze me. 'No limitations and no limits' has always been my motto,
+but you do, child, you really do take my breath away sometimes. Why, if
+report is true, Cress' wife is one of the most beautiful women in the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"Um-huh," Fuschia yawned indifferently. "What has that got to do with
+it? I've usually," she continued thoughtfully, "succeeded in getting
+anything I wanted; that is, men. The wildest of them will trot right up
+to me, and eat out of my hand."</p>
+
+<p>"You're your father's own little girl, Fuschia," said Jim with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and it's a good thing I inherited father's constitution as well as
+his spell-binding abilities, considering that I have to be practically
+my own press agent, stage manager and all the rest of it; the management
+of Fuschia Fleming and Fuschia Fleming herself and then take up the task
+of reuniting families besides. But Mr. Hepworth is a good, good man,
+Papa, and we're going to make him happy, even if we have to do it on his
+money."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>DO YOU LOVE ME?</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Warrens and Mrs. Wilstead had remained in Santa Barbara a week, time
+enough for Alice to discover that Hepworth was in no apparent need of
+the consolatory offices of his old friends, that Fuschia Fleming was a
+most entertaining young woman, and that Hayward Preston's attentions
+were persistent and his intentions manifest and purposeful.</p>
+
+<p>During the next month, no matter in what part of the state they were and
+in what hotel Alice and her friends registered, Preston was sure to turn
+up before the day was over; and to begin at the earliest possible moment
+his unending argument. Along palm-shaded boulevards, under avenues of
+pepper trees, in orange groves, on lonely mountain trails, in the shadow
+of old missions, on surf-pounded beaches, in secluded nooks of great
+hotels, everywhere and at all times he told his plain, unvarnished
+tale. He had now asked Mrs. Wilstead to marry him in every resort in
+California; and had not yet succeeded in winning her consent, and the
+day of her departure was drawing near. Within two days she would be
+leaving for New York. It was at Pasadena that Mr. Preston made his last
+desperate stand.</p>
+
+<p>He and Alice were strolling about the gardens of the hotel; she had not
+wished to get too far away from the sheltering Warrens, and there
+Preston was making what he assured her was his last appeal.</p>
+
+<p>She, however, preferred to view his condition of mind and heart in a
+psychological rather than a sentimental way.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a habit, an obsession," she asseverated, tilting her rose-lined
+parasol toward the sun so that charming pink reflections fell upon her
+face. "You have lost sight of the object in the zest of pursuit. It is
+the game which absorbs you, believe me. The winning would disconcert
+you. Yes, it's the game. I am convinced that you have lost sight of the
+goal and all that it entails."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Preston merely looked at her. "It entails you," he replied simply.</p>
+
+<p>"It entails a great deal more," her speech was as quick as his was slow.
+"You are, you tell me, exactly thirty-three years old. I, Alice
+Wilstead," she shut her lips and breathed hard a moment and then
+gallantly took the fence, "am just thirty-eight."</p>
+
+<p>Not by even the flicker of an eyelash did he show either surprise or
+dismay. Alice's heart went out to him. She really adored his
+impassivity; it was so unlike anything she was capable of.</p>
+
+<p>"What has that got to do with my loving you and your loving me?" asked
+Preston stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything," she answered deeply, regarding with drooping eyes and
+wistful mouth a great, fragrant rose which she held between her fingers.
+"If we could but hold this moment, if neither of us would know further
+change, why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you admit that you could care for me, that you do care for me," he
+exclaimed with brightening eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Let it remain at 'could' and 'might,'" with one of her swift smiles.
+"But under any circumstances, I do not wish to marry any one. Look at
+my admirable position, rich, free, supposedly attractive, young&mdash;a
+widow, you know, is always a good five or six years younger than either
+a married or an unmarried woman. One is regarded as a young widow until
+one is quite an elderly person. Now, really, why should I marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't any possible reason," agreed Mr. Preston unhappily, "unless
+you love me, and then there is every reason. But are you not tired
+walking up and down, up and down these paths? Shall we not sit down on
+this seat a few minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>She acquiesced. It was a glorious morning and the spot was enchanting
+with all this fragrant, almost tropical plant life blooming and blowing
+about them, and Alice, impelled by the softness and sweetness of the air
+and scene, forgot her adamantine resolutions and lifted her eyes to his
+in one long and too-revealing glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Alice, Alice"&mdash;there were all manner of tender inflections in his
+usually colorless and unemotional tones&mdash;"you can not now deny&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I can," she cried quickly; "I can and I do. Hayward, believe me,
+it will never, never do. You are looking at the matter from the man's
+viewpoint, I, from the woman's, and, in cases of this kind, the woman's
+is the surer, the more safely intuitive."</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh!" Preston's exclamation was calm, but pregnant.</p>
+
+<p>"But consider, consider," she besought him. "Look at us, you are the
+robust, ruddy, phlegmatic type that will not change in twenty years, and
+I am exactly your opposite in every respect and that's the reason you
+like me and therein lies the whole tragedy. I'm nervous, mercurial,
+emotional, and nothing, nothing brings wrinkles so quickly as vivacity
+and expression."</p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't any wrinkles."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet. Care, massage, a good maid and a light heart have kept them at
+bay. And, oh! gray hair!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you haven't any gray hair," he said, with the same patient
+obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, but when they do begin to come, they come all at once.
+Hayward, I do not deny that I could care for you if I would let myself,
+but when I realize that for a woman to marry a man younger than herself
+makes life one long, hideous effort to keep the same age as her husband;
+oh, it is too frightening! Just think! No matter how much one may long
+for repose to have to be always up and exercising to keep one's figure;
+to have to hold on to one's complexion by always sleeping in stifling
+masks and slippery cold cream; to be always watching the roots of one's
+hair to see if it doesn't need retouching, and, worst of all, to have to
+be gay and vivacious and conceal, heaven knows, what twinges of
+rheumatism under a smiling face."</p>
+
+<p>"You're just talking," said Preston calmly. "Keep on if it amuses you.
+It doesn't mean anything at all to me. Not at all." His success in life
+was largely due to the fact that he always kept the main object in view
+and never permitted himself to be diverted by side issues. "Your
+personal appearance ten years from now has nothing to do with the
+matter. We may both be dead ten years from now. There is only one
+question to be discussed and that is, 'Do you love me?'"</p>
+
+<p>The petals fell from the red, red rose as Alice twisted it nervously in
+her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I have given you ample proof of my liking for you," she said at
+last, "but the <i>loving</i> is obscured in doubts."</p>
+
+<p>"Forget them, for my sake," he murmured. "Can't you, won't you, Alice?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I could only get away from those mental pictures," she confessed.
+"They stand between us like a barrier. Just think of arriving at the
+point where you want to doze after dinner and dream over some nice,
+slow, old book, with your head comfortably nodding now and then. And the
+fire flickering and the cat purring on the rug. Lovely, isn't it? And
+instead, think of realizing wearily that you've got to spend the evening
+at the opera or playing bridge. And that, of course, means turning
+yourself at an early hour into the hands of your maid for repairs and
+decoration. And then you've got to sit upright the whole evening because
+your stays, which are guaranteed to give you the lithe and willowy
+figure of youth, will not let you lean back. And you do not dare to
+smile, because you will crack the kalsomining on your face; neither may
+you move your head, you are so afraid that the curls and puffs and
+braids may not be pinned on tight. Oh, it's a dog's life!" she sighed
+heavily.</p>
+
+<p>"And it's not for you," Preston spoke firmly. "There is nothing coltish
+about me." Alice laughed, it was so true. "Business is all that very
+deeply interests me, and amusements bore me very much. I like the
+after-dinner doze and the fire and cat already. You will probably have
+more of that kind of thing than you like, if you marry me. Alice, will
+you not consider?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Wilstead, Mrs. Wilstead," a page's voice rang through the
+shrubbery and came nearer and nearer and Alice took from him a thick
+letter addressed to her in Isabel Hewston's hand and adorned with a
+special delivery stamp.</p>
+
+<p>"From a dear friend," Alice exclaimed. "Will you excuse me while I look
+at it? There may be some matter of importance, you know."</p>
+
+<p>In Preston's manner there was no hint of his annoyance. He behaved as
+well as a man could when interrupted in the most fervent declarations of
+affection which the limitations of his nature permitted him. He even
+suggested that he withdraw, and rose, hat in hand. Could complaisance,
+consideration go further? There were only two days before him, and she
+had never been so near yielding before.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no," almost possessively, she stretched forth a hand to detain
+him. "You have nothing to do but wait, and I shall run through this,"
+touching the letter, "in a moment."</p>
+
+<p>Preston sat down beside her again and lighting a cigarette, smoked and
+looked out over the brilliant garden before him while she read.</p>
+
+<p>It was evident, Alice discovered this before she had finished the first
+page, that Isabel Hewston was actuated by no deeper motive than pure,
+erratic impulse when she placed that special stamp upon the letter. At
+least so Alice and Preston probably would have agreed and Isabel
+reluctantly would have admitted it. But the Fates who sit in the
+background and transmit wireless messages to mortals would have smiled
+inscrutably and shaken their heads. If Isabel hadn't stuck that stamp on
+for no reason whatever, and if the page hadn't sought Alice through the
+breeze-caressed, rose-scented garden and given her the missive at the
+exact moment he did&mdash;but, as Eugene Gresham would say, "What's the use?
+Why conjecture?" What really occurred was this:</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest Alice," wrote Mrs. Hewston, "how I envy you in that southern
+paradise while here the weather merely changes from sleet and snow to
+rain and then back again."</p>
+
+<p>There was a page or two of this and of Willoughby's various ailments and
+symptoms, and then a long and glowing account of her visit to Perdita
+Hepworth, and a great deal of minute, enthusiastic description of the
+gowns that Dita was designing for her.</p>
+
+<p>This Alice read with interest, but greater interest still did she bestow
+upon the statement that there appeared to be a coldness between Wallace
+Martin and Maud Carmine, owing, it was said, to the fact that she had
+ruthlessly criticized his last play, and prophesied accurately its
+speedy failure.</p>
+
+<p>"It does seem too bad, dear," Isabel wrote next, "that you, away off in
+California, should have to come in for your share of the gossip which
+seems so sadly rife this season."</p>
+
+<p>Here Alice clutched the pages and, bending over, bestowed upon them an
+almost breathless attention. What could Isabel mean?</p>
+
+<p>"It is perfectly stupid, of course," the letter ran, "and I would not
+think of mentioning it to you except that we have always been frank
+about such things, and, anyway, you ought to know. There is a rumor
+about that you went to California hoping to catch Cresswell's heart in
+the rebound. People now believe that he and Perdita have definitely
+separated and that you knew this, and, as some one put it to me, so
+vulgarly too, dear, camped down on his trail. They say now that the
+incident of the actress was merely to make things easier for Perdita in
+gaining her freedom, but that soon after that is granted her, Willoughby
+says that, as those coarse men express it, you will lead Cress to the
+altar."</p>
+
+<p>"Darn Willoughby!" Alice breathed hard as she muttered the words between
+her clenched teeth, the vivid scarlet of hot anger suffusing her face.
+Preston turned quickly to her, throwing away his cigarette, and ceasing
+to regard the brilliant garden through meditative, half-closed eyes.
+"What is it?" he asked. "Something has worried you."</p>
+
+<p>"No," she smiled, with an effort, and shrugged the matter lightly off
+her shoulders, "some mistake about a very trifling matter. It annoyed me
+for a second, that is all."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment or two neither spoke. Alice was watching the flight of a
+butterfly that soared in the air until almost out of sight and then came
+back to drift about a group of tall, white yuccas.</p>
+
+<p>"Hayward, do you still love me as much as you did ten minutes ago?" She
+smiled charmingly at him, that very, very especial smile of hers, and
+he, with his rather slow perceptions quickened by love, read
+capitulation and a real affection in her softened eyes.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>"Hayward, do you love me?"</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"Alice!" And the depth and fervor of his love will be appreciated when
+it is recorded that he, Hayward Preston, the most conventional of men,
+deliberately tilted her rose-lined parasol and in the face of the world
+and before the very eyes of an advancing couple, kissed her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>PLAYING THE GAME</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was only a day or two after her arrival in New York that Fuschia
+Fleming, who had been rehearsing the greater part of the night, opened
+her sleepy eyes in the hotel chamber to find her maid bending above her
+with a visiting card in one hand and a perplexed expression upon her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"I hated to waken you, Miss Fuschia," she said, "but when I saw the
+name&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is the name?" Fuschia's voice was drowsily indifferent.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Mrs.</i> Cresswell Hepworth!" Both indifference and sleepiness were
+things of the past. Miss Fleming sat up in bed with a spring. "She's in
+the parlor, isn't she? Here, Martha Mary, hustle about. Get me out my
+gold-colored kimono with the silver wistaria on it, and some yellow
+stockings and slippers. Tell her I regret having to keep her waiting,
+late at rehearsal last night. You know the proper thing. Now, go ahead
+and do your prettiest and then dance back here and help me get into
+things."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly no time wasted," reflected the actress standing before her
+mirror, winding her long ash blonde hair round and round her head. "I
+dare say it's a case of 'Gur-rl, what have you done with me husband?'
+There is only one reply to that. I shall draw myself up haughtily and
+say, 'Pardon, Madame, it was you who first carelessly mislaid him, not
+I.' Where the deuce are my hair-pins? She'd never come to my apartments
+with a cat-o'-nine-tails under her golf cape, or a bottle of acid in her
+shopping bag. Sure-ly not. They always choose the foyer of the theater
+for such stunts. Oh, Martha Mary," as that person whom Jim Fleming had
+once designated as a "vinegar-faced-Sue" returned to the bedchamber. "I
+can find nothing. Everything has crawled under the bed or the bureau.
+How is the lady dressed for the part? Handsome, dark garments, rich,
+dark furs, black veil over face, handkerchief handy?"</p>
+
+<p>"The lady is wearing rose-colored cloth and chinchilla," replied Martha
+Mary literally.</p>
+
+<p>"Rose color and chinchilla. That is a note out, positively frivolous.
+Oh, dear me! I am only half put together. You get more worthless every
+day, Martha Mary. Put on all my moonstone rings, for luck. They may save
+my life."</p>
+
+<p>When Fuschia entered her temporary drawing-room, Perdita Hepworth was
+standing with her back to her, gazing from the window out upon the bleak
+wind-swept streets. March was departing with lion-like roars and buffets
+and striving bravely but vainly to obscure his ugly countenance in
+clouds of dust. Hearing a slight sound, she turned and saw advancing
+down the pleasantly warmed, flower-scented room, a young woman whom she
+instantly likened to a pale but radiant ray of spring sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>This sunshine, yellow kimono, pale yellow hair, a cheek like the heart
+of a tea-rose, gold-colored silk stockings and slippers, paused between
+a jar of white lilacs and a basket of hyacinths. The lion-like roars
+without seemed suddenly all hollow pretense. Spring had come to New
+York and involuntarily Perdita smiled in greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Fleming, please forgive this unseemly early call; but you see it
+is important, this matter I wish to see you about." Perdita thus opened
+the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"She can chew up the scenery about me husband all she wishes," said
+Fuschia to herself, "if she just lets me look at her. Her pictures give
+no idea of her. She's red roses and music and emotion. She's poetry and
+romance. My Lord!"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of Perdita's brave attempt, conversation languished. She
+appeared to be weighing some matter which lay on her mind. At last she
+looked up with a slightly ironical smile. "You will think I have come on
+some affair of state, Miss Fleming, the way I am hesitating&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Fuschia here made a violent mental protest. "Now don't you begin by
+telling me that I broke up your home, because I didn't. You broke it
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hepworth made an impatient gesture as if at her own unusual lack of
+adequate expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you play cards at all?" she asked, "bridge or&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Fuschia could not suppress one stare of surprise. "Play bridge!" she
+murmured, wondering what that had to do with the matter. "No, I have no
+card sense. Strange, too, for papa has a lot."</p>
+
+<p>"The reason I asked was this," in rather diffident explanation; "I was
+wondering if you could appreciate what it means to make an unexpected
+play which takes several tricks&mdash;to play trumps in such a way as to make
+the other players gasp with surprise, to&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know what you mean," said Fuschia comprehendingly, a light
+dawning in her puzzled eyes. "You are talking about playing the game.
+Why, of course, I understand. That's all there is; that's what I'm on
+this dizzy old planet for."</p>
+
+<p>But although a basis of mutual agreement and understanding was thus
+established, Dita seemed still to struggle with an unwonted
+embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>It was not, however, within Fuschia to prolong a situation of this kind.
+She bent forward, her elbows on her knees, her fingers covered with
+moonstone rings clasped lightly in front of her, her eyes full of a
+thousand twinkles and the upturned corners of her mouth curving almost
+to her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get down to cases, Mrs. Hepworth, man to man. Is it a go?"</p>
+
+<p>Perdita drew a breath of relief and smiled back. She certainly was not
+one of the few, the very few, who could resist the twinkles in Fuschia's
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a go," she answered; "then man to man, it is this way. You have
+made it easy, you see, for me to say the things I wanted to, although I
+did not know in what feminine phrases I might have to clothe them. But
+you and I are, at present, very much in the public eye. Now every one is
+waiting to see what our attitude toward each other will be. It is
+assumed openly by the newspapers, as you probably know, that there is a
+sort of woman's war on between us. Now, Miss Fleming, I want&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Your husband," supplemented Fuschia mentally. "Well, I haven't got him;
+never did have him; don't want him."</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;to design your stage costumes and to have it so announced," concluded
+Perdita.</p>
+
+<p>Then she saw a remarkable change come over the dainty, thistledown Miss
+Fleming. Her mouth became an almost straight line, the gleam in her eyes
+was almost uncannily shrewd. She gave Perdita's words a concentrated
+consideration for a few moments and then nodded two or three times,
+brief, quick, clean-cut little nods.</p>
+
+<p>"Great!" she said succinctly. Then her mouth curled again, the twinkles,
+like splintered diamonds, came back to her eyes. She flew across the
+room and threw her arms about Perdita, enveloping her in a momentary and
+rose-scented embrace. Her enthusiasm was unrestrained. "The
+advertisement is above rubies," she cried. "No wonder you are such a
+success."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that is no credit to me," replied Dita carelessly. "I have a sort
+of sixth sense about clothes, you know. It is my one gift. I know the
+moment I put eyes on any one exactly how she, it is always she, of
+course, ought to look. I see colors when I look at people. Women often
+say to me, 'Oh, I can not wear this or that color,' when it is just the
+one thing they should wear, it is their mental correspondence."</p>
+
+<p>"And how are you going to dress me?" asked Fuschia with intense
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Principally in gold and silver," Dita answered without hesitation. "You
+have on the right thing now. Most designers would put you in black,
+because you are so very fair. They would try to make you striking by
+force of contrast, but not I. You see very few women of your coloring
+could stand the dazzle of gold and silver. It would completely eclipse
+them; but you are mentally dazzling. Your personality is strong enough
+to reduce anything you wear to its proper place. One must take all those
+things into account in designing, you know. Now you are quicksilver,
+sunlight, glimmer of day on speeding waters, and we must accentuate that
+fact; not ignore it and slur it over."</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds fascinating," said Fuschia. "How sweet of you to do this for
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"For myself, you mean." Perdita rose. "You'll do, my dear. You're new,
+you're different. New York will be yours whether you can act or not."</p>
+
+<p>A flame went over Fuschia's face and seemed to pass as swiftly as it had
+come; but instead, it remained, focused in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I can act," she said briefly, "and, look here, New York may accept me
+on the magnificent advertising I've had and will continue to have; or
+New York may accept me on the strength of my wonderful gowns designed by
+Perdita Hepworth. That's all right, that's as it should be. But I'm
+going to make New York forget my press notices, and your gowns and
+Fuschia Fleming, and I'm going to make it sit tight and still in its
+boxes and orchestra chairs and balcony seats and laugh and cry with the
+heroine on the stage who shall be the realest thing on earth to them for
+the time. That's the game for me, Mrs. Hepworth. That's all the game I
+care a hang about."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 45%;" />
+
+<p>"Maudie," said Perdita to Miss Carmine, an hour or two later, "I have
+just secured a new commission, a big one."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asked Maud with interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Hepworth and Carmine are to design the costumes that Miss Fuschia
+Fleming will wear in the repertoire of society dramas in which she will
+appear after two weeks of Shakespearean rôles. Paula Tangueray, Mrs.
+Dane, you know the lot of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Perdita! The cheek of her. To make such a request under the
+circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Maudie! The cheek of <i>me</i>," mocked Dita softly.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" astonishment was beyond all bounds now. "You!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Did you fancy&mdash;" there were those deep vibrations in Dita's voice
+which always bespoke some strong emotion, "that I was going to endure
+the spectacle of Miss Fleming triumphant 'in our midst,' and every one
+watching to see how I would take it, and predicting that only one course
+remained open for me and that was with dignity to ignore the incident?
+Not so. The world will see, and this, amusingly enough, happens to be a
+fact, that Miss Fleming and Mrs. Hepworth are excellent friends, that
+Mrs. Hepworth is one of Miss Fleming's warmest admirers, and that she,
+still speaking of myself, has assisted in Miss Fleming's unparalleled
+success in New York by designing for her some of the most wonderful
+costumes ever seen on the stage."</p>
+
+<p>"Unparalleled success!" scoffed Maud. "It is rather early to predict
+that. New York is like a cat. You never know which way it will jump."</p>
+
+<p>"It will jump Fuschia Fleming's way," replied Dita confidently. "You
+haven't met her."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she so beautiful then? As beautiful as you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no," Perdita was smoothing out her gloves on her knee. She shook
+her head decidedly. "Nothing like. She isn't beautiful at all. She's
+just a slender creature with rather colorless <i>blonde cendre</i> hair and
+blue eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," Maud was plainly puzzled. "Then what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>But Perdita only smiled. "Have you and Wallace made up yet?" she asked
+with what appeared to the other woman striking irrelevance.
+"Impertinent, I know; but there's a reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"No-o-o," said Maud reluctantly and evidently wondering if Dita had
+suddenly lost her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Then do so at once," advised her business associate. "Do so before he
+meets Fuschia Fleming."</p>
+
+<p>"From what you say." Miss Carmine's chin was high and haughty. "I see no
+cause for alarm."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" Perdita tapped the table with her finger-tips, still inscrutably
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Maud rarely permitted herself to become angry, but she did so now. She
+had never imagined that Perdita could be so aggravating. "Just because
+Cresswell lost his head about her, you think&mdash;" she flashed out.</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't," cried Perdita not with bravado, but with a confidence which
+Maud realized with surprise was genuine. "I hadn't been with her three
+minutes before I knew that. But take my advice," again her voice fell to
+that teasing note. "If you really love Wallace make up your differences
+with him to-day, to-day, before he, a playwright, meets the actress.
+Then get a new steel chain, one that he can't chew through, and fasten
+it securely to his collar."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>HE CALLS ON HIS WIFE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Early in April Hepworth returned to New York. It was a gentle, smiling
+April, inclining more to laughter than to tears and striving to
+obliterate the memories of March. He arrived one evening and wasted no
+time in communicating with Perdita. The next day in fact was marked by
+the passage of notes between them, severely businesslike, and yet models
+of courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>The result of these diplomatic negotiations was that Mr. Cresswell
+Hepworth, at a suitable hour the following morning, wended his way to
+his wife's business establishment.</p>
+
+<p>It was a deliciously balmy morning, the rare sort of a day that slips in
+now and then between April showers and sets one dreaming of the glory of
+the spring in the silent woody places. The great, roaring canyons of
+brick and stone floated in a silvery, sparkling mist, and in that
+atmospheric alembic dreary perspectives assumed an unsubstantial and
+fairy-like beauty. The little leaves on the trees fluttered in the soft
+breeze and were so young, so green, so gay that they lifted the heart
+like tiny wings of joy.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of himself there was the hint of a smile about the corners of
+Hepworth's mouth and this deepened and deepened until as he rang the
+bell of his wife's door, he suddenly became conscious of it, and
+carefully suppressed it.</p>
+
+<p>The sphinx, past mistress of inscrutability of expression, would have
+paid him the tribute of a flicker of admiration as he entered the
+reception-room. It was without a suggestion of curiosity or even
+interest in his eyes that he glanced absently about him; perhaps the
+long droop of the lids at the corners, which appeared to accentuate his
+rather weary and listless gaze, was more marked than usual, but this was
+always so when he was making mental notes and registering his
+observations with the rapidity and accuracy of a ticker.</p>
+
+<p>He awaited Perdita in her reception-room, that charming apartment, and
+here, in view of certain events which occurred later, it would be well
+to give the plan of the first floor.</p>
+
+<p>This room opened from the hall and ran the length of the house with
+windows at the front looking out upon the street while those in the rear
+opened upon a strip of garden. There was another door at the lower end
+of the room, which, with the long room, formed an ell, and terminated
+the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Dita kept Hepworth waiting a bare moment. Her approach was unkindly
+noiseless, but nevertheless he heard her, and was on his feet, his eyes
+meeting hers full as she appeared in the doorway. The conventional
+banalities of greeting were gone through with ease on his part, grace on
+hers.</p>
+
+<p>Merciful banalities! They gave him time to consider the change in her, a
+change which was to him sufficiently striking almost to have trapped him
+into an expressed surprise, and this change was so subtle that he
+wondered that it should yet be so apparent. It was not a matter of
+outward appearance, that remained the same in effect. It was a mental
+change so animating and vital that Cresswell felt all former estimates
+of her crumble. Had she always been so, and had he never really seen her
+until now? Had time and absence in some way cleared his obscured vision?
+He felt a momentary sense of confusion, a brief mental giddiness, and
+then he pulled himself together. The first impression was the correct
+one. She had changed, and thereby had gained, gained tremendously in
+poise.</p>
+
+<p>But there was no time now in which to analyze impressions.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is the magic parlor where all the ugly women are transformed
+into beauties." He looked about him as if he had not thought to glance
+at her surroundings before. "The presence of mere man here seems rather
+profane, do you not think so? Ah, well, my stay is brief. You have
+proved, haven't you, that it is not an impossibility after all, to paint
+the lily and gild refined gold?"</p>
+
+<p>"So few women have any taste," she said carelessly. "And oh, their
+houses! You should see them when I go over their hideous houses like a
+devouring flame and ruthlessly order out all their dreadful junk. And
+the most awful objects are always the most precious in their eyes. I
+feel so sorry for them. I have always a guilty sense of being a naughty
+boy robbing a bird's nest, and the poor mother birds stand around and
+flap their wings and hop and shriek. It's very mournful, but they
+needn't have me if they don't want me."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "And Maud? Is she, too, well and happy?"</p>
+
+<p>Dita lifted her hands and eyes. "That is a very tame way of describing
+her. Her gowns are dreams this spring, she is considered almost a
+beauty; people, you see, are gradually forgetting that she was ever
+'that plain Maud Carmine who plays nicely,' and Wallace Martin and
+herself are engaged to be married." A faint, amused smile crept around
+her mouth at this announcement.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth looked up with sudden interest. "Indeed! Well, that might have
+been expected, I dare say, but will it not rather seriously interfere
+with the business?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she shook her head. "No, I think not, Maud has no intention of
+quitting. Wallace's plays are more or less problematical and Maud has
+invested a good deal of her money in this. It is really paying
+remarkably well, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Dita," his voice was low, and he could not conceal the chagrin, the
+touch of pain in it. "Why have you never touched a cent of your own
+money, since my departure? I only learned a few days ago that you had
+not. I can not begin to tell you how it made me feel. It not only
+distressed but deeply wounded me."</p>
+
+<p>She twisted a little in her chair. "It&mdash;it has never been necessary,"
+she said. "We began to make money at once. Really, Cresswell, Maud and I
+have prospered beyond our wildest dreams."</p>
+
+<p>"But suppose you had not. Is your prosperity the only reason you have
+not touched it? Would you have done so under any circumstances? That is
+what I have been asking myself for the past week, and am now asking
+you."</p>
+
+<p>She flushed uncertainly. "Ah," she said. "I can not answer you that. I
+can not tell. One never knows what one will do when the pinch comes."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled faintly. "I'll not put any more embarrassing questions to you,
+but confine myself to perfectly safe topics. You are looking very
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"I am well."</p>
+
+<p>"And happy? But there, that is hardly a safe topic, is it?"</p>
+
+<p>A sudden light came into her eyes, making them warm and softly bright.
+She smiled at him with a fresh, almost childlike enthusiasm. "Yes, I'm
+happy," she said, "happier than I've ever been in all my life. Why,
+Cresswell, it's been fun, fun. There's been lots of work, and lots of
+planning, but nevertheless, I've never enjoyed anything so much in my
+life. Often I go to bed at night tired out, but it's always with a
+comforting sense of satisfaction. It's all so varied and interesting,
+you know, but it isn't that that makes me happy." She clasped her hands
+and looked up at him with an unconscious appeal for sympathy and
+understanding in her eyes. "It's better than that, better than anything
+else. It's meant success, think of it, success. Not a horrid, little
+picayune one either, but a nice, big one."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned forward and looked at her curiously as if he really saw her
+for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Dita," he exclaimed, "has it meant so much to you as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, yes." There was ardor, fervor in her answering exclamation. "I
+can not tell you how much. I believe I was really morbid on the subject.
+I believed in failure as a real atmosphere always encompassing me. I had
+all manner of superstitions, beliefs about it. I believed that with all
+my strength and youth and energy, I was yet doomed by fate to a tomb of
+inaction. I seemed so futile, so ineffective. With a restless, active
+brain I accomplished nothing. You see that was such a dreadful
+experience, my attempt to earn my living before I married you, and I was
+so ignorant and inexperienced of every condition of life in which I
+found myself, that it prevented me from striking out boldly, from
+believing in myself. So I made the fatal mistake of beginning small, and
+began to paint all those wretched little articles, and it wasn't my
+<i>métier</i> at all, Cresswell, really it wasn't, so, naturally, I failed.
+And," as if it had suddenly occurred to her, "I have found it so
+interesting to dress Miss Fleming. Designing her costumes has been
+fascinating."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a very wonderful and a very clever thing of you to do,
+Perdita." There was a tone in his voice she did not understand. She
+began to praise Fuschia and he leaned back in his chair listening. She
+could see the mere gleam of his eyes between his almost closed lids. She
+wondered if he had really heard one word she had said. In reality he was
+bestowing upon her such attention and study as he had never dreamed of
+giving her before. She felt, however, in spite of his apparent
+indifference, that he was so far in sympathy with her, that she was
+impelled in spite of herself to continue her confidences.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Cresswell, it's a horrible thing to be considered a
+beauty. Oh, you may laugh," he could not help his mirth. "I know beauty
+is supposed to be the heart's desire of every woman; but there are many
+drawbacks. Every one, without exception, takes it for granted that you
+are a fool. Your sense is always considered in reverse ratio to your
+good looks, and then, it's such an uncertain thing. Just when you need
+it most to console you for the disappointments and disillusions of life,
+it departs, and horrid things, wrinkles and gray hairs, take its place."</p>
+
+<p>"Perdita! What an absurd creature you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Cresswell," her tone was pensive. "You have always been successful.
+You can not imagine what failure feels like, that deadening, hopeless
+sensation." She was vehement enough now.</p>
+
+<p>"Can I not?" At last he lifted his drooping lids and looked straight at
+her. "My dear Dita, I can give you cards and spades on every emotion of
+failure you have ever felt. I recall one case in particular, where I
+failed so conspicuously and brilliantly, that I am overcome with
+surprise at my own stupidity every time I think of it. But as you have
+been talking that case has reverted again and again to my mind, and it
+has struck me that there is still a chance that I pursued the wrong
+tactics."</p>
+
+<p>She drew back wounded. He had then, as she had once or twice suspected,
+not been listening to a word she said, and how his cold face had glowed
+at the mere thought of retrieving a business blunder.</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth got up and began walking about the room. "And Gresham, what of
+him?" he asked presently, breaking the silence which had fallen between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"He is quite well, I believe," she was furious at the conscious note
+which crept into her voice, at the scarlet which flew to her cheek, but
+one thing she had never been able to endure and that was any evidence of
+cowardice in herself. She lifted her eyes bravely to his and held them
+there. "He has been in town since January," she said. "I have seen him
+very often."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, painting as brilliantly as ever, I dare say? A genius, Eugene!
+Unquestionably."</p>
+
+<p>Again silence fell between them, and lasted until she broke it with the
+constrained question: "Are you&mdash;are you going to be here for some time
+now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shall have to be in London more or less during the summer, but I
+have some matters which must be attended to first. By the way," as if
+struck by a sudden thought, "what are your plans for the summer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have made none. I have not even thought of such things yet. I dare
+say I shall go somewhere for a bit of a change, but," with a smile,
+"business is so very brisk."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed and took one or two more turns up and down the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Dita, do you remember that I told you once that you were a remarkably
+clever woman? Well, I merely wish to call that fact to your attention,
+and reiterate my statement. Oh, I must tell you, I have a new amulet, a
+wonder. I will tell you the history of it when you have more time. You
+have the case in your keeping have you not? And the tray with the one
+empty space?"</p>
+
+<p>The blood rushed to her face. "I have the case," she said coldly. "It is
+locked in my safe here. Do you wish it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he shook his head. "Wait until I bring the amulet. May I bring it
+late Wednesday afternoon? And why not dine with me then? Say you will,
+Dita. Give the world something to talk of, something to puzzle over."
+She had never seen him so eager.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated a bare second. "I will. Yes, I will be very glad to," but
+lifting her eyes to his: "Are you so sure that one of those amulet trays
+has an empty space?"</p>
+
+<p>"It had when I last saw it." His voice was unreadable.</p>
+
+<p>"But that is months ago; perhaps you will think differently when you see
+it Wednesday evening."</p>
+
+<p>There was a flash over his face, which vanished as quickly as it had
+appeared. He drew nearer to her as if about to speak, then apparently
+reconsidered the intention. "I really must not keep you longer," he
+picked up his hat. "Of course, there are a number of matters to be
+discussed, but they can wait. We will reserve them for Wednesday
+evening. Good-by." He held out his hand. She placed hers in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," she returned.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MAGIC WORD</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Maud," said Dita, walking in upon that young woman, a package of
+letters in her hand, "a lot of things are happening. Here is a letter,
+among other things, from Mrs. Wilstead. She says that she is just back
+from California, and that she needs stacks and stacks of new clothes,
+and wants our designs. It will be fun dressing her. She is so extremely
+good looking."</p>
+
+<p>Maud stirred restlessly, frowned, bit her lip, but did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Just back from California," went on Dita. "I wonder&mdash;I wonder, Maud, if
+she could possibly have come on with Cresswell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very probably," said Maud. "In fact, I think nothing could be more
+likely."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what do you mean by speaking so mysteriously?" Dita widened her
+eyes. "Suppose they had? Nothing, after all, could be more natural."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, I suppose." Maud was trying hard to be non-committal. "But let
+her go to some one else. If we take any more people, we shan't get away
+this summer. We have more on our hands now than we can manage. Yes, let
+her go to some one else."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Maud," Dita hesitated, "I really think we should refuse some one
+else and take her. She is an old friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Old fiddlesticks!" cried Maud impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Maud! What is the matter with you? A touch of spring fever? Really, I
+think we must consider her."</p>
+
+<p>"But if I ask you not, Dita"&mdash;there were almost tears in Maud's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"But why should you ask me not? This is too bewildering."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well," Maud spoke now with the calmness of despair, "since you
+force me to tell you, I ask you not because Mrs. Wilstead has been
+constantly with Mr. Hepworth in the West this winter, and the current
+gossip is that he is only waiting for a divorce to be arranged between
+you and himself, to marry her."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a moment on Dita's part. Her eyes were downcast,
+mechanically she sorted the letters in her hand. "Then what of the talk
+about Fuschia Fleming and himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they say that she took a back seat when Alice Wilstead appeared on
+the scene. But really, Dita, this move on Alice's part makes me furious.
+The idea of her being guilty of such wretchedly bad taste. I have always
+liked her, been really fond of her, in fact, but this crass exhibition
+of bad breeding disgusts me. I dare say that she doesn't care so long as
+she gets results; that is, the benefit of your taste and skill to
+enhance her waning beauty; but look at the position it is going to place
+you in, Dita. For number one to design the trousseau for number two is
+really too absurd. It simply goes beyond all belief. Dita, you must,
+indeed you must, write her the curtest, coldest of polite notes and tell
+her that we are entirely too busy to consider her."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. I'll humor you so far," returned Perdita. "What is it?"
+turning to a maid who entered with a visiting card. "Ah, Eugene! I asked
+him to come this morning. I particularly wanted to see him and I don't
+want you present. There, don't get that stony look of despair on your
+face, Maudie; think how good I have been all winter, only seeing Eugene
+once in a blue moon, and then in your company."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want you to keep on being good," pleaded Maud; "especially now."</p>
+
+<p>"I am gooder than you can possibly imagine," laughed Perdita, "but, all
+the same, I do not wish you tagging about this morning." She smiled
+teasingly at her puzzled business partner as she left the room.</p>
+
+<p>She went down to meet Eugene in the same room at the same hour she had
+talked with her husband the day before.</p>
+
+<p>But Eugene was not one to endure for one moment a situation dominated by
+the shadowy third person. No woman should gaze at him with the
+remembrance of yesterday in her eyes, the smile of wistful reminiscence
+on her lips. An hour with him must be a dazzling and kaleidoscopic
+episode. He would hold it in his hand, and at the bidding of his will,
+the moments, like bits of colored glass, should revolve and melt and
+mingle&mdash;rainbow arabesques on the background of Time.</p>
+
+<p>"Your meditations, remembrances and regrets for your oratories, my
+dear," his challenging eyes seemed to say, "but with me you live, you
+laugh, you thrill responsive to the harp of life; the yesterdays
+forgotten, the to-morrows unborn."</p>
+
+<p>"Dita!" he caught her hands in his as she entered. His eyes were
+shining, his head thrown back. He was more vivid than the spring
+sunshine which fell through the open windows.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene! You look as if you had just received some wonderful new
+commission."</p>
+
+<p>"So I have, a commission to love you. That is right, blush. Dita, why do
+you not always wear rose color? But no, don't listen to me. If it were
+blue or green, I would be making the same request. Dearest, my eyes
+drink in, drink up your loveliness. You never, never were so beautiful
+as you are this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene, you are mad; too foolish for anything. What is the matter with
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mad doesn't half express it. May I smoke?" He took her consent for
+granted, for he was already rolling cigarettes in his deft, supple
+fingers. "Yes? No? I am delirious with joy. Hepworth is back as, of
+course, you know. That can only mean one thing; every one says that just
+as soon as a divorce can be decently arranged, he and Alice Wilstead
+will be married. The verdict of the world is that he was so angry at
+your going into business that he flung off to the West. It was the most
+spectacular of your many caprices and it proved the last straw for him.
+Blessed last straw!" lifting his eyes devoutly. "And then Alice Wilstead
+cleverly appeared on the scene and the consoling offices of friendship
+did the trick."</p>
+
+<p>"Three months ago it was Fuschia Fleming, according to gossip." Her eyes
+were downcast, her tone expressionless.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that," he blew rings of smoke lightly through the air and followed
+them with gay eyes; "that is a part of the game. That was making
+evidence for you. It is all arranged that I am to paint her portrait,
+you know. I have not met her yet, either." He threw his cigarette
+through the window. "Dita, Dita, how can you sit there so cool and
+still? When I think that you are actually on the very eve of freedom, I
+become delirious with joy."</p>
+
+<p>"So sure of the winning, Eugene?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dita!" His face clouded, there was a world of reproach in his voice.
+"That is a terrible trait in your character, that teasing desire of
+yours always to fling a little dash of cold water on one's mounting
+enthusiasms."</p>
+
+<p>"There is another dash coming," she laughed. "I want my amulet, and I
+want it at once, to-day. I know," anticipating his protestations, "that
+you returned it to me the afternoon Hepworth left for the West, and I
+would not see you to receive it in person. Then, my mind was so
+perturbed and occupied that I didn't think of it again before you
+sailed, and since your return," a little smile creeping about her mouth,
+"I haven't thought about it either; but now that the matter has come up
+between us, please see that I have it to-day, Eugene."</p>
+
+<p>He had looked slightly annoyed while she was speaking, but now he bent
+toward her with his most charming manner, his most winning smile. "You
+know my greatest weakness, Dita? I try to overcome it, really I do," in
+laughing excuse, "but in spite of will or reason those superstitions of
+mine persist. Alas! They do." He admitted it as a naughty little boy
+might admit a passion for stealing jam. "And I have tremendous faith in
+that old charm of yours." He picked up another cigarette from his
+skilfully rolled little heap, placed as orderly on the table beside him
+as if they were his paint brushes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since I have had it," he went on, "the luck of the high gods has
+been mine. Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin still clamoring to
+have their portraits painted. The critics amiable and almost
+intelligent, money pouring into my coffers and pouring out faster than
+it comes in&mdash;I wish there were such a thing as a money-tight purse&mdash;and
+best of all, ah, best of all, the love of my heart so near, so near."
+His eyes held the warm glow which changed, irradiated them. "The star of
+my life comes slipping, wavering through the spaces of the sky and down
+the purple pathways of heaven to my arms." He leaned forward quickly
+and almost enfolded her.</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene!" She stood haughty and tall before him. "You assume entirely
+too much. You have from the beginning. More, much more, than I have ever
+given you any reason to assume. According to the tradition the amulet
+can only bring one luck when it is given with the heart's love; and I
+never gave it to you, Eugene, never. You laughingly filched it one day
+when I took it off the chain about my neck, that you might look at it
+more closely. And you are so sure, so sure of me, when I am anything but
+sure of myself. I have never deceived you as to the state of my
+feelings. How would that have been possible when I am still so doubtful
+myself? Ah, those doubts!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are nothing, dearest, nothing. I shall brush them away as I brush
+cobwebs." He put his hands upon her shoulders and stood gazing deeply
+into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she shook her head, and, at the same time, stepped away from him,
+"I am no more sure that I love you than I was six months ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Never any more sure?" His voice deep and rich as a low-toned bell.</p>
+
+<p>Her black eyelashes lay long on her cheek, where the crimson, the hue of
+a jacqueminot rose petal, was spreading. "There are moments," she
+admitted, "times when I am with you that I believe that the magic word
+has been spoken and that my heart has blossomed in purple and red, that
+I truly love you, but," she shook her head sighingly, "the moment I am
+away from you, I know that that is not so; that you haven't said the
+magic word yet, 'Gene."</p>
+
+<p>"But I know it, that magic word," he whispered, "and I shall awake you,
+just as the Prince did the Sleeping Beauty. Not with a word at all,
+dear, but with a kiss." He bent forward, but she had slipped away from
+him, and before he knew it had put almost the length of the room between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;you must not talk so to me now, 'Gene," the words were barely
+breathed, "and," with a desperate clutch at a safe topic, "my amulet. I
+must have it by to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>There was a flash like fire in Gresham's eyes. A quick scowling change
+darkened his whole face. He picked up the five or six beautifully
+rolled cigarettes which yet remained of his neat heap and tossed them
+out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>"I see it," he cried harshly. "You probably have Hepworth's box of
+amulets in your keeping. You wish to return it to him, and show him when
+you do so that your old charm is safe in its place. Oh, I can see the
+whole scene. He will courteously hand it to you and say, 'Your property,
+I believe, my dear Perdita.' I can hear his frigid, formal utterance.
+And you will accept it with that grand, ancestral manner of yours,
+murmuring, 'Thank you, yes, I regret that I can not ask you to accept it
+as a small contribution to your collection, but that being out of the
+question on account of certain traditions which adhere to it, I feel
+that I must continue to hold it in my possession.' Why not be honest,
+Dita, and tell him that you have given it to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eugene, you are impossible. You go entirely too far." There was no
+mistaking the displeasure in her voice, and his immediate recognition
+that it was cold, not hot anger, brought him to himself at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Flower of magnolia!" his voice fell to all those exquisite and
+heart-touching modulations of which he was master. "I was only teasing.
+Forgive me. You shall have your bit of glass early to-morrow morning.
+And until I see you again I shall dream only of the wonderful, beautiful
+years we shall have together. We shall wander about the world, here,
+there and everywhere, and I shall paint the glory and color of the
+universe and you, always you, Perdita, the focus, the center, the heart
+of all beauty."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dita had barely finished her breakfast the next morning when the message
+was brought to her that a lady who refused to give her name but insisted
+on seeing her at once upon important business awaited her in the
+reception-room.</p>
+
+<p>Dita hesitated a moment, debating whether or not to rebuke the maid, who
+must have yielded to the lure of gold so readily to forget her orders,
+and send back a peremptory request for the lady's name and her business,
+or whether to yield to her natural and feminine curiosity and grant an
+interview to this visitor who appeared so desirous of maintaining an
+incognito.</p>
+
+<p>This brief hesitation proved a loss, however, to the waiting lady, whose
+method of being announced showed that she hoped to take Perdita by
+surprise, for Maud Carmine entered at the moment and with some show of
+indignation in both voice and expression informed Dita that Mrs.
+Wilstead was the person guilty of strategic entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Such impertinence!" breathed Maud. "Scrawl a note in pencil, Dita, to
+the effect that it will be impossible for Mrs. Hepworth to see Mrs.
+Wilstead. That will show her that her ruse and her bribes have been
+quite unsuccessful."</p>
+
+<p>In her ardor for Mrs. Wilstead's demolition Maud had forgotten that the
+last thing Dita could endure was dictation. Now, no sooner had the words
+of admonition left her lips than, to her chagrin, she saw Dita's chin
+lifted, Dita's nostrils quiver, Dita's shoulders flung back ever so
+slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall see her." Mrs. Hepworth was on her feet, her voice
+cool, firm, pleasant, with just that little warning vibration which
+always meant danger. "You may tell Mrs. Wilstead that I will see her
+immediately." Her eyes scorched the maid, who hastened to obey, with the
+impression of an X-ray having been turned on her immaculate white waist,
+and exposing with startling vividness the crisp, green bill hastily
+thrust within.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Maudie," Perdita touched her on the shoulder in passing. "Do not
+look so downcast. Why do you wish to deprive me of a little legitimate
+amusement?"</p>
+
+<p>Maud, strong now in tardy wisdom, said nothing, and Perdita's light,
+quick step might be heard a moment later descending the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Alice Wilstead turned hastily from her contemplation of the small green
+yard without the window.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Perdita!" She came forward with Dita's note of the day before
+in her hand. "I just received this in the morning's mail, and I lost no
+time in getting here, I assure you, and making the attempt to see you by
+hook or crook. I know it's outrageous of me, but I don't understand, and
+I want to understand. Why is it, my dear, that you have refused to take
+me? Surely I'm not a hopeless case." She smiled ingratiatingly, and Dita
+was bound to admit that never had she appeared more attractive. Her
+piquant face was radiant with happiness, the whole effect of her was of
+a sort of buoyant joyousness.</p>
+
+<p>Dita's chin was just half an inch higher than when she had left Maud,
+her smile was sweet and cold and faint, as remote as if it had been
+bestowed upon a passing acquaintance in Mars, and she remained standing.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wilstead's mental recoil was but momentary. Her cause was good, her
+motives pure, her courage high. Above everything, she desired the
+benefits of Perdita Hepworth's genius. They were on sale, to the high
+bidders, and she did not purpose to be excluded merely because it was to
+be supposed that she would espouse the cause of her old friend,
+Cresswell Hepworth, in the event of open differences between himself and
+his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret, Mrs. Wilstead," Dita's voice matched her smile, "that it will
+be quite impossible for us to take any one else now. The summer is
+almost upon us, you see."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wilstead should not be blamed for not seeing. April, as wind and
+sky portended, was about to burst, not into tears, but into a snowstorm.
+Alice shivered in her furs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, my dear child," she begged, "do have some mercy on me. Here am
+I getting my trousseau. Oh, no wonder you start. I've always said that
+I never, never either would or could do anything so idiotic as to get
+married again, and yet here I am not only considering it, but actually
+committed to a wedding-day. And that is to be so appallingly soon. I
+tried and tried to put it off a little longer, but he is so impatient."</p>
+
+<p>Dita's mouth had frozen, and the haughty and incredulous gaze which she
+cast for a brief, indignant moment on Alice would have turned one less
+bubblingly gay into a pillar of salt. This interview seemed incredible.
+She had always regarded Alice Wilstead as an especially well-bred woman,
+but this greed to attain an object at the sacrifice of her self-respect,
+even decency of feeling, and regardless of the position in which she
+would place the woman with whom she pleaded, was, to Dita, shocking,
+insulting, unforgivable. While she waited the fraction of a second to
+command her voice, Alice spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"But you seem angry." She was obviously both hurt and bewildered. "What
+have I done? Surely, you will not fail me now at this most crucial
+moment of my life. Why, consider, I am going to marry a man five years
+younger than myself."</p>
+
+<p>Dita caught at a chair, and sat down, the room seemed to whirl about
+her, she pressed her hand to her brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Alice Wilstead," she said, "what on earth do <i>you</i> mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean what I say," returned Alice with a touch of acerbity. "I am
+going to be married. What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"But to whom, to whom?" Dita was all impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"To whom? Why, to Hayward Preston, of course. One of your husband's
+business associates in the West. Surely you knew that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I had Maud by the throat," muttered Dita irrelevantly.</p>
+
+<p>It was twenty minutes later when Maud put her shocked and disgusted head
+within the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Dita," coldly surveying the two enthusiasts before her, who sat
+together in jocund amity, "Mrs. Hewston is out here in a state of great
+perturbation. Do you wish&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But she got no further, for Mrs. Hewston, in the superiority of her
+greater bulk, pushed Maud into the room before her and now stood, the
+picture of pink and white and plump tragedy, on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Alice, I am glad to find you here," she wailed, advancing further
+into the room, while Maud discreetly closed the door, not upon herself,
+oh, no, but behind both of them. "You are always such a support." She
+sank into the chair Dita pushed toward her. "It's Willoughby, of
+course." She drew her handkerchief from her bag and mopped her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Perdita Hepworth," she abandoned her spineless attitude and sat
+upright, speaking with vehemence. "I am more ashamed of being here than
+I can ever make you understand. But Willoughby!" There was resignation
+in her uplifted eyes, acidity in the purse of her mouth. "He is the
+dearest, most lovable fellow in the world," she looked at her listeners
+suspiciously, but meeting no correction, permitted her irritation a
+natural outlet, "but he is the most obstinate, stupid mule the Lord ever
+made."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it now, dear?" asked Alice sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"This, and it's quite enough," returned Mrs. Hewston bitterly.
+"Cresswell Hepworth, your husband," accusingly to Dita, "and may Heaven
+forgive him, for I never can! dined with us last night and just before
+he left, Willoughby got to asking him about his plans and Cresswell was
+telling him that he was due in London before long. 'But how much longer
+will you be in New York?' asked Willoughby, and Cresswell said, with a
+queer little smile, 'I can't quite say. There are a number of things to
+be looked after, among others a duel I may have to fight.'"</p>
+
+<p>The women looked at each other in pale horror. Dita herself ghastly,
+half rose from her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"I told Willoughby," sobbed Mrs. Hewston, "that it was just one of
+Cresswell's jokes. You know that odd, dry humor he sometimes shows,
+but," despairingly, "you also know Willoughby. He tore and snorted and
+raved and routed all night long. I would rather have had a hippopotamus
+in my room. And he excoriated you, Perdita. Called her the most dreadful
+names, really," this to Alice and Maud, confidentially and quite as if
+Dita were not present. "He said that Cresswell's life was ruined
+because of the caprices of an ungodly, wanton girl. Yes, Dita, I don't
+blame you for being angry, but it was worse than that, too. You see,
+he's got the idea firmly into his head that Cresswell is going to fight
+a duel with Eugene Gresham and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For goodness sake, let us keep our common sense," said Mrs. Wilstead,
+laying a detaining hand on Dita's shoulder, noting that Mrs. Hepworth's
+eyes were turned longingly toward the telephone. "You know perfectly
+well, Isabel, you know, Maud, and you, also, Dita, that Cresswell
+Hepworth does not for one moment contemplate anything so crazy. Nothing
+could induce him to put either himself or you, Dita, into such a
+position. Such a thing would be entirely against his nature. He would
+regard it as farcical melodrama, turn from it even in thought with
+infinite contempt and scorn. The idea of Willoughby thinking such a
+thing. Just like him. Meddlesome idiot. Ah, I don't care, Isabel, you
+know he is one. I wish I had him here now."</p>
+
+<p>"He's out there in the motor," wept his wife. "He was afraid I wouldn't
+come and tell Perdita unless he came with me. But, Alice, you shan't
+speak of him so, he's the best&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He's still there," interrupted Maud, who had gone to peer from the
+window at Mrs. Hewston's announcement that this watch-dog of Dita's
+morals waited without, "with his head out of the window looking up at
+the house. And, oh, Heavens!" falling back against the lintel, "here is
+Eugene Gresham coming up the steps, and Mr. Hewston is glaring at him
+until his eyes are standing out of his head. He is purple in the face.
+Now he is speaking to the chauffeur. Why, they are off, gone like the
+wind."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Hewston fell back limply in her chair. She seemed incapable of
+speech for a moment. "Alice," she said at last, in awe-stricken tones,
+"he has gone to tell Cress that Eugene Gresham is here."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of it?" snapped Mrs. Wilstead. "Cresswell will only laugh at
+him and smooth him down. You know that."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," breathed Mrs. Hewston. "He seems to amuse Cresswell. Fancy.
+But then," more understandingly, "he doesn't have to live with him."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>HEPWORTH MISUNDERSTANDS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Dita's fears calmed by Mrs. Wilstead's essentially common-sense point of
+view, her confidence was further restored by Eugene's evident ignorance
+of any plots and plans on Mr. Cresswell Hepworth's part of bringing this
+triangular situation, involving himself, his wife and the other man, to
+a fiction-hallowed and moss-grown conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>It was therefore without particular apprehension, at any rate
+apprehensions of the kind nourished by Mr. Hewston, that she dressed for
+the dinner <i>en tęte-ŕ-tęte</i> with her husband. It was rather with a sense
+of mounting interest, even excitement.</p>
+
+<p>She wavered in her choice of a gown, scanning with hypercritical eye a
+dozen or more. White savored of a school-girl simplicity and disarmed
+her if she chose to be subtle. Blue was unbecoming; sufficient taboo.
+"Green's forsaken and yellow's forsworn," she murmured ruefully. Black
+remained, thin, soft-falling gauze, distinguished, distinctive,
+exquisite in design and effect; above its shadow rose her neck of cream,
+her hair was the dusk shadow of copper, her eyes were darkly brilliant.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated at jewels. He had given her so many. Which would go best
+with her gown? Then she turned away from even the mental contemplation
+of them with a feeling of distaste. She could not, even to please him,
+wear his jewels when he and she were almost strangers, when but the
+details of their final parting remained to be settled. And yet would it
+not look a bit odd to appear without any ornaments whatever?</p>
+
+<p>She considered the matter a moment, and then smiling a little, she
+opened the box which Gresham had given into her hands that morning, and
+which lay upon her dressing-table.</p>
+
+<p>She turned over this old trinket in her hand, and gazed at it, forgetful
+of the passing time. How impressive Eugene had been when he had returned
+it to her!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>She gazed at the old trinket.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>"I am only lending it to you, remember that, for you will give it to me
+with your heart's love, Dita, and soon."</p>
+
+<p>She was roused from her reverie by the sound of a motor stopping
+without. Her maid waited to place a black and gold wrap about her
+shoulders. "One moment," said Dita. Quickly she slipped the amulet on a
+thin, old-fashioned gold chain and fastened it about her throat. Then
+she went downstairs to greet her husband.</p>
+
+<p>Commonplaces of the most conventional and banal order they talked.
+Nothing else on the drive to the restaurant, nothing else on first
+taking their seats at the table on one side of the great garish room.
+There were many curious eyes on them, necks craned, the incredulous
+whisper ran:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth actually together! What does it mean!"</p>
+
+<p>The stereotyped babbling went on intermittently, until dinner had been
+ordered and the earlier courses come and gone, and then Dita suddenly
+awoke to the fact that her husband had taken the conversation into his
+own hands and was actually talking to her. Oh, of course, he had often
+talked to her before, arranged new amusements for her, discussed what
+jewels she would like, what plays she would care to see, what people
+interested her most, what journey she would enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>But now, she almost caught her breath at the surprise of it, he was
+talking to her as if she were a man, or at least an intelligent human
+being and not just merely&mdash;a pretty woman.</p>
+
+<p>He was talking straight ahead, discussing business matters, several
+interesting problems which had come up in his affairs during his recent
+western sojourn. He did not pause to explain anything to her, quite took
+it for granted that she would understand. He did not apparently stop to
+consider whether she was interested or amused, and that pleased her
+enormously. She began to ask questions, and he answered them fully, even
+pondering some of them carefully before replying. One he considered for
+a moment or so and then said: "Do you know, I had not thought of that
+before, that puts a new phase upon the whole situation." Her strand of
+rubies had never given Dita such a glow of pride and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, why have you never talked to me like this before?" she asked
+naďvely. "Think of all the stupid dinners we've eaten together when you
+treated me like a tiresome little girl who had to be continually amused,
+and I was one, too; as tongue-tied and missish as anything, because you
+took it for granted that I was."</p>
+
+<p>"No one could accuse you of being either tongue-tied or missish
+to-night. You are quite matronly in that black gown."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I love to hear about the big things that go on," she said
+enthusiastically, if irrelevantly, "but men will never talk to me about
+them. All my life, whenever I'd try really to talk sense to a man, he'd
+say, 'What wonderful eyes you have,' showing that he hadn't heard one
+word I'd been saying. They always seem to think that I expect them to
+tell me how lovely I am. It's the curse of the pretty woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, console yourself," he said carelessly. "There are prettier
+women in the world than you, quantities of them!"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;suppose so." Dita had rarely been so taken aback. She looked at
+him a moment like some insulted queen. His eyes, however, were
+discreetly downcast. "Oh, of course," she said as quickly as she could
+recover her breath, "of course," her laugh was forced and rang hollowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, don't let your beauty get on your nerves. The world is full of
+beautiful women. My new amulet&mdash;I told you that I had a new one, did I
+not?&mdash;was given me by one of the most beautiful women I ever saw. I have
+her picture somewhere. I must show it to you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cresswell Hepworth was entirely without design in his choice of
+topics. He had spoken of some of his great western enterprises because
+his mind had been more or less occupied with them during the day, and
+had been so surprised and pleased that these subjects had gained his
+wife's interests that he had continued the discussion of them. Again, in
+his seeming disparagement of her beauty, he had merely thought to
+console her for what she regarded as the constant belittling of her
+mental endowment, evidently a sore spot in her consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>Dita played with her fork a moment without answering his last remark.
+She had no right to feel either resentment or irritation. Her sense of
+justice assured her of that, but she suffered a twinge of both emotions,
+nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>"Wallace Martin tells me that good old Hewston made an awful scene when
+those distorted pictures of Fuschia Fleming and myself appeared in the
+paper." Hepworth laughed more heartily than usual.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do not mention that unspeakable old creature!" she cried
+petulantly. "Tell me of more interesting things."</p>
+
+<p>"Dita," he spoke to her more earnestly, more self-revealingly she felt
+than he had ever done before, "I am going to tell you something. When I
+went west last winter, it was not alone because I was called thither by
+various business affairs, but because, after thinking the matter all
+over, I definitely decided that the only thing for me to do was to
+relieve you of my presence. I was convinced that, although you might not
+be fully conscious of it, still in the depths of your heart you really
+loved Gresham. I was also convinced that I loved you infinitely, and
+that it was quite beyond my power to interest you. But since my return I
+find myself at sea. The moment I saw you I saw the difference in you,
+the change that made me revise my former crude, stupid estimates of you.
+I realize that you are the sort of woman who must have an object, a
+purpose in life, an expression; in fact, that you set little store by
+the beauty others praise extravagantly, because it has always been
+yours. You value it no more than one values the sun and wind. It is
+achievement that fascinates you, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, but I had failed, you know, and I was afraid to try again. I
+knew that you were doing big things, but you never would talk of them to
+me, and I thought that you considered me too stupid to understand them."</p>
+
+<p>"Dita, how blindly we have misunderstood each other. Is it too late?" He
+whispered the words as he put her wrap about her shoulders, his voice
+ardent, impassioned as she had never heard it.</p>
+
+<p>She cast one astonished, almost frightened glance upon him. Then, as in
+a daze, a dream, walked down the room, never seeing the admiring eyes
+that everywhere met her. She might have been in the desert, as far as
+they were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>As the door of the motor closed on them a panic of shyness seized her.
+"You, you spoke of your new amulet," she said, snatching at a topic.
+"Have you it with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But I do not know whether you can get a very good idea of it in
+these shifting lights."</p>
+
+<p>He took the case from his pocket and, lifting out the ornament, gave it
+into her hands. It was fashioned of half a dozen uncut diamonds in a
+setting of the most delicate and exquisite filigree.</p>
+
+<p>"Old Spanish, you see," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful!" she exclaimed, turning it over and looking at it more
+closely. But the attention she was bestowing upon it was a mere seeming.
+She was thinking, or rather attempting to think, but her heart was
+fluttering wildly, her whole impulsive nature seemed to impel her to the
+action she was meditating.</p>
+
+<p>"Cresswell," she lifted a face white as a snowdrop to his, "will you
+make an exchange with me? Will you give me this amulet and take mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perdita!" he cried, "you do not&mdash;" his voice broke.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do," she exclaimed, "it is not a wild whim, a caprice on my
+part. I have been thinking about it all day, ever since this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"This morning!" sharply; looking at her keenly, quickly. "Ah," with a
+long breath, "it was this morning that Hewston drove poor Isabel to your
+house to prevent the duel between Gresham and myself." He laughed, but
+it was dreary mirth. "Hewston is a most imaginative fellow. I have a
+railway deal on which I spoke of to him as a duel. And so, you were
+going to sacrifice yourself in order to make quite sure that I would
+spare Eugene. Oh, rest content, Perdita. He is quite safe from my
+poignard or pistol. Never fear."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to her that the satire in his voice bit into her soul. With a
+great gasp of relief she realized that the car had stopped before her
+door. "Oh, take your amulet," she cried, "since you will not have mine."
+She almost threw it at him.</p>
+
+<p>He thought that she was angry and sullen as she walked up the steps and
+into the house without a word to him, and with the barest inclination
+of the head. In reality, she was striving hard to control her sobs.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ITS ANCIENT CHARM</h3>
+
+
+<p>The hour which Dita had set for her appointment with Cresswell Hepworth
+was twelve the next morning, consequently she was not only surprised but
+perturbed when Eugene's name was brought to her a little after eleven.</p>
+
+<p>He looked haggard, she thought, as if he had not slept, but his eyes
+were brighter than usual.</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning, Queen of the May," he cried, coming forward to take both
+her hands in his as she came through the doorway. "Did you know, by the
+way, that this is May day? Ah," his eyes fastening themselves on the
+crystal amulet gleaming against her white gown, "you have it still. That
+was what disturbed me and drove slumber from my eyelids during the long
+night. He is a strong man, a very able and masterful man and he wants
+that amulet and you, Dita, and I feared&mdash;oh, you know how things appear
+in the dead of night, what monstrous and fantastic ideas come to one."</p>
+
+<p>"You might have saved your fears and your fancies," she answered with a
+delicately ironical smile. "He does not want me. He would, I think, like
+the amulet. Nevertheless, he declined it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you offered it to him? Really!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the irony still in her voice. "You were a better prophet than you
+dreamed, Eugene, you predicted exactly what happened. I offered it to
+him and he declined." Her voice faltered.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally," laughing, "what else could he do under the circumstances?
+Even he, with all a collector's greed, would hardly care for a gift
+which is supposed to be invariably accompanied by the heart's love of
+the donor. He knew, poor wretch, that all he was getting was the bit of
+glass, while the heart's love was mine, for ever and ever mine."</p>
+
+<p>His voice sank to those musical cadences which ever prove so enthralling
+to the ear. And Dita, who loved music and beauty and romance, smiled
+dreamily. But doubt, like a shadow, lay in her eyes and about her
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she cried, "oh, I do not know, Eugene. When I am with you, you
+throw a glamour over me. I believe that I am just on the eve of loving
+you&mdash;that any minute you will say the word which will make me fully
+realize that I do, but as soon as you leave me, Eugene, the moment
+passes."</p>
+
+<p>"It is because you are perplexed, worried about this other matter, that
+is all, dearest. When that is settled and you are free, then I will
+sweep away at once and for ever all these doubts in your mind, sweep
+them away as if they were cobwebs."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you? Perhaps," but she shook her head as if only half convinced.
+"Hush! What is that! I think it was the bell of the outer door. You must
+go at once, Eugene. Cresswell was to be here at twelve o'clock. It must
+be quite that now."</p>
+
+<p>"And I have no desire to meet him." He picked up his hat. "I will step
+through the little back room into the hall, and thence out. I dare say
+you and he have some final arrangements to make. Is that it, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, but without looking at him. Her face had grown very pale and
+the hand which she placed on the tall back of a chair to steady herself
+trembled a little.</p>
+
+<p>Her ears had not deceived her, it was Hepworth's ring&mdash;and the echo of
+Eugene's retreating footsteps had barely died away before a maid drew a
+curtain and Hepworth crossed the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>If he upon his arrival had at once noticed a subtle but marked change in
+Perdita, she now was struck by an equally vital and informing alteration
+in him. He had always seemed to her before as one who leaned back in an
+automobile and merely dictated the directions the chauffeur was to take,
+but now he was the man who was driving his car himself, at unlawful
+speed, and keeping quite cool and collected during the performance.</p>
+
+<p>He took the chair opposite the one in which she had seated herself, and
+she noticed a flicker of a smile across his face as his eye caught the
+amulet hung about her neck, a tender, humorous, sad little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am still wearing it," she said, as if in answer to some question
+of his, "and I have had the box containing the others brought down here.
+It is there on that table in the corner." She spoke with a bravado
+which only half concealed her embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced toward it indifferently. "Then we will fasten my new one in
+the space left vacant by yours," his swift, delightful smile came and
+went, transforming his face for the moment like a gleam of sunlight, but
+although brilliant, it was sad, sad as all regret, and Dita, seeing it,
+felt some wild, momentary impulse to beseech forgiveness, she could not
+tell exactly for what.</p>
+
+<p>The amulet, her old bit of crystal, was swinging at the end of a long
+chain, and, a little embarrassed, she lifted it in her hand and gazed at
+it mechanically, turning it this way and that to catch the different
+reflections of light.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know that we are lawbreakers, you and I, Dita?" asked Hepworth
+with another smile, "meeting to discuss the details of a properly
+arranged divorce? Well, my dear, it will not rest particularly heavy on
+my conscience if it makes things easier for you in the least degree.
+Your lawyers will instruct you just what to do, but there is one matter
+which I wish to discuss with you personally, and that is some
+settlements.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Dita," breaking off sharply and starting to his feet, "what is the
+matter? Are you ill?"</p>
+
+<p>Indeed he was justified in thinking so. She had grown white as snow. The
+color had left even her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she spoke with an effort, but she lifted her head, as if by main
+strength of will. "No," and he was infinitely relieved to see a bit of
+color creep back into her lips, but the eyes she courageously raised to
+his were dark with an emotion which he could only translate as fear or
+horror, he could not tell which.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I offended you, then?" he murmured. "Believe me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," she insisted so definitely that he was forced to believe her.
+"It was something quite different. Something, something I just
+remembered."</p>
+
+<p>She was manifestly so confused and disturbed that he did not press the
+point. It would have seemed both unkind and unwise to do so, and then,
+although her eyes still retained that curiously shocked, almost
+horror-stricken expression, the color had returned to her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"You were saying?" she began, her voice steady enough now. "Oh, yes, I
+remember, about the money." Those deep vibrations of emotion thrilled
+her tones. "Well, I won't have it. Won't touch it. I will not hear of
+settlements. I can make enough for my needs."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his eyes and looked at her quickly and then the eyelids almost
+closed. Perdita was under very close observation.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally, I do not for a moment dispute that. It is a fact already
+proven, but it is my wish to remove the necessity from you. Your
+occupation will then continue to be a source of amusement, of interest
+to you, but you will not feel that it is your sole dependence."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head with a sort of irrevocable gentleness with which he
+could not fail to be struck.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, "it is really quite useless to discuss the matter.
+Truly, Cresswell, I will not even consider it."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Dita," he began, then paused a moment as if to make a choice of
+arguments, desirous of using at once the most potent and evidently
+preparing to undermine and break down the barriers of her decision if it
+took a month.</p>
+
+<p>She forestalled him, however, with a quick flank movement. She rose to
+her feet. "Cresswell," she said, "I promised you last night that I would
+discuss this matter with you this morning, but now," there was the least
+hesitation in her voice, "I am going to ask a favor. I dined with you
+last night, now will you dine with me to-night? Will you? There will
+only be Miss Fleming and her father, and she will just sit at the table
+a few minutes, she never dines before playing; Wallace Martin and Maud,
+and they are going somewhere, so you and I will have the leisure of a
+long evening to discuss all the pros and cons of this question, your
+side and mine. Will you come?"</p>
+
+<p>She was looking at him so earnestly, there was something so strange in
+the depths of her dark eyes, that he felt tempted on the moment to beg
+an explanation of this postponement. Then, as quickly he relinquished
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be delighted to come," he said heartily. "And if to-night you
+are in no mood to talk over dry details, we will put it off again until
+a more convenient season."</p>
+
+<p>"No." Her tone was positive. "I am quite sure that we will come to one
+decision or another this evening. Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>When the curtain at the door had fallen behind him, Dita sat down again.
+She did not seem to be thinking or mentally engaged in any way whatever.
+On the contrary, she seemed to be waiting, two or three minutes passed,
+five. Still she waited. Ah, a bitter smile hovered for one moment around
+her lips. Her whole tense figure relaxed a little as if the moment which
+she had so confidently expected had come.</p>
+
+<p>There was the sound of the shutting of the outer door in the small room
+to the left, then a halting step across the bare and polished floor.
+Eugene's step. He paused a moment in the doorway leading into the larger
+room, but as Dita did not turn nor give any sign whatever of having
+heard him, he came on.</p>
+
+<p>"Back again, you see," he said. "I saw Hepworth leaving the house just
+as I came about the corner up here, so I knew the coast was clear. May I
+sit down?"</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Dita looked at him. He was unmistakably not of the
+same temper in which he had left her an hour before. The buoyancy and
+spring of him had vanished. His eyes were clouded, his mouth depressed,
+certain lines on his brow and about his mouth stood out more markedly
+than usual. In fact, he seemed to have halted midway in some mood
+between dismay and anger. And as Dita observed this, there again played
+about her mouth for one instant that same, sad, bitter, secretive smile.</p>
+
+<p>She had leaned back in her chair as if prepared to remain some time, but
+she made no effort whatever to carry on a conversation or even to embark
+on one.</p>
+
+<p>The frown deepened on Eugene's brow. This attitude on her part was
+evidently irritating to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything settled, Dita, and satisfactorily?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by satisfactorily?" she asked, letting a moment or
+two lapse between his question and her answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean everything arranged in your favor," he replied with a short
+laugh. "He is rather sure to do that, you know. He likes to do things
+with the grand air."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Eugene, it is you who like to affect the grand air. With him it
+is natural."</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at her quickly. "It sounds, it sounds," he said, "as if you
+might possibly be on the verge of a sirocco. Don't Dita, I implore you.
+I am off the key myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He lifted his shoulders. "Ah, that I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"I refused any alimony, Eugene," she said abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Oh, Dita, you must not! Why, it is the height of folly! My dear
+child, it is quixotic to the verge of idiocy." All his moodiness had
+vanished. He was arguing her case fervently enough now. "You have had
+your head turned by the success you and Maud have enjoyed in this
+venture this winter, but that is purely ephemeral. You were a fad, a
+novelty. How long do such things last in New York? And here is Hepworth
+willing and anxious to endow you with houses and lands. Dita," and never
+had she heard him plead his love with such fervor, "Dita, you must not
+ruin your whole life by a blind whim. You must listen to advice. You
+must be guided by your friends in this matter.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, of course," he continued, "that I make a very large income,
+but I lay nothing by. It is impossible. I must keep up an
+appearance&mdash;the painter prince, and all that sort of thing. It is
+expected of me. It is a part of my stock in trade."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you consider, 'Gene," her voice was calmly, reassuringly
+reasonable now, "you consider that fully to enjoy life we must both
+possess more than an ordinarily large income?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest Dita," he bent forward with his tenderest, most ingratiating
+smile, "do not for one moment mistake me. I think, I know we could be
+happy without a centime between us, but viewing life as it is lived and
+considering your tastes and my tastes, the mode of existence to which we
+have accustomed ourselves and all that, I think we, like most other
+people, would do well to avoid the perilous experiment of comparative
+poverty. Whether we wish to believe it or not, really to invest life
+with romance and interest and charm requires more than mere imagination,
+of which you and I possess an abundant store, Dita. It also requires
+money."</p>
+
+<p>"It would require a great deal more than that for me, Eugene," she rose
+to her feet now and stood looking at him as if from mountain heights, so
+remote and distant she seemed. "Remember the old legend of my
+amulet,"&mdash;she lifted it and swung it to and fro as she talked,&mdash;"that
+sooner or later it would force the one who possessed it to reveal
+himself in his true character? Well, it has proved its ancient claim.
+You apparently possessed it long enough for it to force you to reveal
+your true self; or perhaps that was inevitable under any circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Dita?" he, too, had sprung to his feet, and stood
+facing her, both fear and chagrin in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"This," she flung out her hand with the amulet in it; "while I sat here
+talking to Cresswell, I was turning this square bit of crystal this way
+and that, watching it catch the light. Suddenly, as I held it between my
+thumb and forefinger, I saw you, it reflected you quite clearly. You
+thrust your head a little forward from the door, down there," indicating
+by a gesture the door at the lower end of the room, "anxious to hear the
+better what Cresswell was saying and quite sure from the position of our
+chairs that we could not see you. Then I sent him away and waited. I
+knew, I knew instinctively, that you would do just as you did, Eugene,
+and&mdash;so I waited. I knew that I should hear that outer door close, that
+I should hear you walk across the floor, I knew it."</p>
+
+<p>The moments pulsed like heartbeats between them.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not deny it," he said at last, "but Dita, Dita, I did it for
+you. I felt that you would follow some quixotic course, which you would
+regret for a lifetime. I know so well your mad, impulsive recklessness.
+Oh, Dita," he stretched out his arms to her.</p>
+
+<p>There was no responsive movement on her part. She stood mute, immovable,
+eyes downcast, as if she could not bear to look upon his humiliation.</p>
+
+<p>The long chain had slipped through her fingers, and the amulet swung at
+the end of it, to and fro between herself and him, like the pendulum of
+an inflexible fate.</p>
+
+<p>"Dita," his voice was irresistibly appealing, "you will not thrust me
+thus out of your heart, oh, not for this!"</p>
+
+<p>"You never had a place in my heart, Eugene, I know that now."</p>
+
+<p>She swept across the floor, but as she put up her hand to pull aside the
+curtain before the door, she paused. "I&mdash;I'm sorry, Eugene," she
+faltered and by an effort of will lifted her eyes to him at last.</p>
+
+<p>But they fell neither on the shamed nor the conquered. His head was
+thrown back, his eyes met hers. He was smiling, and his smile held
+unfathomable things. It spoke of a spirit eternally young and yet which
+had felt the weary weight of all dead and crumbling centuries. It was
+sad, disillusioned, yet eagerly joyous. It had tasted all things and
+found them vanity, yet pursued an unending quest with infinite zest.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Dita," he murmured, "never doubt that I loved you, love you still,
+but as the artist loves, not the plodder. You or any woman can only be
+to him the 'shadow of the idol of his thought,' the mere symbol of
+beauty, but what he really loves, Dita, is beauty's self."</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<h3>Before she knew it, his arms were about her.</h3>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<p>He spoke now with a sincerity almost stern. "You or all the world may
+think me false," his head lifted lightly, "it is nothing to me. To the
+one thing I know as truth I am eternally true. I really, fundamentally
+do not care that," he snapped his fingers, "for the rest of the show. I
+have always the dream and before me lies the great achievement. So out
+of your house, out of your life, out of your heart I go." He came near
+her as he spoke, his voice was like music. Before she knew it, his arms
+were about her and he was kissing her hair, where the copper shadows
+rippled into gold above her temple. "Beautiful and still loved Perdita!
+Good-by."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>WAITING FOR PERDITA</h3>
+
+
+<p>Perdita committed an unpardonable social sin that evening. She, the
+hostess, was late in her own house. In fact she had sent down word that
+they were to begin dinner without her.</p>
+
+<p>The three of them then, Maud, Wallace Martin and Hepworth were sitting
+gazing at one another in a rather mournful and embarrassed fashion, when
+Mr. and Miss Fleming were announced. Fuschia had stipulated that she was
+only to remain with them until the appearance of the roast. That was the
+signal for her departure, the definite limit of her stay. She was due at
+the theater before eight and it was her custom never to eat anything
+before the evening performance. This was the first time any of the group
+had seen her since her tremendous success of a few evenings before.</p>
+
+<p>"Hands up!" she called from the doorway, her gay, delicious voice
+pealing through the room, "hands up, I say," making an imaginary pistol
+of her thumb and forefinger and covering the three. "I don't want either
+your money or your life, but I do insist upon seeing who has blisters on
+his hands. I shall accept no other proof of friendship."</p>
+
+<p>Hepworth and Martin promptly held up their hands. "I'm entitled to first
+honors," said Hepworth, "I've sprained both wrists, can't write my
+signature and have to have my food cut up for me."</p>
+
+<p>"My hands," said Wallace Martin proudly, "are trained. They no longer
+show wear and tear. You could drive a dagger against them and it would
+splinter harmlessly. From long practice in trying to make my own plays
+go by virtue of my own applause they have acquired the substance and
+fiber of hickory."</p>
+
+<p>"But dear Miss Fleming," cried Maud, "I deserve more credit than they,
+for I recklessly sacrificed my most beautiful fan. When the curtain went
+down for the last time and we climbed off our seats and stopped howling,
+I held in my hand a limp shred of something and discovered that I had
+beaten my poor, exquisite, fragile fan to bits."</p>
+
+<p>Fuschia's eyes were full of starry twinkles, her smile was a revelation
+of joyousness. She drew a long, ecstatic breath, "Boys and girls, it was
+nice, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nice!" exclaimed Hepworth pushing a chair forward for her, "Nice! Is
+that the only word you can find to express your pleasure in the fact
+that the curtain rose thirty times amid continuous cheers, and New York
+simply took you to her heart and hugged you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good old New York! She knew her own little Fuschia by the strawberry
+mark on her left arm, didn't she? I heard Caruso sing for the first time
+the other afternoon, and when they asked me afterward how I liked it, I
+said I only knew of one thing more heavenly and that was the sound of a
+great audience clapping and shouting. There's no music like that."</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was announced, and Maud, with a slightly worried expression,
+began explaining to Fuschia that Perdita had been detained; but as they
+moved toward the door, Hepworth noticed that Fleming had not stirred
+from the remote corner he had sought upon entering the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim, what is the matter?" said Hepworth with some concern; "you haven't
+interrupted Fuschia once since she came in and you know it's always a
+neck and neck race between you to see which can talk the faster?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's been asleep," said Fuschia, taking her seat at the table. "Poor
+papa! the gay life, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>Fleming eyed her indignantly across the bank of primroses in the center
+of the board. "The gay life! I've had no sleep since I struck New York,
+that's true. I've had to keep going, and take these poor little
+pick-me-ups of cat-naps whenever I can get them; but why? For a week
+before this great first night, I had to sit up with Fuschia and hold her
+hand and tell her what an unparalleled success she was going to have and
+then that night, after all the excitement and anxiety I suffered as her
+father, and the exhaustion incident upon being first <i>claqueur</i>, why she
+drove me out into the cold, damp, rainy streets with one of your New
+York blizzards just setting in, to buy her the first morning papers,
+and since then I've had to celebrate her triumph. I'll tell you what it
+is, friends, I'm a raveled sleeve of care and no kind sleep to knit me
+up."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know what has really happened?" said Fuschia, in calm
+explanation. "Dear papa can't help putting in those Dumas and Poe
+touches, but come to me for the straight truth. It's really the funniest
+thing about papa. His luck always comes right along with mine. Now what
+do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's made a million since he came to New York," said Wallace Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost the other fellow's million, you mean," said Hepworth with feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Wrong. It's the most unexpected thing you ever dreamed of," Fuschia's
+voice was triumphant, "papa's got a social success. Yes," nodding
+impressively, "just look at him closely and you'll see that he's lost
+his natural, unconscious man-look. He now has a drawing-room-pet
+expression and he's wearing his hair differently, and throwing out his
+chest. Oh, you needn't laugh, Mr. Hepworth, it's true. 'Hyperion curls,
+the front of Jove himself.' When we were coming on I determined that I
+would always be very kind to papa. I'd never neglect nor ignore him, no
+matter how famous I became; but, of course, he'd just be Fuschia
+Fleming's father. But what are the real facts of the case? Father sits
+in the seats of the mighty, flattered by great ladies and avoids mention
+of his humble actress daughter. King Cophetua and the chorus girl!"</p>
+
+<p>"I had to come to New York to find out that the feminine boycott against
+me wasn't complete," said Mr. Fleming with emotion. "I tell you, Hep,
+it's a wonderful experience suddenly to realize that the entire crew of
+petticoats the world over don't look at you as if they all had glass
+eyes in their heads instead of real ones."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you account for it, Jim?" asked Hepworth.</p>
+
+<p>"From camp to court, my boy, has ever been but a step, although
+sometimes it's a mighty long one," returned Fleming oratorically. "Now
+this is the way I've explained it to myself. You see, I've got that
+wild, free, above-timber-line flavor about me that simply locos the type
+of woman that keeps husband hobbled to a stake under the big tree by
+the back porch where she can keep an eye on him from the kitchen
+windows. Now, personally, the catnip and parsley kind of woman never did
+appeal to me; but these New York orchids are different. They know how to
+appreciate the Rocky Mountain edelweiss, and seem grateful to me for
+taking their husbands off their hands now and then. And they're so
+interested, too, in the little every-day incidents of an old
+prospector's life."</p>
+
+<p>"You just ought to hear papa Othelloize those Ophelias," said Fuschia,
+deftly seizing the first opportunity to get into the conversation.
+"He'll tell them about being carried down a thousand feet in a mighty
+snowslide and escaping unhurt, and of the fabulous properties he's
+discovered, and of frequent encounters with enormous grizzlies, where
+he'll tap them lightly on the jaw and advise them to hasten home and
+then if they get too familiar, he gives them a twist of the wrist that
+sends them howling back to the woods."</p>
+
+<p>"Fuschia," said her father sternly, "you talk entirely too much, and
+there's a day of reckoning coming for you. Just wait till you get to
+London. There you'll be sneaking in at the back door and eating a cold
+biscuit in the pantry while you're waiting to do a few recitations for
+the ladies and gentlemen; while I'll be sailing in to dinner with a
+belted earless on one arm and a tiaraed duchess on the other."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I see your finish, Jim," sighed Hepworth. "You'll end as a
+leader of cotillions. Your head is badly turned."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no denying, Hep, that we are apt to set and undue value on what
+we've never had, and these late-blooming feminine smiles are like a
+bottle of champagne in the desert."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear, here is the roast," cried Fuschia disconsolately, "and
+Cinderella must run away. Is there no hope of seeing Mrs. Hepworth this
+evening?" turning to Maud.</p>
+
+<p>Maud hesitated a moment, then, "I really do not know," she confessed
+frankly, "she&mdash;she has not been particularly well all day." She simply
+could not plead for Perdita the conventional bad headache while
+Hepworth's steady eyes were fixed upon her.</p>
+
+<p>Fuschia, who happened to be looking at him, saw a quick shade of
+disappointment pass over his face, and her impulsive sympathy was roused
+by the depth and poignancy of that immediately suppressed emotion. She
+threw herself into the breach.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I want dreadfully to see her to-night about the gown I am to wear
+when I play the scheming adventuress next week. We were to have decided
+it to-night. She is thinking of putting me in green instead of the usual
+black with touches of scarlet, and the accustomed badge of the
+adventuress, high-heeled scarlet slippers. And I am so anxious to know
+if Mrs. Hepworth has decided upon green, a wonderful, wicked, dazzling
+green, with strange blue lights in the shadows. Oh, may I send a message
+and ask her to see me just a moment?"</p>
+
+<p>But before Maud could answer, Perdita entered the room. She pleaded the
+usual headache, which Maud had so carefully avoided, and that threadbare
+social fiction was for once upheld and substantiated. Dita's appearance
+fully bore it out. Her face was pale, her eyes heavy. She promised,
+however, to give a full consideration to the question of Fuschia's green
+gown the next morning, and the actress who had already overstayed the
+limits of the time she had allotted herself prepared to take her
+departure.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she cried from the door, "I forgot to announce my two important
+bits of good news. Mr. Martin is going to write me a comedy and Eugene
+Gresham is going to paint my portrait."</p>
+
+<p>A faint smile hovered for one moment about Perdita's lips. "When did
+Eugene make his request?" she asked in her usual low tones, although her
+head lifted suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon," replied Fuschia, and Dita's smile deepened. "And he is
+going to give me a fęte in his studio."</p>
+
+<p>"The usual ball in the artist's studio?" laughed Maud looking at Martin.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you dream it," Fuschia laughed irrepressibly, also; "not the
+stage kind with its crowd of maskers. This is to be patterned after an
+afternoon among the great artists in Japan. You wear Japanese things and
+crawl through a little door into a room with nothing in it but just one
+perfect flower in a perfect vase, and we will all sit on the floor and
+drink tea."</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds very much like him," said Maud, "but is it true Wallace that
+you are really going to do a play for Miss Fleming?"</p>
+
+<p>"It happily is," said Martin, "a comedy."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a problem play?" The light of hope dawned in Miss Carmine's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear me, no," cried Fuschia; "and he's going to write it just as he
+talks."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd very much prefer to have you talk it as I write," said Martin, but
+she had already vanished.</p>
+
+<p>In a very few minutes the others followed her example, Fleming leaving
+the house with Maud and Wallace.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>WITH MY HEART'S LOVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Scarcely had the hall door closed behind them when Hepworth turned to
+Dita inquiringly. "Would you not very much prefer that I left you?" he
+asked. "I can see that you are not well, and we can discuss anything
+that remains to be talked over at any other time."</p>
+
+<p>"No," she shook her head, "I am quite well. I have not even the headache
+I claimed, and I must, indeed I must, talk to you to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"But if our conversation this morning so upset and unnerved you," he
+urged, "would it not be wise to defer this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our conversation didn't," she replied with emphasis. "It was another
+conversation. Cresswell, will you answer me a question or two?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything you wish to know," he replied.</p>
+
+<p>She got up, and, after a fashion she sometimes showed, perhaps
+unconsciously copied from him, began to walk restlessly up and down,
+occasionally stopping to pick up and examine some ornament quite as if
+she had never happened to notice it before.</p>
+
+<p>She had picked up a small jade vase from the mantelpiece and was now
+bestowing upon it what appeared to be an exhaustive observation. In
+reality she was hardly conscious that she held it in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Cresswell, why did you marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>He started ever so slightly and then answered unhesitatingly, "Because I
+loved you, Dita."</p>
+
+<p>A little spasm of some emotion he could not fathom passed over her face.
+"It was not because you wished to see how the flower blooming in a tin
+can in a tenement window would bloom in a wonderful lacquered vase in a
+marble court? It was not from curiosity or pity, Cresswell?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was love, Dita."</p>
+
+<p>Again that wave of emotion over her face, and then she looked about her
+with sad, tear-wet eyes and a trembling mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"And my caprices, my stupidity, my inadequacy, soon destroyed that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never," he repeated. "Believe that. I was no gardener trying
+experiments. It was the flower I loved, Dita; the flower whose happiness
+I longed for, whose happiness I still long for. You do not need my love,
+do not care for it, why should you? But give me the happiness of still
+being able to assure for you the marble courts and the lacquered vases."</p>
+
+<p>The little jade vase dropped from her fingers and fell unheeded to the
+rug at her feet. The tears were pouring now, down her white face. She
+made no effort either to conceal or to staunch them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, blind and wasteful creature that I am!" she cried. "Why, why should
+you have chosen to love me?"</p>
+
+<p>She stepped toward him and with both hands unwound the slender
+old-fashioned gold chain from her throat. She lifted her face,
+quivering, broken with feeling, and still streaming with tears, to his.
+She held out the amulet toward him. "Cresswell," poignantly, "will you
+take this now, my old talisman, with my heart's love?"</p>
+
+<p>He made one quick movement as if to take her in his arms and hold her
+close, close to his heart for ever. His face was irradiated, his cold
+eyes glowed with a warmth and fire that more mercurial and mutable
+natures can never know.</p>
+
+<p>Then the light went out of his eyes and face. It did not fade, it was as
+if it were extinguished by some strong effort of will. His arms fell to
+his sides.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, my dear," his voice trembled, "how like your sweet, generous,
+prodigal nature! I see it all now, the reason for your pallor and heavy
+eyes. You have spent the day, since I left you this morning, in accusing
+and denouncing yourself until you have reached the frame of mind where
+you can only appease your offended and tyrannical conscience by some act
+of high sacrifice. And do you think I would accept it, poor, heroic,
+overwrought Dita? All day," that swift, flashing, heart-breaking smile
+of his gleamed a moment, "you have been convicting yourself of
+ingratitude, merely because I was offering you some of my money with
+the entirely selfish motive of securing my own happiness."</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong, wrong," she cried vehemently, passionately. "What can I
+do to convince you? Oh, of course, you think that I am a creature of
+moods; you have every reason to think so; but what can I do, what can I
+say to convince you that I am not speaking from one of them now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say nothing, dearest," he murmured deeply, soothingly; "say no more. I
+shall always remember the sweetness of this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will not have it so," she cried. "You must, you must listen to
+me. You think that I love Eugene, that I have always loved Eugene. And I
+did not know, I did not know what love was. Eugene is charming and
+famous, and there was a sympathy between us, on one side of our natures.
+We have the same love of color. It is a passion with us. It spells music
+and poetry and all sorts of untranslatable things. It is something
+instinctive with us, something we were born with and we see shades and
+harmonies and values that other people do not. But this absolute
+understanding between us was only on one side of our natures, and yet
+sometimes it was so&mdash;so encompassing that I thought it embraced them
+all. So I did not know my own mind. I was puzzled, confused, always in
+doubt. And then, when I began really to&mdash;to flirt with Eugene, or so
+people construed it, it was when I was beginning to be bored with my
+marble court and my lacquered vase. I got so bored with being amused,
+just amused all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that was where I made my great, my unforgivable mistake," he
+interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you made a mistake, in not letting me know you as you really are,"
+she conceded, "but then, with all the boredom, I had that sense of
+futility, of failure behind me. Failure behind and nothing to look
+forward to but an endless succession of marble courts. No beautiful,
+dazzling unexpected. Just the same thing over and over and over. And
+then you went away and for a time I was frightened and forlorn, so Maud
+and I started our venture. Ah!" she clasped her hands together, the
+amulet dangling on its chain, "I have told you what work and success
+meant to me. You understand that; but gradually, as I got used to it, I
+began to see that it wasn't enough. No," she shook her head sadly, "it
+wasn't enough&mdash;there must be love. But I had got the idea into my head
+that it was Eugene who would speak the magic word, that magic word that
+I believed in and waited for. Yet all, all the time, from the moment you
+left me, you were in my thoughts. You see," with a faint smile, "I
+understood Eugene, but you were the unsolvable problem. I was always
+thinking about you, trying to understand you, and last night," her face
+glowed with a lovely light, "when you talked to me of the big, wonderful
+things, when you made me feel that I was an intelligent human being and
+not merely a pretty woman, why, my whole heart went out to you and I
+knew it was you, you alone that I loved. It is not the man who can
+conquer a city, many cities, with his grace and charm and genius. Not he
+who can win my poor heart, but the man who can conquer his own spirit.
+Ah, Cresswell," she held out the amulet again to him, "will you not take
+this now?" "Perdita!" he cried deeply and held her close.</p>
+
+
+<h3>THE END</h3>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beauty, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
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+</body>
+</html>
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@@ -0,0 +1,6908 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beauty, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Beauty
+
+Author: Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
+
+Illustrator: Will Grefe
+
+Release Date: September 27, 2011 [EBook #37549]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEAUTY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roland Schlenker, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               THE BEAUTY
+
+                        _By_ MRS. WILSON WOODROW
+
+                 _Author of_ The Silver Butterfly, etc.
+
+
+    WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+    WILL GREFE
+
+    INDIANAPOLIS
+    THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+    PUBLISHERS
+
+    COPYRIGHT 1910
+    THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+
+    PRESS OF
+    BRAUNWORTH & CO.
+    BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
+    BROOKLYN, N. Y.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Perdita]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I A BACHELOR'S BRIDE                               1
+
+      II A FAR WORLD OF DREAMING                         14
+
+     III PINK AND WHITE EXISTENCE                        35
+
+      IV OUR LOVING FRIENDS                              55
+
+       V PERDITA'S TALISMAN                              64
+
+      VI SIROCCO                                         75
+
+     VII THE GIFT OF FREEDOM                             84
+
+    VIII FOOLS' LAUGHTER                                 98
+
+      IX A TELEPHONE CALL                               114
+
+       X OUT OF THE GILDED CAGE                         125
+
+      XI A DOLL OR A BOX OF CANDY                       137
+
+     XII FUSCHIA FLEMING                                150
+
+    XIII SHOCKING THE HEWSTONS                          165
+
+     XIV PUBLICITY                                      175
+
+      XV A WIDOW'S SMILE                                192
+
+     XVI FATHER AND DAUGHTER                            206
+
+    XVII DO YOU LOVE ME?                                219
+
+   XVIII PLAYING THE GAME                               231
+
+     XIX HE CALLS ON HIS WIFE                           243
+
+      XX THE MAGIC WORD                                 256
+
+     XXI TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS                              268
+
+    XXII HEPWORTH MISUNDERSTANDS                        278
+
+   XXIII ITS ANCIENT CHARM                              289
+
+    XXIV WAITING FOR PERDITA                            305
+
+     XXV WITH MY HEART'S LOVE                           316
+
+
+
+
+THE BEAUTY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A BACHELOR'S BRIDE
+
+
+If the proper statistics of bachelorhood were accurately tabulated they
+would show that at certain fixed and recurring periods, a confirmed old
+bachelor, say one in every ten, casts his dearly-bought experience, his
+hard-won knowledge of the world and women to the four winds of heaven,
+and chooses for himself a wife; and, as his friends and relatives
+invariably protest, a bungling job he makes of it. He may, before the
+world, walk soberly, discreetly, advisedly and in the fear of God in
+every other respect, but when it comes to selecting a companion for the
+rest of his life, he follows, apparently, a predestined leading, some
+errant and tricksy impulse, and from a world of desirable and waiting
+helpmates, eminently suitable, he will, in nine cases out of ten, fix
+his heart upon the one inevitable She who can keep the pot of trouble
+ever boiling for him.
+
+This, according to Mr. Cresswell Hepworth's old and intimate friends,
+was exactly the course which he had followed; nor was even one voice
+upraised in dissent from this opinion, as they frankly discussed the
+matter over their champagne and truffled sweetbreads at the breakfast
+following the wedding.
+
+It was but natural that they who were rarely in complete agreement on
+any subject which commended itself for discussion among them, should
+hold a unanimous opinion on this matter which involved the happiness of
+their lifelong friend. But although the opinion was unanimous, it was
+not unprejudiced. Hepworth had had his distinct niche in their homes and
+hearts for many years, and now as they gazed metaphorically at the empty
+space, it struck a chill to their affections.
+
+Nevertheless they did not, could not fail to join in the little gasp of
+admiration which breathed through the church as the bride swept up the
+aisle on the arm of Mr. Willoughby Hewston, the well-known banker and
+intimate friend of the bride-groom. She had been stopping, it was
+understood, with Mrs. Wilstead, another friend of Hepworth's, for
+several weeks.
+
+There were those in the large audience who saw a certain pathos in the
+fact that she was given away by one of Hepworth's friends, thus exposing
+the lack of either relatives or friends of her own, but there was
+nothing in her bearing to indicate that she was conscious of her
+isolated position as she advanced, leaning lightly on Mr. Hewston's arm.
+
+The world, Hepworth's world, and it was a large one, was tingling with
+curiosity. He was a great figure, looming immense upon the financial
+horizon; but no one had ever heard of the bride. The invitations to the
+wedding were the first intimation of his impending marriage, and the
+bride's name, Perdita Carey, conveyed nothing to anybody. By dint of
+careful collection of scraps of information, it gradually became known
+that she was young, of southern birth and extremely pretty. Bare facts.
+No more.
+
+It was also considered rather an odd reading of the customary
+conventions on Hepworth's part, this crowded church wedding exposing the
+bride's poverty in relatives, the breakfast to follow, at his town
+house, thus making equally plain her homeless state; but when this view
+was set before him, sighingly, by Isabel Hewston, and vivaciously by
+Alice Wilstead, he became obstinate in the insistence of his plans. He
+seemed possessed of some masculine idea of getting things over, of
+having all his friends meet his wife en masse, so to speak, and having
+the matter settled.
+
+And so it was, "Nice customs curtsy to great kings"--or millionaires.
+The audience then of his friends--there was none of hers present, if
+indeed she possessed any--sat with heads turned at an aching angle and
+awaited, with concealed impatience, the choice of Cresswell Hepworth.
+
+The weight of opinion leaned to a sunburst of a woman, darkly splendid,
+opulently graceful, and instead, when the stately strains of the
+wedding-march echoed through the church, the guests lifted their
+astonished eyes to a brown and slender girl; but no matter what the
+expectation had been, each realized that he gazed on a more poetic
+loveliness than he had dreamed.
+
+Another unhesitating mental admission. Obscure, unknown she might have
+been, but she could never be considered ordinary. It had taken
+generations of cultivation to give that pose of the head and shoulders,
+that arch of the instep, that taper to her slender wrist. And what
+intimation of individuality! Few women could have borne more regally the
+weight of heavy and lusterless satin or a diadem of flashing jewels; but
+this girlish bride of a millionaire had insisted on being married in the
+white muslin her own scanty purse had furnished; and wore as if it were
+a crown of diamonds the wreath of white jasmine flowers which held her
+long tulle veil close about the cloudy masses of her hair.
+
+For once the entire interest of any occasion which he happened to grace
+was not centered on Hepworth, who, with his usual invincible composure,
+awaited the bride at the altar, fortified by his best man, Wallace
+Martin.
+
+But the owner of millions--unctuous sound--is worth more than a mere
+dismissing word. Let the bride continue to advance, he to await her,
+while he is presented in a lightning sketch.
+
+Cresswell Hepworth was far from old, not fifty. He had more than three
+generations of cultivated ancestry behind him. In type he was American,
+approaching the Indian; tall, slightly aquiline of feature, somewhat
+granitic and imperturbable. His hair, which had been brown, was almost
+white, his eyes were gray, trained to express nothing, but startlingly
+penetrating when he chose to lift rather heavy lids with a peculiarly
+long droop at the corners.
+
+Emerson says somewhere that "a feeble man can see the farms that are
+fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the
+possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun
+breeds clouds."
+
+Hepworth was a strong man. He saw possible houses and farms,
+externalized them and became the acquirer of vast and profitable
+tracts of land--a fair map blackly dotted with mines and scrawled
+with the angular lines of intersecting railroads. In this yellow
+triangle, a great wheat farm. Here, in this square of living green,
+irrigated and profitable ranches. He stood, this "Colossus of
+Finance"--journalese--with his feet planted firmly on this solid
+map-basis, and, with a golden rake, drew toward him from countless
+clutching hands securities, stocks, bonds, curios, pictures (he was an
+ardent collector), loot of every description, and, it was even whispered
+through the church, his young and lovely bride.
+
+But now he stepped forward to meet her with a smile that enlivened his
+whole face, even his eyes. The service flowed on. With that air of sulky
+geniality which represented his most urbane manner, Willoughby Hewston
+gave away the bride. The responses were duly made, and Mr. and Mrs.
+Cresswell Hepworth turned to walk through an aisle of smiling and
+nodding friends.
+
+At that moment the mellow October sunlight fell through the stained
+windows enwrapping Perdita in a regal and impalpable vesture of scarlet
+and gold; and again a murmur of admiration rippled and echoed at this
+fresh revelation of her beauty. She had been pale as she walked up the
+aisle, but now her color had risen and the crimson on her brown cheek
+was the hue of a jacqueminot rose. Her hair, a deep chestnut at the
+temples, flowed into copper, dark in the hollows, gold where it caught
+the light. Her coloring was a harmony of all soft, warm, dusky shades,
+and one looked to the eyes to focus these tints in light or darkly rich
+topaz; but Perdita's eyes were gray, handed down perhaps from those
+Irish kings to whom her father had laughingly traced his descent.
+
+"Lucky girl!" murmured Alice Wilstead an hour later to the group of
+Hepworth's intimate friends who sat together at one table during the
+breakfast that followed the wedding. "Just think of it. He has no family
+encumbrances. Never an 'in-law' will she have to cope with."
+
+It never struck her that Hepworth's little circle of close friends had
+gradually assumed about all of the intrusive and proprietary
+prerogatives of the nearest and most affectionate relatives.
+
+Alice Wilstead was a widow, dark, slender, piquant, versed in the
+secrets of grace and the art of wearing her jewels so that they
+accentuated her sparkling eyes and her one precious dimple without
+eclipsing them. Warmly sympathetic and impulsive, she had been overcome
+by the vision of Perdita's isolation as the girl walked up the aisle on
+the grudging arm of Willoughby Hewston; and had pressed her
+handkerchief lightly to her eyes, a moment of emotion viewed with
+callous interest by a misinterpreting world which regarded it as a last
+tear shed for a lost opportunity, a shattered hope.
+
+"Well," said Hewston, finishing his sweetbreads and preparing to begin
+on the next course, "it went off very well. I was all right, wasn't I?"
+
+"You were perfect, dear," his wife hastened to assure him, "and it was a
+beautiful wedding."
+
+Mrs. Hewston was gray and pink and plump like her husband; and this
+morning her grayness and pinkness and plumpness were underlined, thrown
+into high relief by a violet gauze gown, heavily spangled in silver.
+Isabel Hewston resembled nothing so much as a comfortable, placid,
+fireside cat, purry and complacent. If she possessed claws, which is
+doubtful, they were always well concealed.
+
+"Yes, a beautiful wedding and a beautiful bride," she murmured, with a
+little sighing inflection habitual to her, "so young, so--"
+
+"Humph!" interrupted her husband, with as much of a snort as a mouthful
+of game would permit, "I tell you it's a pretty tough thing for all of
+us to see old Hepworth looking so happy." He thrust out his lower lip
+and wrinkled up his eyes until he bore a grotesque likeness to a baby
+about to cry. "Hepworth's my best friend, and to see that look of almost
+boyish joy on his face was pretty hard. There are some things you can do
+and some you can't; now one of these things that no man can afford to do
+is to marry outside his own class. I could have told Cress so."
+
+The other members of this intimate little coterie of friends, five in
+all, looked at one another and burst into involuntary laughter.
+
+Wallace Martin, an old young man, a magazine writer, who would fain be a
+playwright, gave the single bark of mirth which served him for an
+explosion of laughter. It sounded particularly derisive now.
+
+"I would give my little all to have the new Mrs. Hepworth hear you say
+that," he chuckled. "Dear old Hewston, she would not in a thousand years
+consider any of us in her class. She belonged, let me inform you, to one
+of the oldest of southern families. Her mother was a cotton princess of
+the loveliest and haughtiest variety. One of the famous belles of her
+day. Her father, too, was of the old South."
+
+"Why, what are you talking about?" growled Hewston irascibly. "She
+hadn't a dime--was a beautiful cloak model or something of that kind."
+
+"She painted dinky things for a living, if you mean that," said Martin
+carelessly, "lamp-shades and menu cards and such."
+
+"If she only had some friends, even one relative," deplored Mrs.
+Hewston, "it would look so much--er--nicer, you know. Relatives do add a
+background." She shook her head regretfully.
+
+"We'll have to be her relatives," said Maud Carmine, a niece of Mrs.
+Hewston and a plain rather faded young woman of pale and indefinite
+tints and many angles. Her claim to distinction rested on the fact that
+she was a drawing-room musician of--strange anomaly--real musical
+feeling. It was her misfortune always to be explained by those who found
+her tact, good nature and practical common sense useful, and who drew
+heavily on them, as, "not attractive looking, you know; but pure gold,
+and one of the most dependable persons," and this damning tribute of
+friendship served as an admirable check to further curiosity concerning
+her. "Yes, we must be her background." Her glance lingered for a moment
+on Wallace Martin, but he returned it briefly and indifferently.
+
+"A young woman who has just married millions needs no family group,"
+remarked Alice Wilstead lightly. "The most effective background is her
+husband."
+
+"Gad!" Mr. Hewston put down his knife and fork to glare at her. "The
+idea of looking at Hepworth as a background. He who has always been in
+the front of everything. A background! And for a snub-nosed chit of a
+girl!"
+
+"Oh, Willoughby, dear, not snub-nosed," expostulated his wife mildly.
+
+"Snub-nosed, I said," insisted Willoughby. "Didn't I walk up the aisle
+with her?"
+
+"Hush, dear, hush," murmured his wife. "Here she comes now."
+
+The bride was leaving. Passing through the handsome, stiff apartments
+like a white cloud, to make ready for the journey before her, she
+stopped a moment for a word or two with Maud Carmine as she paused at
+that table.
+
+Hewston rose reluctantly to his feet. "I once heard of a wedding," he
+said confidentially and hopefully to Wallace Martin, "where the bride
+went up to change her gown, and never showed up again."
+
+"Where did she go?" asked Wallace with interest.
+
+"Dunno," returned Willoughby. "Old lover. Fourth dimension.
+Unexplainable, but fact, I assure you."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A FAR WORLD OF DREAMING
+
+
+The bride had passed through the admiring groups with a smile here, a
+word there and was already half up the stairway, above the voices, the
+heavy flower scents, the sentimental melodies which stole from the
+musicians' bower. On, a white, mystic figure, her veil floating behind
+her; on, without undue haste, but most eagerly, as if she climbed some
+mount which led from the world to a desired solitude.
+
+On the first landing she paused, leaning for a moment, Juliet-like as
+from a balcony, and looked down on the moving mosaic of color beneath,
+the gay, light tones of the women's gowns thrown into relief by the dark
+coats of the men. The gazers paid her the tribute of involuntary "Ohs,"
+and barely restrained themselves from applause as if at the appearance
+of their favorite actress. As usual Perdita had made a picture of
+herself, an involuntary and unpremeditated picture; but in effect beyond
+the calculations of the most vigilant stage manager.
+
+She stood with one arm lightly upraised holding her bouquet of white
+jasmine above her laughing face. Behind her, a stained glass window,
+before her the marble balustrade. Then the bouquet, its white ribbons
+waving and circling, whirled through the air, over the sea of upturned
+faces and white clutching hands and straight into Alice Wilstead's arms.
+
+With the laughter and clamor of voices ringing in her ears, Perdita,
+hidden from sight now by a turn of the staircase, followed, with
+unconcealed haste, the crimson velvet pathway which led to solitude.
+
+At the top of the stairs she hesitated briefly, glancing right and left.
+She had been in the house but twice before, both times under the
+chaperonage of Mrs. Hewston, and she was not sure of the exact
+geographical position of her own suite of apartments.
+
+At this moment her maid, engaged from that morning, stepped forward and
+threw open a door. Perdita smiled approval. It would have been
+difficult to withhold it. Olga, a paragon of maids, if references and
+experience count, showed no signs of the wear and tear of previous
+mistresses. She was delightful in appearance, rosy-cheeked, amiable,
+immaculate, with that air of trained capability which invites
+confidence.
+
+Perdita paused before entering. "Are all my traveling things out?" she
+asked.
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Very well, I shall not need you for a few moments. Remain here and when
+I want you I will ring."
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+Perdita drew a breath of relief as the door was closed gently behind
+her. At last she was alone, away from eyes, eyes that were everywhere.
+She had felt all morning as if she were encompassed by them, appraising
+eyes, envious eyes, unfamiliar, inquisitive eyes.
+
+She looked slowly about her. And these were her own apartments, these
+beautiful, cold, unlived-in rooms, as empty of life or individuality as
+a shell.
+
+Yesterday she had walked through them with Isabel Hewston, pleased,
+admiring, but a little overawed. She had not realized before what a
+wizard's wand Cresswell wielded. He had but waved it and great
+architects and decorators, their disciplined and cultivated imaginations
+stimulated by the prospect of unlimited expenditure had devised for her,
+penniless Perdita Carey, all this beauty and luxury. She had only
+stipulated timidly that she might be environed in her favorite rose
+color, a mere suggestion for those who had the matter in charge. It was
+enough. Her bed chamber bloomed with the pale but vivid flush of pink
+roses, La France, accentuated with cool, suave, silver notes, like the
+delicate, contrasted phrasing of a musical theme. The result of color
+and arrangement was youthful, joyous, spacious. Beyond a softly falling
+curtain, she caught a glimpse of her sitting-room. American beauty, a
+radiant spot with delicious water colors on the walls, bowls of roses,
+the sunshine falling through the windows, and shelves of books, each
+volume bound in creamy vellum.
+
+In one of the long mirrors which reflected her graceful figure from
+every angle she saw through an opposite door her dressing-room and
+bath, with its elaborate appointments, more inviting and luxurious than
+any of which the proudest Roman beauty could have dreamed. She looked
+about her with a faint, strange smile. What a contrast were these cold
+and splendid rooms, not yet animated by her personality, to that little
+apartment with its two or three tiny chambers, high up under the roof,
+where she had lived and worked!
+
+Then she turned back to her reflection in the mirror. It was extremely
+becoming to her, all this background of rose and silver. Perdita
+realized that as she unfastened the white flowers from her hair and let
+her long veil fall like a cloud about her. With a deft movement she
+caught it and tossed it on a chair for Olga to fold later. She slipped
+out of her wedding-gown next and laid it more carelessly still upon a
+couch. Then she leaned forward, her elbow on the dressing-table, her
+chin on her hand, and regarded herself steadily, that faint, strange
+smile still on her lips.
+
+Well, she had fulfilled her destiny, justified Eugene Gresham's
+prophecy. She heard his words to her, spoken the last time she had seen
+him, three months before, as plainly as if his voice still rang in her
+ears.
+
+"Perdita, your destiny is written on your face. It includes marrying a
+millionaire and having your portrait painted by me."
+
+Fateful words! She had just married the millionaire, but even here, upon
+the threshold of this new life, she was constrained to halt a moment and
+cast one backward glance, "just for the old love's sake."
+
+It was the night before Eugene Gresham sailed for Europe to paint the
+portraits of "Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin." Again she
+awaited him. Again she heard his step on the stair without, a quick,
+light step with an odd halt in it.
+
+He was coming, and her heart beat. How it beat as she stood there
+breathless beside the window!
+
+"Perdita!" Eugene's voice. He was across the room in a flash, both her
+hands in his. "Here, let me see you in the light." He drew her toward a
+lamp. "Two years, two years since we have met, and me wasting time
+painting in the desert places when I might have been with you. Time is
+not in the Far East. Ah, my cousin!" (the relationship was remote) he
+sighed. "Why, as I live," with a quick change of tone, "you've got
+another dimple, and that makes you a new and lovelier Perdita."
+
+She flushed adorably. "How nice and southern," she cried with an attempt
+at lightness, "and how exactly like you, just like the old 'Gene."
+
+"The old 'Gene," his eyes still holding hers, "has never changed."
+
+"How--how--are the pictures going?" withdrawing her hands from his.
+
+"Beautifully!" he said carelessly. "The glassy eyes of the millionaires
+are all turning toward me, and I have more commissions to make beautiful
+on canvas their pug-nosed, fat-faced wives than I care to accept. Those
+ladies hail me as a great psychological artist. Their mirrors are so
+cruel to them that when my brushes flatter them they say that I paint
+their souls; strip away the husk of the flesh and reveal enduring
+loveliness."
+
+He struck a match to light a cigarette and then hastily shielded it with
+his cupped hand from the breeze which blew through the open window. The
+light flared into his down-bent face, bringing out its dissonances
+almost grotesquely in that small, momentary flash. Pick Gresham to
+pieces and he was incontrovertibly convicted of sheer ugliness, but the
+fact bothered him not at all. He knew that few ever arrived at the cool,
+dispassionate frame of mind regarding him where they were capable of
+that exhaustive analysis known as picking to pieces. He was slender and
+rather small of stature, not more than medium height. One shoulder was
+noticeably higher than the other and he walked with a slight limp, the
+result of an injury received in boyhood. Coarse, blue-black hair with a
+sort of crinkle in it stood out from his head like a cloud. His skin was
+swarthy, his features irregular, even his eyes, dark eyes, were only
+occasionally brilliant. But he might have been appreciably uglier,
+almost as hideous as the Yellow Dwarf or Beauty's Beast,--it would have
+mattered no more than his present lack of beauty, and well he knew it.
+His was the magic gift of glamour, and all the dissonances and
+inharmonies of appearance as well as of character seemed but the
+italics emphasizing his charm. His mind was supple and flexible, his
+wits nimble, even subtle. He was as vivid, as veering, as fascinating as
+flame.
+
+His match, the third he had struck, blew out before it had lighted his
+cigarette, and he threw it away with a petulant gesture. He did not
+answer her, as he was again attempting to light his cigarette, this time
+with success. Then he began to saunter about the room.
+
+In spite of her penury Perdita had yet managed to invest her little
+workshop with both daintiness and charm. The walls were hung with pink
+and white chintz and here and there were bits of fragile china and rare
+old silver on claw-legged mahogany tables, while from dim canvases in
+tarnished silver frames smiled the sweet, dark eyes of haughty southern
+beauties of a generation unused to life's struggles.
+
+"You really saved some of the best things from that hideous auction,
+didn't you?" picking up a bit of china to scrutinize it more carefully.
+"I was horrified when I heard of it across the world, several months
+after it was all over. If I'd only been there to buy the whole lot in.
+Plucky little girl you were, Perdita, to come on here and manage to keep
+the gaunt, gray wolf at bay."
+
+"What else was there for me to do?" she asked without turning her head.
+"Aunt died, the place had to go. As for the wolf, if you look sharp,
+Eugene, you may see his paws thrusting under this door."
+
+In the center of the room was a large table covered with paint brushes,
+colors, a litter of candle shades, cotillion favors and cards in various
+stages of completion. Eugene carefully cleared a space on that edge of
+the table nearest Perdita's chair, and perched upon it, looking down at
+her with a smile.
+
+"My stars, Dita!" he cried with the truest conviction, "you are a
+beauty! The moment I return, I mean to paint you again. And this time
+I'll set the world afire. Do you remember how many portraits I have made
+of you? Why, just to see you brings back my boyhood,--the hopes, the
+struggles, the effort, the haunted days, the feverish nights. I used to
+think, 'If I can just learn how to get this effect, I'll know the whole
+secret.' I've got past that now. There's always a new and more
+difficult riddle every day. But Dita, Dita, the dreams of my youth you
+recall!"
+
+The smile died from her face. Her eyes grew wistful. "The dreams of our
+youth," she repeated. "I'm young yet; but they haunt me. They were
+beautiful dreams down there on that gray, old river. Can't you shut your
+eyes, Eugene, and see the terraces sloping down to the water, the
+lovely, neglected garden with its tangle of roses and jasmine?"
+
+"Do I remember?" His eyes looked deep into hers. "I swear I never smell
+jasmine without thinking of the old place and you. Perdita, do you ever
+think what life might have been for us if it hadn't been for our
+accursed poverty? If we'd only had just a little between us. It's a
+question of courage. If we'd only had the courage to face things hand in
+hand we'd have got along somehow, I dare say. But we didn't have that
+quality, did we? We didn't believe enough in our dreams. That's the
+worst of life. She won't let you."
+
+"Oh, the dreams!" she scoffed. Her color remained high, her eyes
+glittered, but with irritation, not tears. She suffered from an old
+laceration of the heart, the more wounding in that, for pride's sake,
+she must ever deny it expression. Eugene always took the attitude as if
+they together had renounced a mutual love, and often implied, without
+rancor, but with a forgiving, almost understanding tenderness, that the
+responsibility of their marred lives lay on her shoulders.
+
+Perdita was of the twentieth century, but she was also a southern woman
+of many traditions, and she could not say the words which rose to her
+defensive lips: "Eugene, you have never asked me to face life hand in
+hand with you." He would with a glance, she could see it, feel it,
+convict her of blunted intuitions, of an inability to discern exquisite
+shades of emotion; and then he would express his love for her in
+glowing, passionate phrases, confusingly evasive, elusive beyond
+definition, committing himself to nothing.
+
+And if this shifting of responsibility on her, this ardent skirting of a
+definite issue were premeditated or his unavoidable, temperamental way
+of viewing the matter, she could not tell. Conjecture was idle. Her
+knowledge of his character, her ready mental accusations and equally
+ready excuses, these comprising the sole weight of evidence, merely held
+the scales steady.
+
+Eugene began to pick up, first one, then another, of the favors on the
+table, a smile, tender yet humorous, about his lips.
+
+"By Jove, these are not so bad! They are rather stunning. You always did
+have a lot of feeling for form and color, Dita, but you wouldn't work.
+You weren't willing to drudge and to starve if necessary. That was
+because you lacked the clear vision. It wasn't always before you, a
+pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night." None might doubt
+his sincerity or conviction now. It was mounting as flame. "Artistic and
+appreciative you are, Dita. All this trash shows it, but you lack the
+creative impulse. You were never meant to be a barefooted, tattered
+follower of the vision, a lodger in a new palace of dreams each night.
+You should build your house on the rock of substantial things,
+bread-and-butter facts.
+
+"Oh, do not toss up your head in that wounded-stag manner. Good Lord!
+Isn't it enough that you are beautiful? And how beautiful! I'm almost
+tempted to cancel my passage and, instead of sailing to-morrow morning,
+stop here and paint you again. Really, I am. But what would it profit
+me? I'd just be sowing the seed for a new harvest of heartaches.
+Perdita, your destiny is written on your face." It was as if he willed
+to speak lightly. "It includes marrying a millionaire, and having your
+portrait painted by me. You'll never have an international reputation as
+a beauty until you do both." But in spite of his smile and his flippant
+words there was bitterness in his eyes.
+
+She did not see that, but the lightness of his words and tone pricked
+her to an immediate decision, a decision which she had, unconsciously,
+postponed until she had seen him. Her face paled, her lips folded in a
+tight line.
+
+"I am going to marry the millionaire," she said firmly enough, although
+there was a slight tremor in her voice. "It depends on you whether or
+not there is a portrait of Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth by Gresham." There
+was triumph in her eyes and voice as thus she lifted her pride from the
+dust.
+
+"Cresswell Hepworth!" His astonishment was unbounded. "Perdita! I throw
+my hat at your feet. Cresswell Hepworth! The pick of the bunch.
+Wonderful! But," looking at her curiously, "how on earth did you meet
+him?"
+
+"He heard of my amulet through a man I met at old Mrs. Huff's, Mr.
+Martin. He has a wonderful collection of amulets, and he wanted to buy
+it of me."
+
+"But you didn't sell it?" he said quickly. "No, of course not. H'm-m.
+That old amulet. You laugh at my superstitions, Dita, but you must admit
+that it's queer the way it's interwoven with the history of our family."
+
+He began to roll cigarettes and lay them with neat and exquisite
+regularity on the table beside him. His eyebrows were raised, his mouth
+twisted in a sort of rueful yet whimsical grimace. When he had finished
+rolling the sixth cigarette, he laid it in line with the others, an
+exact line, his eye was so true. Then at last he looked at her, and his
+cynical, earnest, mocking, enthusiastic face softened. His eyes
+enveloped her with tenderness. There was a heart-break in his smile.
+
+"Ah, star-eyed Perdita, how shall I give you up? The only woman!" He
+mused a moment, and then repeated: "The only woman! If we had but had
+the courage to take the bitter with the sweet, Perdita."
+
+Unwitting goad! It struck too deep for her to conceal the wound.
+
+"You do not say 'can,' I observe, Eugene," she said laughingly, but
+there was an edge to her voice like that on finely tempered steel.
+
+"No," he returned, his fingers busy with a rearrangement of the
+cigarettes; "you see it involves you and me. Not John Jones and Jane
+Smith, but you and me. Do you know what that means? Well, it means that
+it involves the inheritance and training of a good many generations. Do
+you think I do not know how you loathe all this?" He flicked with his
+fingers the dainty trifles on the table. "I know well the craving of
+your nature for splendor and beauty, how necessary they are to you, and
+how dinkiness and makeshifts irritate and depress you, take the heart
+out of you. That is one you, one Perdita. There is another. I saw her
+when I came in to-night. God, I wish I hadn't!" His voice dropped on
+this exclamation and she did not hear it. "She is young. Her beautiful,
+dark eyes ask love and give it. Her heart dreams of it. It is in every
+tone of her voice. These two are at war, the natural woman and the woman
+with her inherited love of ease and luxury and cultivated, artificial
+desires. Which is the stronger? Why, to-night"--he picked up one of the
+cigarettes and prepared to light it; his hands trembled, his face was
+white--"the woman who is ready to love. She would listen to
+me--to-night. I would hold her. Oh, what's the use?" He twisted his
+shoulders impatiently. Then he bent forward and tapped the table lightly
+but emphatically, as if to add weight to his words. "You'd listen to me
+to-night, I know that; but as sure as to-morrow's dawn I'd get a little
+note from you saying that the morn had brought wisdom. But, oh, I am
+glad I'm sailing to-morrow."
+
+"So am I," she flashed out. "You think--you take too much for granted,
+Eugene."
+
+"I dare say." His voice sounded flat. "No one ever appreciates
+renunciation. Well, it's out into the night in more senses than one." He
+rose and looked at her as she sat with downcast eyes, and half stretched
+out his arms toward her. Then as she too rose, he clasped his fingers
+about the back of her head and drew her face toward him, although she
+strove to avert it from him. "Good-by, sweetheart." Even she must
+believe in the ardor and sincerity of his tones. "Good-by, Perdita of
+the South." He kissed her lightly on one cheek and then the other.
+"Good-by, my jasmine flower."
+
+He hesitated a moment in leaving the room, as if to turn and clasp her
+to him and bear her away; then he shut the door gently behind him and
+she heard his halting, hurried step upon the stair. She sat listening
+until its last echoes had died away, and then, casting her outstretched
+arms on the table, sending the favors and menus and candle-shades in a
+shower to the floor, she burst into a storm of tears.
+
+There was a low, discreet, respectful knock, Olga's knock on the door
+leading into Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth's splendid apartments. Perdita
+started violently and came back to the present from her far world of
+dreaming. She had not even begun to dress, but still was sitting, chin
+on hand, gazing with apparent intentness at her image in the mirror.
+
+"It is almost time for Madame to start," Olga smiled from the doorway,
+"so I ventured to remind."
+
+"Yes," Perdita spoke hurriedly, rising at the same time. "Get me into my
+gown quickly, please, and tie my shoes."
+
+Olga was deft and practised, and Perdita's dressing was the work of a
+few minutes.
+
+"My veil now," said the new Mrs. Hepworth, "and--oh, I almost forgot."
+She turned to lift from her dressing-table an exceedingly quaint and
+striking ornament, depending from a long, thin chain. It was a square of
+crystal about an inch and a half in diameter, set curiously in strands
+of silver and gold, twisted and beaten together, and, as must be
+apparent to even the casual observer, was of ancient and unique
+workmanship. This was Perdita's amulet, the old charm, which Eugene with
+his superstitious fancies had always longed to possess, and which had
+excited also the desire of the collector in Hepworth; but in spite of
+many temptations to part with it, Dita had always retained possession of
+it. It was her one link with the past, a personal link, but also a
+traditional and hereditary one. She wound the chain several times about
+her neck, and the crystal pendant gleamed dully against the dark blue
+cloth of her gown.
+
+"You also are ready, Olga?" she said as she passed through the door.
+
+"Yes, Madame."
+
+Hepworth was waiting for Perdita at the head of the stairs. He was in
+his heavy motoring coat, his cap in hand.
+
+He smiled as he saw her. "Just in time," he said. "I'm afraid we will
+have to make haste, rather. Ah," as his eye caught the talisman, "you
+are wearing the amulet, are you not? Blessed old thing. If it had not
+been for that, I should never have met you."
+
+"I believe you only married me to get it," she replied with an answering
+smile, "you are such an insatiable collector."
+
+"Do you believe that? Do you?" he asked. "Because if you do, you are as
+stupid as you are pretty, and you have no idea what that implies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+PINK AND WHITE EXISTENCE
+
+
+So Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth whirled away in the big motor and for
+the next few months wandered about the globe. Perdita, who had seen
+nothing but an old southern plantation and New York, the latter from the
+curb, as it were, must see everything; so in pursuit of this aim, the
+Hepworths were constantly stepping from huge, magnificent boats to huge,
+magnificent motors, thence to huge, magnificent hotels. And cities, the
+open country, villages, mountain peaks, strange peoples, were as debris
+strewing the pathway of Perdita's avid flight through new experiences.
+It was tremendously stimulating, even heady, she found, to hold the
+world between one's thumb and finger, and turn it this way and that to
+catch the light. Headier still to discover that to wish is to realize,
+but proportionately a shock to find that the life of infinite variety
+may only be lived within circumscribed boundaries. What is more
+disillusionizing than to learn that money has its limitations? It can
+merely buy the very best of things, the superlatives of the commonplace,
+but these, in the last analysis, remain food, lodgings, clothes,
+conveyances, ornaments, no more. Money can not buy stars or dreams, or
+love or happiness.
+
+Perdita's soaring youth resented it. But she was adaptable, enormously
+interested and the ground within the boundaries was new, affording daily
+opportunities for fresh exploration. And she, quick to observe and
+compare, had profited by her new experiences. Money became to her merely
+the medium of exchange for any beautiful thing she might want. Speedily
+she lost her first, fresh pleasure in making it flutter its little
+golden wings and fly; but her love of art deepened and strengthened, and
+at many famous shrines she offered her heart's homage. She took up the
+study of designing, and worked at it systematically with an ardor and
+intensity which at first amused and then puzzled her husband.
+
+On their return from their travels Perdita occupied herself in
+altering, refurnishing and redecorating one or two of Hepworth's country
+places and his town house. She worked in consultation with a great firm,
+and succeeded in changing the weary acquiescence of "our Mr. So and So"
+to interest and an astonishment bordering on enthusiasm. She was not the
+average rich woman who had gone in for being artistic, with a head full
+of glaringly impossible ideas and a flow of helpful suggestions which
+set the professional teeth on edge.
+
+On the contrary, this girl, Mrs. Hepworth, really knew a few things and
+was willing to learn more. She was a student. "The only woman," murmured
+dazedly "our Mr. Smith-Jones," "the only woman I ever met who realizes
+that decoration must conform to architecture, not defy it. You usually
+have to fracture their skulls to make them understand that pompadour
+prettinesses are not suitable in a Gothic chapel."
+
+But when she had finished the houses, and designed more costumes than
+she could wear, she looked about her for fresh worlds to conquer, and
+discovered that she was up against the boundaries. Walls everywhere!
+She could do anything she chose, travel, buy clothes, motors, an
+aeroplane if she wanted it, only she did not. She next went through a
+phase when she decided that the people with whom she was thrown were
+intolerable, representing a frivolous and empty-headed society. Her
+imagination dwelt on the class who "did things," "the dreamers," she
+called them to herself, who adorned a brilliant, picturesque,
+delightfully haphazard Bohemia, where, at feasts, principally of red
+wine and bloomy, purple grapes, laughter pealed to the rafters, and the
+conversation sparkled as if sprinkled with stardust. She strove to enter
+this Olympian vagabondia, and found herself entangled in the nets of
+many fowlers, sycophantic, impecunious, and, unsated of their many
+banquets, physically hungry.
+
+She began to have seasons of ennui and depression, increasing in
+frequency. What was the matter with her world? Nothing, she would hasten
+to assure herself, it was the best of all possible worlds, and she, a
+darling of fortune--once, unforgetably, the waif of chance--was the most
+contented of women. Only--what was the matter with this perversely
+empty and uninteresting world?
+
+It was not always so. It was once invested with wonderful things, and
+such simple things, too. She remembered how she used to stand at the
+window of her little work-room watching the day fade, marveling at the
+miracle of the twilight. While the sun was high, she had seen only
+commonplace, dusty streets, crowded with people, and had heard only a
+crazy, creaking old piano-organ grinding away on the pavement beneath,
+but in the soft indefiniteness of twilight these solid houses and
+buildings would become unsubstantial, mere shadowy arabesques on the
+spangled gloom of night. There were purple vistas, glittering lights and
+fairy towers. She would hold her breath, almost expecting to hear a
+nightingale. It was all mystery and magic, life and romance, that
+eternal romance her starved youth asked. How she used to dream of the
+unexpected, the dazzling unexpected!
+
+And then Cresswell had come, and, as she thought, offered it to her. To
+do Perdita justice, she had not married Hepworth merely because of his
+great wealth. She was incapable of such sordid and callous calculation.
+But Cophetua had met this beggar maid at her most disheartened and
+despairing moment, and without difficulty had succeeded in first winning
+her interest and then enchaining her imagination.
+
+In her two years of struggle to earn her livelihood Eugene had become
+more or less a memory, and, in spite of the fascination and interest he
+had always had for her, she did not blind herself to certain erratic
+tendencies of his. He might appear at any moment, so she judged him,
+with vows of eternal love, and straightway, if the mood seized him,
+begin a new picture and forget her. And so she married Hepworth largely
+that life might become a successive series of introductions to an ever
+varying unexpected. Instead, although her quest was feverish, she
+encountered only the commonplace. She was like a mouse which has
+discovered the inadequacy of cheese to quench its soul-yearnings. What
+remained?
+
+The truth of the matter was that Perdita's world, which seemed so
+hopelessly askew to her, had an architectural defect. It lacked that
+sure antidote to ennui--a Bluebeard's closet.
+
+Now Perdita was young and healthy. She had great curiosity, and a
+certain insatiable mental quality which would have successfully riveted
+her interest to life, but for one fact, her heart was as ardent and
+insatiable as her intelligence--and her husband bored her. There is no
+record of Bluebeard boring any of his wives.
+
+She became more and more conscious of a continual little plaint running
+always through her consciousness, like the sad, monotonous murmur of an
+ever-flowing stream, a little unceasing plaint against life in the
+abstract and life in its personal application.
+
+"There must be as many worlds as there are points of view," so ran the
+stream, "but my life's like a wedding-cake, all white and sparkling and
+overdecorated, and absolutely insipid. Candy! That's what it is ... my
+rooms are all pink and white, and I'm crusted over with pink sugar."
+Perdita always thought in color. "I'm tired of all this pink and white
+and baby-blue existence. I'd welcome a little scarlet and black sin for
+a change. Oh, it's just your corsets over again. You're put in them when
+you're about fifteen and you never get out of them again. We women think
+in corsets, breathe in them. We live in them mentally, and accept all
+their constrictions and restrictions as a matter of course. We take in
+drafts of air, and expand our lungs and say we're emancipated, but we
+only expand as much as the corsets allow. We've put our world in
+corsets, to confine us still more ... mine used to be mended, frequently
+washed, with some of the bones broken; now I have many pairs, brocade,
+satin--cloth of gold, if I want them--but they are the same thing,
+corsets, corsets on our bodies and brains and lives.
+
+"Look at Cresswell. He doesn't wear corsets. He has an interesting,
+absorbing, unfettered life. He's using the muscles of his
+brain--strengthening them on some resisting substance. He's in the thick
+of it.... What fun! Planning, visioning things in his mind, and seeing
+them take form in the external. He's a builder. He wears an
+imperturbable mask. That's for defense; but behind it I sometimes see
+keen, powerful, calculating gleams in his eyes, and I want to know about
+them, but I can't.... I can't talk to him about any but surface things.
+I can't show him what is in my heart.... The corsets are between us.
+He's one of the great powers, and he's mine, a possession like the
+Kohinoor, but I do not fancy that the Kohinoor constitutes the queen's
+happiness.
+
+"What are Cresswell and I to each other, anyway? Why, he's my Kohinoor,
+a possession of great price which endows me with distinction, and runs
+my credit up into the millions. He's as brilliant and cold and secretive
+as his prototype. And I--I'm his doll, a very jewel of a doll. One of
+the prettiest in the world, wonderfully dressed, exquisitely marceled,
+faultlessly manicured. I can smile enchantingly, and open and shut my
+mouth to ask for what I want and what I don't want, particularly the
+latter, and lisp 'thank you' when he drops a diamond necklace or a ruby
+tiara into my lap.
+
+"I hate a man that puts me on a pedestal. Any woman does. He thinks I'm
+sugar and salt and will melt and break. I wish he'd come to me, just
+once, with some enthusiasm and hug me breathless. I'm tired of his
+everlasting chivalry and deference.... When he begins to treat me with
+reverence and guards my youth and all that, I'd like to swear at him
+like the disreputable parrot of a drunken sailor.... Wouldn't I surprise
+him? I wonder what he would do if I'd cut loose? Oh, dear, I wish he'd
+come home drunk some night and smash up some of this junk and--what is
+that phrase of Wallace Martin's--swipe me one; and then be penitent and
+remorseful and ashamed and human--instead of always being like a darned
+old statue of the American statesman with one hand thrust in the bosom
+of his frock-coat.
+
+"I wonder--I wonder--what kind of a husband Eugene would have made. Not
+one of the amiable, benign, deferential ones, anyway. What were those
+lines 'Gene used to say?
+
+    "'Each life's unfulfilled, you see,
+        And both hang patchy and scrappy.
+      We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
+        Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy!'
+
+"That's it--that's it--that's life. To sigh deep--to laugh free; to
+make your bed in hell, and then soar on the wings of the morning.... I'm
+young, beautiful. I have everything but experience. I mean to have
+it.... No wonder Eve took the apple the serpent offered, if she was as
+bored in the Garden of Eden as I am. I'd have bitten more than one,
+though. What is the use of living if you don't live?"
+
+And while Perdita raged in inward rebellion, the world, viewing things
+from the outside, took an entirely different view of her matter.
+
+Popular opinion inclined to the belief that the good fairies had too
+heavily dowered this young woman at her cradle, and consequently a
+readjustment was inevitable, probably by the gracious means of ennobling
+tribulation. The dramatic event was rather eagerly anticipated. Not that
+envy had any part in it or that any of Perdita's friends or
+acquaintances wished to see a fellow being punished for the liberality
+of Providence. On the contrary. It was merely a sane desire to mark the
+balances of the universe in faultless equilibrium and to have the
+comforting assurance that the mills of the gods still ground with the
+proverbial exactness.
+
+Youth, health, wealth, beauty, happiness, all unlimited! An exasperating
+spectacle! How could all be right with the world as long as Hebe
+continued to pour most of the nectar into one glass, while so many
+thirsty, deserving souls were denied even a sip?
+
+And Perdita went her way and smiled alike on those who caviled and those
+who applauded. She had accepted her husband's friends as her own with a
+sort of careless, indifferent good nature and the relations existing
+between herself and the closely cemented little group were sufficiently
+harmonious under the circumstances. Maud Carmine and she had struck
+"leagues of friendship" at once, and Maud's prediction that Hepworth's
+friends would have to serve as Perdita's relatives would seem to have
+been verified.
+
+And Maud, through constant association, appeared to have reflected some
+of Dita's beauty, for there was evidenced the most remarkable change in
+the plain Miss Carmine, her name no longer prefaced by that deplorable
+adjective, however. Alice Wilstead explained it by frankly giving the
+credit to Perdita. It was she, Alice asserted, who had had the faith and
+the courage to take Maud vigorously in hand and make of her a new
+creature as far as the outward presentment was concerned. The results
+had been so mutually satisfactory as to rivet the friendship between the
+two; for Dita had proved by her works her belief that there was not the
+faintest necessity for any such creature as an unattractive woman; and
+Maud, having lost all faith in the willingness of nature to better her
+original handiwork, had turned hopefully to art, with the result that
+she was now one of the most talked-of women in town. By men, because she
+had recently grown attractive enough for them to discover that she was
+also extremely agreeable and sympathetic. By women, because they ached
+to discover her secret. They remembered as easily as the men forgot that
+for twenty-eight years of her life Maud had been as a weed by the wall,
+a lank and sallow weed, oppressed by the sparseness of her leaves and
+the entire absence of either flowers or fruit, and suddenly she had
+acquired an art, an air, the trick of dress so subtle that it imparted
+distinction even to her worst points.
+
+But when Perdita proceeded to verify, a little tardily, it is true, the
+hope of Mrs. Willoughby Hewston, sighingly expressed at the wedding
+breakfast, and furnished herself with a relative, the coterie gasped. It
+was not perhaps just the selection Mrs. Hewston would have made for her,
+but, nevertheless, Perdita had produced a relative, although, it must be
+confessed, of a rather dubious and indefinite nearness.
+
+If Mrs. Hewston had been questioned on the subject she might have
+confessed that the relative she had in mind, as presenting an admirable
+background for a young and lovely girl, was either a silver-haired
+mother with a white lace cap, and a hair brooch fastening the snowy lawn
+collar of her black gown; or, in lieu of her, a maiden aunt. Indeed, had
+Mrs. Hewston been given free choice, she would have inclined toward the
+latter. Unquestionably, a maiden aunt is the best possible promoter of
+that nice sense of the proprieties, those right feelings and carefully
+graduated moral sentiments which are indispensable to a homeless,
+penniless young woman scrambling for a living. But Perdita, in
+presenting her relative, had almost flippantly disregarded these
+considerations involving a sense of universal fitness. It was a far cry,
+really an almost revolutionary distance, one felt, from the
+silver-haired mother or rather acid maiden aunt to Eugene Gresham.
+Eugene Gresham! Fancy!
+
+For Eugene had returned to his native land with the recognition of Paris
+and London, even their acclaim--golden bay leaves and purple cloaks.
+Therefore was he thrice welcomed of New York. Therefore, the next
+presumption followed as naturally as the first. It was out of the
+question that Mrs. Hepworth, whose beauty was a matter of international
+comment, should lack a Gresham portrait, a distinction now unattainable
+save to those upon the mountain peaks of noble birth, enormous wealth,
+great achievement, remarkable beauty or superlative notoriety.
+
+As Alice Wilstead pointed out, no one could cavil at any relative Mrs.
+Hepworth chose to set up, however regretable might be Perdita Carey's
+claim of kinship with this particular person, and she had certainly, as
+far as one knew, been discreet enough not to flaunt him during her
+scrambles. Now, as Mrs. Hepworth's cousin (how many times removed,
+dear?) he was one more jewel in her crown.
+
+Mrs. Hewston sighingly acquiesced. "Yes, really. As Mrs. Hepworth's
+relative, yes. But hardly as the guide, philosopher and friend of youth,
+feminine youth, anyway." Only the happily married might safely claim
+him, for Gresham, with his fame as a painter of beautiful women and his
+almost equal reputation as a fascinating person, would not have been
+commended by any maiden aunt for either right feelings, nice moral
+sentiments or a discriminating taste for the proprieties.
+
+As for Cresswell Hepworth, he looked after his vast and varied
+interests, kept up his collections, especially his collection of
+amulets, in which he was greatly interested, and occupied his leisure in
+seeing that his wife was sufficiently entertained and amused to gratify
+the requirements even of her eager youth.
+
+Did she hint a longing for the Roc's egg? It was cabled for within the
+hour. Did she breathe a desire for the moon? Orders were given that an
+aeronautic expedition capable of securing it be manned at once.
+
+And yet in spite of all this obvious contentment and happiness, Mr.
+Willoughby Hewston in the role of raven had never ceased to flap his
+wings and croak. He was particularly in this favorite vein of his one
+afternoon when he shuffled into his wife's sitting-room, where she and
+Alice Wilstead sat over their tea-cups. They heard him sighing heavily
+as he came.
+
+"No, I don't want any tea," he said, letting himself down slowly into an
+easy chair, "you know I never touch it.
+
+"Poor old Cress!" He shook his head gloomily at a spot in the carpet.
+"Well, it's just as I predicted. That wife of his is the talk of the
+town!"
+
+"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed his wife. She, loyal soul, never failed him as
+audience. A quick glance passed between Mrs. Wilstead and herself, as if
+he had mentioned the subject uppermost in their minds, and, no doubt, in
+their conversation.
+
+"Oh, come now, Willoughby," said Alice, instinctively choosing the best
+method of drawing him out, "you know it's nothing like so bad as that."
+
+Hewston scowled heavily and laid one hand gingerly upon his rheumatic
+knee, which gave him an especially sharp twinge at the moment. "It's
+probably worse," he replied with even more than his customary acerbity,
+"worse than we, any of us, know. Didn't I see them walking up Fifth
+Avenue together this afternoon, and didn't a fellow speak of it to me?
+And Cress out of town!"
+
+"Well, let me tell something, dear," said his wife soothingly. "Cress
+will very soon be in town again, for here are invitations to a dinner
+the Hepworths are having next week. Quite an informal affair. Perdita
+writes me, 'Just the little group of Cresswell's best friends, which I
+hope I may also claim as mine,'" reading from the note she had picked up
+from the table. "Very sweet of her."
+
+"A dinner, eh," growled Hewston, "with all of us, and I suppose that
+painter fellow. Well, I only hope it will not fall to me to open poor
+Cresswell's eyes."
+
+"Oh, Willoughby!"
+
+"I'll not shirk my duty if it does. You can understand that. What
+evening is this dinner? Next Thursday! Humph! Who is that?" as the
+curtain before the door was pushed aside and some one entered.
+
+"I!" said Wallace Martin, "only poor little me. They told me to come up.
+What's happening next Thursday?"
+
+"The Hepworths' dinner. There is probably an invitation awaiting you at
+home."
+
+"No, there is not," he said. "It's in my pocket now. I picked it up as I
+was leaving. From what Maud Carmine has just told me, I imagine it's a
+touching family group composed of ourselves and Eugene Gresham."
+
+"Dear me," deplored Mrs. Hewston, "I do wish she would consider
+Willoughby more. She must know that he can not endure the sight of Mr.
+Gresham."
+
+"It is not her fault," said Martin quickly, "as far as I can make out
+from what Maud told me. Cress became imbued with the idea that he
+wanted his dear old friends clustering about the board, and made out
+the list himself."
+
+"How like a man!" remarked Alice Wilstead gloomily. "But why, just now?"
+
+"Oh, he's been adding to that pet collection of amulets of his, and he
+wanted to show us his new acquisitions. That's the root of it, I fancy.
+I don't imagine the lovely Perdita pined for us. She has been a creature
+of moods lately. Very hotty-like with me."
+
+"She was actually almost impertinent to Willoughby the other day." Mrs.
+Hewston spoke with a hushed mournfulness. "I'm afraid all this luxury
+and adulation has turned her head, and Willoughby spoke so gently to
+her, too, did you not, dear?"
+
+"Ugh! Humph!" quoth Willoughby.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+OUR LOVING FRIENDS
+
+
+AS it chanced the Hepworths were not particularly fortunate in their
+choice of an evening for the dinner so gloomily anticipated by their
+guests. The weather was unpropitious. All day rain had threatened, and
+the air had been almost sultry, a parting word flung over her shoulder
+to autumn by a mischievous July who should long ago have vanished. As
+the evening wore on clouds banked more densely upon the horizon,
+occasionally muttering thunder, and this electric hint of storm in the
+air had in some way communicated itself to the mental atmosphere. A
+sense of foreboding, a consciousness of discord, seemed to swell
+ominously now and again beneath the smooth and colorful surface of the
+dinner. Even the dullest of the guests felt that, and to the intuitive,
+the stately progress of the meal was nerve-racking.
+
+When the hostess rose, every individual sigh of relief involuntarily
+exhaled became a chorus, shocking in volume.
+
+They winced nervously, but in spite of it, each guest stood by his guns.
+They had, apparently with one mind, and certainly with one voice,
+decided against bridge. The ordeal of dinner bravely borne, licensed
+them, they felt, even bestowed the accolade of privilege on them, to
+escape the prevalent atmosphere of unrest as quickly as possible.
+
+In the brief time they had allotted themselves to remain, barely
+skirting the limits of conventional decency, Alice Wilstead, Isabel and
+Willoughby Hewston and Wallace Martin had elected to take their coffee
+and cigarettes on a small balcony opening from the drawing-room by long
+French windows and giving upon a garden, quite half of a city block,
+with thick, close-cropped lawn, and black masses of dense shrubbery
+permeating the damp and sultry air with the mingled fragrance of earth
+and leaves and some late-blooming flowers. Maud Carmine, good-natured as
+usual, had seated herself at the piano, across the length of the room
+from the balcony, to play a ballad of Chaminade's at her host's
+request.
+
+Hepworth, who alone appeared to be oblivious of the sinister atmospheric
+influences, leaned his elbows on the piano and listened, occasionally
+unhesitatingly breaking the flow of the music with conversation.
+
+With their friend and host thus comfortably within sight, yet out of
+earshot, the group on the balcony felt at liberty to speak with freedom;
+no danger of sudden appearances, consequent jumps and hot wonder at what
+might have been overheard.
+
+"Gad!" said Mr. Hewston, more gray and pink, puffy and heavily financial
+than ever, "when will people learn to eat and drink without flowers on
+the table?"
+
+"No flowers!" repeated Alice Wilstead. "It would look dull, would it
+not?" From her tone it was evident that she had paid little heed to his
+words.
+
+"What difference does that make?" he argued irritably. "You don't go to
+dinner to look at the table decorations. But if they must have 'em, why
+can't they have the artificial kind or those paper things. Anything but
+the beastly, smelly, live ones."
+
+"Don't you really care for them?" she asked, laughing. "I thought every
+one loved flowers. To tell the truth, they were about all that made that
+unending dinner bearable to me. They were so exquisitely arranged."
+
+"Oh, that," in grudging admission, "goes without saying in this house,
+but," fretfully, "they were all the loud smelling kind."
+
+"She always arranges them herself," said Mrs. Wilstead, "she has
+wonderful taste, wonderful. Her house, her clothes, even down to the
+smallest detail of the table. Marvelous!"
+
+"Humph! she doesn't show the same taste in men," grunted Hewston. "No
+brains at all."
+
+Mrs. Wilstead leaned forward to tap his arm with her fan.
+
+"Do not make any mistake on that score," her voice was emphatic, "she
+has plenty of brains."
+
+"Humph!" more scornfully than before. "Then I wish they'd keep her from
+making the fool of herself that she is doing now."
+
+"Hs-s-sh," Alice looked as if she would like to thrust a handkerchief
+into his mouth. "Ah!" glancing up with relief as Isabel and Wallace
+Martin turned from their contemplation of the garden over the balcony
+railing. "Sit down here," she motioned to two chairs beside her.
+
+"Dear me, Alice," said Martin, "isn't your face tired with the effort of
+keeping the corners of your mouth turned up and the sparkle in your
+eyes? The only person who seems calm and serene this evening is dear old
+Hepworth. What do you think it is on his part, the quintessence of pose
+or simple, uncomprehending, fatuous ignorance?"
+
+"My God!" growled Hewston explosively. His wife started nervously.
+
+"Oh Willoughby dear, not so loud! Wallace," in what was as near a tone
+of reproof as she could achieve, "I do wish you wouldn't say those
+reckless things before Willoughby. You know how emotional he is."
+
+Alice also shook her head impatiently. "Don't you think we are a lot of
+old gossips magnifying matters enormously? You may expect so beautiful a
+young woman as Dita Hepworth to be more or less talked about; but there
+is probably a perfect understanding between herself and Cress. Lord
+help her if there isn't," she added almost under her breath, "I've known
+him many a year."
+
+"'When an old bachelor marries a young wife, what is he to expect?'"
+quoted Martin impressively. As a would-be playwright he had the
+dramatists at his finger-tips.
+
+"Wallace, you are too bad," expostulated Mrs. Wilstead. "No wonder you
+quote from _The School for Scandal_. Here we are a lot of old wreckers
+doing our best to shatter a reputation. Why Dita Hepworth and Eugene
+Gresham have known each other ever since they were children. Naturally,
+she shows her pleasure in his society."
+
+"Oh pish!" scoffed Wallace Martin, "those unconcealed glances she
+bestowed on him at dinner spoke not of sisterly affection, and how we
+all squirmed under them and wondered miserably if Hepworth was seeing
+them too."
+
+"He always did see everything without appearing to," murmured Mrs.
+Wilstead gloomily.
+
+"Now merely as a sporting chance, which would you bet on," said Martin,
+drawing his chair a bit nearer, "the rich, middle-aged husband, or the
+fascinating artist, the painter of beautiful women, in the zenith of his
+fame? It is the same old plot you know, and the oft-told tale may have
+just two endings. First, she goes off with the artist, lives a squalid
+and miserable life abroad, falls ill, and dies, holding the hand and
+imploring the forgiveness of her husband, who conveniently and
+miraculously appears. In the second ending, she makes all preparations
+to flee and then something occurs which causes her to see the
+sculpturesque nobility of her husband's character and the curtain
+descends to slow sweet music while they stand heart to heart in the
+calcium light of a grand reconciliation scene."
+
+"Oh, Wallace, do forget for once that you are trying to be a playwright.
+Forget the shop." Mrs. Wilstead was irritable. "I do wish she would join
+us," looking about her nervously, "I want to go home. Is she utterly
+careless?"
+
+"Only absorbed," returned Martin calmly. "Didn't you hear her ask him
+before they left the room, to come and look at the picture gallery where
+he is to paint her portrait? She wanted him to judge of the lighting--a
+night like this. I thought I saw the flutter of her white gown in the
+garden yonder a bit ago."
+
+"Oh do, for goodness sake, change the subject," said Alice Wilstead
+hurriedly. "I am sure Cresswell must think it queer the way we are all
+sitting out here with our heads together, in the teeth of that
+approaching storm."
+
+"Not at all," Martin reassured her. "Don't you see that Maud is doing
+her duty heroically? Maud isn't the wife's confidante and dearest friend
+for nothing."
+
+"Isn't it perfectly wonderful about Maud?" commented Mrs. Hewston. "You
+all know what a plain, angular creature she was, nothing really to
+recommend her but her music and she always spoiled that by playing with
+her shoulder blades."
+
+"She's an extremely stunning woman," said Wallace Martin shortly.
+
+"And all due to Dita Hepworth," announced Mrs. Wilstead. "Wonderful! I
+never saw a woman with such a genius for dress and decoration. If her
+beauty wasn't such an obvious quality, I should think it was due to her
+almost uncanny knowledge of what is becoming and--Ah, thank Heaven, here
+she is!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+PERDITA'S TALISMAN
+
+
+Perdita Hepworth had entered the room, with Eugene Gresham just a step
+or two behind her, and, after a glance in the direction of Maud Carmine
+and her husband, had moved toward the little group on the balcony.
+Gresham was used to any amount of attention and admiration, but the
+adulatory interest which he may have merited and had, in fact, grown to
+regard as his due, was always conspicuously lacking when he appeared
+with Perdita.
+
+"The picture gallery is the chosen spot," she announced as if bearing
+some intelligence for which they had long been waiting, "and the
+sittings are to be begun at once. I remember when I first knew Maud
+Carmine, she said to me, 'Fancy what it must be like to have your
+portrait painted by Eugene Gresham!'" Her low laughter rang with a sort
+of triumphant amusement. "'Dear child,' I answered, 'I have had my
+portrait painted by him so many times that there would be no novelty
+whatever in the experience.' You know," to Mrs. Hewston, who looked
+faintly puzzled, "'Gene and I have always known each other." She looked
+over at Gresham who was seated on the arm of a chair talking to Maud
+Carmine and Hepworth. "Has Maud been playing for Cresswell?" she asked
+suddenly. "He is so fond of her music."
+
+"Yes, she has been playing delightfully," answered Mrs. Wilstead, "and
+she looks charming to-night. Maud who was always regarded as an ugly
+duckling has suddenly become a swan."
+
+"Ah, why not?" said Perdita carelessly. "Maud hadn't the faintest idea
+how to make the most of herself. She gave the effect of hard lines and
+angles, and hair and eyes and skin all cut from the same piece, a dingy
+dust color. Like every other woman of that type she has a perfect
+passion for mustard colors and hard grays. Ugh!" she shivered. "The only
+thing to do with Maud was to make her realize that she must look odd and
+mysterious, you know. That was all. Oh, she is beckoning to me. They
+want something."
+
+She crossed the room with that grace of bearing which nature had
+bestowed upon her and with the added poise and assurance gained within
+the last two years. She still gave the effect of extreme simplicity in
+dress but it was retained as by a miracle, for although she wore no
+jewels her white gown was of the most exquisite and costly lace. But her
+head was undeniably carried a trifle higher than usual, and a very close
+observer might have read boredom in her eyes, defiance in her chin,
+rebellion in her shoulders. As she turned from the little group on the
+balcony, she bit her lip irritably, before she again composed her
+features to the conventional smile of hostess-like cordiality.
+
+Alice Wilstead followed her with puzzled eyes.
+
+"It is very difficult to understand a beauty," she said plaintively to
+Martin.
+
+"Put it more correctly," as he blew a cloud of smoke. "Say, it's
+difficult to understand a woman."
+
+"But I do not find it so," she smiled. "I'm one myself. I'm on to all
+our various vagaries, but Dita Hepworth puzzles me. Look at this house.
+There are effects here in decoration, so beautiful and unusual that
+every one says Eugene Gresham directed them. I know he did not. Look at
+Maud Carmine, and yet Dita herself usually wears the plainest of gowns."
+
+"I must confess," said Martin, "that I do not follow you."
+
+"Perhaps not," she mused, then with more animation. "Come, Wallace, tell
+me exactly how she impresses you."
+
+"That is easy," he replied. "She is one of the prettiest women I ever
+saw in my life."
+
+"Ah, of course," in annoyance, "but I didn't mean that. That is no
+impression of character."
+
+"Mm," he pondered. "It isn't much of one, no."
+
+Alice leaned back in her chair. "I seem to discern depths in her that
+the rest of you refuse to see. You stop at her beauty and are content
+with never a peep beneath the surface."
+
+Martin tossed his cigarette over the railing into the garden. "Frankly,
+I think that you are searching for something that isn't there," he said
+abruptly. "The gods never bestow all their gifts on one person. Since
+you profess to know your own self so well you should realize that women
+so very pretty as Mrs. Hepworth are rarely clever. Why should they be?
+It is enough of an excuse for existence that they are beautiful."
+
+"It is indeed," growled Hewston, who had been absorbed in sulky
+meditation for some time. "I'd be contented if I thought she had enough
+head on her shoulders to keep straight and not involve good old Hepworth
+in God knows what."
+
+Wallace laughed. "I'll lay you a wager, Mrs. Wilstead," he whispered,
+tapping her fan with his finger-tips, "that the way things are going now
+there will be a split in the Hepworth household within three months."
+
+"Do not say it," she cried quickly. "I can not bear to think of such a
+thing."
+
+"I'll give you heavy odds, too," he went on cynically, leaning forward
+to regard the group at the piano. "I'll make it a bracelet against a box
+of cigars, provided I'm allowed to choose the brand of cigars."
+
+"You might as well put in another provision then," she retorted,
+"provided I am allowed to choose the bracelet. My taste in ornaments,
+dear Wallace, is both unique and expensive. I like only odd jewelry."
+
+"Odd jewelry! That is an old fad of yours, Alice," said Hepworth's voice
+behind her.
+
+She started slightly, she had not noticed his approach. "And your own,"
+she smiled up at him. "Have you secured any new amulets lately,
+Cresswell?"
+
+"Yes, one. It is a beauty, a scarab. I must show it to you; also
+another, a carved bloodstone set in very curiously wrought iron. I got
+that from a Gipsy woman. It is an old Romany talisman."
+
+"Do let us see them," pleaded Mrs. Hewston.
+
+"Certainly, I shall be delighted to. Excuse me a few moments. I will get
+the box myself. Naturally I would not trust it to the servants." He
+smiled at his weakness.
+
+"Naturally," said Hewston. "Come, let us all get into the drawing-room
+to look at them. It is beginning to rain anyway."
+
+It was only a few moments before Hepworth returned bearing a large,
+black leather box. He placed it on a table just under the light and then
+choosing a key from a ring, fitted it into the lock.
+
+"I hold one key," he said to the group pressing about him as he lifted
+the lid, "and Perdita the other. That is in case she may want to wear
+any of these trinkets."
+
+Alice Wilstead had been looking at Mrs. Hepworth at the moment her
+husband entered the room and she alone had noticed that Dita started
+violently when her eyes had fallen on the box and that all the rich
+color had fled her cheek, leaving her, for a second or two, white as a
+ghost.
+
+The box held a series of trays, each padded and velvet lined and upon
+these were fastened Cresswell Hepworth's noted collection of amulets.
+Most of these talismans were very ancient, many of them revealed the
+most beautiful workmanship. All of them were distinctive. Each one,
+almost without exception, had a history, strange, romantic or sinister,
+and these were all duly catalogued, but it was never necessary for
+Hepworth to refer to this written history. He had not only the symbolic
+significance of his favorite toys, but also the vicissitudes through
+which they had passed, at his finger ends.
+
+The top trays held scarabs, one of the most remarkable collections of
+them extant, commemorating certain mighty and fallen dynasties; or this
+reign or that of remote Egyptian rulers long crumbled to dust, and
+Hepworth lifted them lovingly from their trays and turning them deftly
+in his fingers explained their histories and expatiated on their beauty.
+
+Beneath the scarabs lay the jade talismans exquisitely carved and handed
+down from distant centuries. The hearts that had once beat beneath them
+had long been dust, but the talismans, with no stain of time upon them
+to dim their luster, would still serve as emblems of good luck to future
+generations. Then there were quaint amber charms preserving the warmth
+and flooding radiance of the sunlight that sparkles on sea foam in their
+depths, and opals delicately clouded with mystery, their "hearts of fire
+bedreamed in haze," carbuncles, jasper and hyacinth, all in their time
+the almost priceless possessions of their owners because of the mystic
+significance attaching to them. And then there were trays containing a
+somewhat heterogeneous collection of old pieces of beaten silver and
+iron with odd characters on them, representing periods of even greater
+antiquity than scarab or jade.
+
+These amulets were in many instances the memorials of bitter feuds and
+hot duels, fought on the moment, at the gleam of a talisman which both
+contestants claimed. More than one had been hastily rifled from the
+dead, and more than one had been bestowed by a great lady on an untitled
+lover of empty purse to aid him in winning fame and fortune.
+
+"By the way, Alice," said Hepworth suddenly, "you have seen Dita's
+amulet, have you not? It is almost, if not quite the gem of the
+collection."
+
+"No, I have never seen it," Mrs. Wilstead's whole piquant face was alive
+with interest. "But I have heard of it. It was through it that you met,
+was it not?"
+
+Dita nodded. The color had come back to her face. "It was that old
+talisman he was really interested in," she said. "I always tell him he
+married me to get it."
+
+Hepworth laughed. "It is well worth any one's interest. It has been in
+her family for generations, and there are all sorts of legends and
+traditions connected with it. It is said to give his heart's desire to
+whomever possesses it, isn't it, Dita?"
+
+"More than that," she replied, a little strangely, or at least so it
+seemed to Alice Wilstead. "He to whom it is given--and it can not be
+bought or bartered, it must always be bestowed--must sooner or later
+reveal himself in his true character, either his baseness or his
+nobility."
+
+"Fascinating!" cried the women in chorus. "What is it like?"
+
+"It is a square of crystal set in silver and gold. About the silver is
+twined one of those old Celtic chains which can only be seen with a
+microscope, where the links are so tiny that we have no instruments
+delicate enough to fasten them together and which were believed to have
+been made by the fairies. And now for a sight of it."
+
+He was about to lift the next tray, when Dita laid a detaining hand on
+his arm. "It isn't there, Cresswell," she said in a quick, low voice.
+
+As if he had not heard her or had not taken in the full import of her
+words, he laid the tray carefully upon the table, disclosing the one
+beneath. Like the others, it too was full of curious amulets, but one
+space was empty. Perdita's talisman was indeed missing.
+
+"Why, Dita!" he exclaimed. "You did not mention to me--"
+
+She shot a quick, unmistakable glance at Gresham. "Didn't I?" she
+interrupted before he could go further. "It's being mended."
+
+"Ah, those antique bits, they are always coming to pieces, at least I
+know mine are," said Mrs. Wilstead with hasty fluency. "But, Cresswell,
+there is still another tray, and I must see its contents before I go
+home."
+
+"Make it a month," said Martin in her ear. "I said three, didn't I?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SIROCCO
+
+
+"Good night, Hewston, good night, Alice. Don't go yet, Gresham."
+Hepworth laid a detaining hand on the artist's arm. "Sit down and smoke.
+We haven't had a moment to discuss this portrait matter yet."
+
+"I think," said Dita, moving toward the door, "that I shall leave you
+two to discuss it and go to bed."
+
+"Oh, my dear," her husband detained her with the same light touch with
+which he had held Gresham. He pushed an easy chair forward so that she
+should be seated between Eugene and himself. "We are going to get all
+the details of the portrait settled to-night. A portrait of you and
+painted by Gresham is sure to bloom and be admired for a century or two
+at any rate."
+
+Dita looked at him quickly as if suspecting him of some intention
+beyond the discussion of the contemplated portrait, but meeting the
+smiling blankness of his expression, turned away, not in the least
+reassured, but more puzzled than ever, and sinking listlessly into the
+chair sat staring moodily before her with veiled eyes and compressed
+lips.
+
+Eugene glanced at her uneasily, a frown between his brows. He knew her
+like a book. She had always, always from childhood, been a creature of
+moods. He was perfectly familiar with the various stages of the sirocco,
+as he had long ago named her outbursts. She would become restless,
+abstracted, absent, and then she would sit and brood as she was doing
+now, until finally the sullen and threatening atmosphere would be
+cleared by a burst of storm, a swift cyclone of anger.
+
+Gresham gave the faintest of sighs and an almost imperceptible shrug of
+the shoulders. This was a situation which he foresaw would require all
+his tact and ingenuity.
+
+"Is the picture gallery all right? Did you find it satisfactory?" asked
+Hepworth.
+
+"Excellent!" Eugene's brow cleared. He spoke with enthusiasm. "Yes, I
+told Perdita that the lighting there will be perfect. I've about decided
+to paint her in white. Yes," scrutinizing the indifferent object of the
+discussion narrowly and yet remotely, as if he were visualizing his
+finished portrait of her, "white velvet, I think, and rather a blare of
+jewels. You see I want to bring out the dominating quality of her
+beauty, harp on it, you know, so I want to present her eclipsing and
+reducing to their proper places all the splendid accessories with which
+we can surround her."
+
+Her husband nodded approvingly. "What do you think, Dita?"
+
+"Oh, by all means," she roused herself to answer, but making no effort
+to conceal the irony of her tones. "Let Eugene give me all the
+distinction and grace he is noted for bestowing on, you observe I do not
+say perceiving in, his clients, or patients, or patrons, whatever he may
+call them. Make the stones of my tiara and necklace even bigger and
+whiter and more sparkling than they are, Eugene. Or better still, I'll
+wear my diamond collar and my string of rubies and my rope of sapphires,
+all shouting hurrah at once, three cheers for the red, white and blue!
+Make me all glittery, Eugene, throw my sables over my shoulders."
+
+"By Jove!" cried Gresham, interrupting her, a white flash of enthusiasm
+across his face, "you may not dream it, Dita, but that's it exactly.
+You've hit it."
+
+"Yes," she went on satirically, "and present me in the middle of all
+this splendor, overcome by the 'burden of an honor into which I was not
+born.'"
+
+"But you were born to it," interposed her husband quickly, "no one more
+so."
+
+"Perhaps," she sighed a little, her eyes and voice grew softer, "but at
+a time when the outward manifestation had vanished."
+
+The glow had lingered, even become intensified in Gresham's face. "By
+Jove!" he cried again, "you were trying to be sarcastic and all that,
+Dita, but it was a great idea of yours just the same. I will paint your
+portrait and it shall be hung side by side with my working girl. They
+shall be companions of contrast. You see," explaining his idea to
+Hepworth, "I am going to paint my working girl in the city streets just
+at twilight on a winter evening, hastening home after the day's long
+toil. The lights and colors of the shop windows dance and glitter about
+her, blurred by the falling snow. Everything, lights, buildings,
+passers-by, are all in that blurred, indistinct atmosphere, and she,
+herself, is a part of the blur, looking through it, with her young, worn
+face and wistful eyes, craving the beauty and the joy of life."
+
+"No, no!" cried Dita suddenly. Rising, she moved rapidly up and down the
+room, her head bent, her finger at her lip. "No!" she cried again, her
+voice deeply vibrating. "I reckon you've just missed it, Eugene, it's
+too--too conventional. I can imagine something truer than that. My
+working girl, if I were painting her, should not be born to toil, not
+always have regarded it as the great fact of existence, an inevitable
+portion of her days and years from which she has never dreamed of
+escape. No, I would picture her delicate, highly nurtured, with
+traditions of race and breeding behind her; but poor, oh, very poor. And
+she shouldn't look out on life with resigned, wistful eyes, but with
+passionate, demanding ones, rebelling that her youth, her wonderful,
+beautiful, dreaming youth was passing in a tomb of tradition, a green
+and flowery tomb perhaps, maybe an old southern garden, but nevertheless
+a place of dead lives, dead memories, dead customs. And she, this girl,
+hates it, the dust and must of it. She hears always in her ears the
+surges of that mighty ocean of life. And she can't resist it. She can't.
+Then because her heart is set on it, she comes to a great city like
+this, comes with all her high hopes and her untarnished confidence in
+herself; and all this magnificent swirling tide of life, with its
+mingled and mingling streams, seems to bear her onward to the highest
+crest of the highest wave. Then she begins to hear, at first faintly and
+then ever louder and more menacing, the voice of New York, with its
+ceaseless reiteration of one theme, 'pay, pay, pay.' She turns
+desperately to her little accomplishments, those little, untrained,
+unskilful things that she can do, straws on that ocean; and expects them
+to save her.
+
+"Ah!" she drew her hand across her brow, her face contracting a moment.
+"Then comes the grind between the millstones, the continual
+disappointments, the terror by day and night, the rent, that rolls like
+a snowball, the dreary evenings which she must spend alone in the dreary
+little room, while all the time she hears the mocking invitation of the
+great, glittering city to partake of her many feasts.
+
+"And she," again Dita sighed deeply, "she begins to believe herself
+doomed to dash her youth and beauty against the walls of a tomb. And she
+has to learn so many things, among them the hideous accomplishment of
+making both ends meet. What does she know of the use and value of money?
+Oh, of course all kinds of cheap, left-handed pleasures are offered her,
+because people consider her pretty, but it is an impossibility for her
+to accept them. She has been born in the traditions of real lace and
+real jewels. And the panic-fear! Ah!--" she broke off abruptly.
+
+"Dear me, Dita. You should have been an orator." For the past five
+minutes Eugene had been scarcely able to conceal his irritation,
+frowning, biting his lips, twisting in his chair and casting furtive
+glances at Hepworth. "I remember you used to be given to those bursts of
+eloquence now and then."
+
+"And what finally becomes of her?" asked Hepworth of his wife, ignoring
+Eugene's interruption. His voice was low, expressing nothing more than a
+polite interest.
+
+"I don't know," said Dita wearily. "A number of things. She may
+comfortably die, or marry, poor thing, any one who will have her."
+
+"Very dramatic," said Gresham dryly. "You always did have histrionic
+talent, Dita. I've often wondered that you did not attempt the stage."
+
+Perdita opened and closed her eyes once or twice as if she had just
+returned from a far country.
+
+"I certainly wasn't much of a success at painting lamp-shades and menus,
+was I, Eugene, in spite of your early training?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders without answering, made a slight, disclaiming
+gesture with one hand and rose to his feet. "What!" listening intently
+as a clock chimed somewhere. "I had no idea it was so late." His face
+cleared. He was evidently relieved at his chance of escape. He shook
+hands with Hepworth and then turned to Dita. "Remember that the first
+sitting will be at twelve o'clock Wednesday morning, and please don't
+keep me waiting. That is a fact that I have to impress on these charming
+women," he turned laughingly to Hepworth, "that I am neither their
+manicure nor hair-dresser. I am accustomed to keep them waiting if I
+choose."
+
+"I'll be ready," she said indifferently, but Eugene noticed with
+apprehension, even alarm, that those deep vibrations which spoke of
+barely controlled emotion were still existent in her tones. "I'll be
+ready, velvet, diamonds, hurrah of jewels, if you wish, sables and all."
+
+Again a gust of wind swept through the room and Hepworth went over to
+close a window.
+
+Eugene took quick advantage of the occasion. "For Heaven's sake," he
+whispered, "pull yourself together."
+
+His words were too late. Too late by half an hour. The sirocco had done
+its work.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE GIFT OF FREEDOM
+
+
+With the departure of a third person the situation immediately changed
+complexion. It became more intimate and therefore more embarrassing.
+With Eugene had departed the audience and the stimulus of playing to it.
+The star and the stage manager were left alone. Untrammeled emotional
+expression no longer seemed an heroic necessity. Under the calm,
+unreadable, steady regard of her husband's eyes it held its elements of
+banality and of sensationalism, of pseudo-emotion. Dita became sullen.
+"I think I shall go to bed," she said abruptly and for the second time
+and then turned to the door.
+
+"Wait a moment." His voice was courteous, pleasant, but it would have
+been a dull ear which could not have discerned the tone of command
+beneath its even modulations.
+
+It was new to Dita and arresting, and she paused, wavered a moment and
+came back to the chair she had left and folding her arms upon its high
+cushioned back, stood with still, sullen mouth and downcast eyes,
+exhaling reluctance. She was feeling the reaction from her late mood of
+exaltation, of dramatic visioning of poignant past experiences.
+
+He waited a second or so, and then said, "Your working girl was a far
+more dramatic conception than Gresham's. It might not lend itself so
+much to pictorial representation. It might be more literary." He
+appeared to give this question some consideration. "However," he
+dismissed it with a wave of the hand, "that is neither here nor there.
+What counts is this, were you the girl whose life you described so
+feelingly and dramatically?"
+
+There was silence between them for a moment. Dita's first impulse was to
+maintain it indefinitely; ignore this question with barely suggested
+contempt; with a faint gesture of dissent, signify that she considered
+it a crudity, almost a vulgarity, and lightly, languidly, indifferently
+dismiss the whole subject and leave the room. She knew how,
+intuitively. Behind her were generations who understood how to flick an
+unpleasant situation from the tips of their fingers, who would ignore
+and dismiss with amused disdain an invitation to exculpate themselves or
+explain, when to explain meant practically to retract. But false as she
+felt, with waves of shame, she had been to her traditions and upbringing
+in revealing her emotion, she was no coward. She lifted her head and met
+his eyes. Gray eyes faced gray eyes--but with a difference. Hers were
+the passionate, emotional Irish gray--with black beneath them, and the
+long curling black lashes, but his were like mountain lakes, reflecting
+a gray and steely sky. Hers revealed all the secrets she might wish to
+hide; his concealed all his secrets admirably--discreet windows,
+revealing nothing but what their owner desired they should reveal.
+
+"Yes," she said with defiant brevity.
+
+He appeared again to give this reply due consideration. He had risen now
+and was walking up and down the floor. "What an impression it must have
+made on you!" he said at last, very gently.
+
+She plaited the lace of her sleeve. "You knew about me before we were
+married," she said. "Why--?"
+
+"Quite true, but sometimes something is said, it may be only a word, and
+one's eyes become, as it were, unsealed. One sees a perfectly familiar
+object or situation in an entirely new light. Your attitude now," he
+turned to her rather sharply, "is that I am about to blame you, to take
+you to task. Far from it. Why should I blame you for what has been
+beyond your power? Your words to-night have made me realize that it has
+been quite impossible for you to care for me, and that I have not been
+able to make you happy. Ah," lifting his hand as she was about to speak,
+"do not disclaim it. I know. You see, that very fact sends the whole
+house of cards tumbling. The bitterness with which you have spoken
+to-night would not have been in your mind, rankling, rankling all this
+time, if you had been a happy woman. It was bound to burst into flame
+sooner or later."
+
+"Oh!" she broke out. "You have always won. You do not know what it is
+like to lose; but I--I missed every mark I aimed at. I came up from the
+South, so dead sure that I was a very gifted and accomplished person,
+and that all I had to do was to hold out my apron and all the beautiful
+and delightful things would tumble into it. But this great city surely
+taught me a lesson, and she's no very gentle teacher, either. And I used
+to sit up there in that tiresome little apartment among those
+candle-shades and cotillion favors and think how--how pretty I was," she
+flushed under his smile, "and rage, and get sick with disgust when I
+thought how I would look after about twenty years of that kind of life.
+I knew exactly how I'd look. I'd be one of those peaked, wistful-eyed
+old maids, with rusty black clothes turning green and brown, and a
+general air of apology for living. I could just see myself ironing out
+the ribbons of my winter bonnet with which to trim my summer hat, and
+then laundering my handkerchiefs and pasting them on the window-panes to
+dry. And life, life was like a great, wonderful river, flowing by and
+leaving me stranded on the shore. And then you came."
+
+Hepworth laughed. "I don't wonder that you took the alternative. I'm
+conceited enough to think it better than those ugly pictures your young
+eyes were gazing at."
+
+"Yes, they were ugly," she agreed. "Life just seemed like a dark,
+dreary, cobwebby passageway, but I always felt as if I might come to a
+door any minute and step through it into a beautiful garden. You seemed
+the door." She spoke the last words a little shyly.
+
+He glanced at her again, inscrutable, unfathomable things in that gaze.
+"Ah, youth, youth and the waste of it!" There were tones in his voice
+that brought the tears to her eyes, but he did not see them. He was
+musing on the accident of her life, this flower of the dust, which he
+had taken from the dingy environment she loathed. He had lavished all
+the beauty and experience within his power upon her, and taken away
+perhaps the one thing that had redeemed her life. He had seen only the
+limitations and the makeshifts and how they had oppressed her dainty and
+fastidious spirit; but it had never struck him before that in lifting
+her away from them, above them, he had taken from her the one thing that
+might have glorified her life, that the sordidness and the scrimpiness
+were for her for ever haunted by the unexpected. That because she was
+young and beautiful and free, the dreariness must have been irradiated
+always by the rainbow tints of romance; and he had given her all the
+beauty and glitter his money could buy in exchange for the joy of a
+dream, and fancied that he had actually done something for her.
+
+"Dita, forgive me," he murmured, a curiously bitter smile about his
+mouth.
+
+"Forgive you!" she looked at him a little cautiously. She didn't
+understand the workings of his mind. He never gave her a hint either in
+eyes or expression that would seem as a clue for her to follow.
+
+"Yes. You should." Again he smiled at her. "You didn't get a fair
+exchange. I see that very plainly now."
+
+"You must not speak like that," she said quickly. "Believe me, it was a
+great deal more than a fair exchange and I have always regarded it so.
+Why do you think I have not been happy?"
+
+"Because you have never really loved me."
+
+"But I--I have always liked you," she cried quickly. "But," forlornly,
+"you knew the truth at the time. Even if I had not, I should have had to
+marry you anyway. I was so deep in debt I couldn't help it. I could not
+manage any more than I can speak Sanscrit. So you see that there is
+nothing to forgive. Believe me, I am always grateful, for before I
+married you, I thought and thought, but I could see no other way."
+
+He laughed again. He couldn't help it. He had a sense of humor and he
+seemed to see, in a flashlight of vision, shocked Romance gather up her
+skirts and shake the dust of Dita's threshold from her winged shoes.
+
+"You are so really fearless and honest, Dita, that I venture to ask the
+question." He put it with a rather diffident gentleness. "You have found
+it quite impossible to care for me?"
+
+"Oh, no," impulsively. "I have always liked you. I am really very fond
+of you. But I am always tongue-tied before you. I never can think of
+anything to say to you and I always say foolish things." She regarded
+him with a wistful timidity.
+
+He laughed ruefully. It was sorry mirth. "That is a proof of my
+stupidity, my child, not yours."
+
+He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Up and down the room
+he walked twice, three times, engrossed. Then having arrived at a
+decision, he put it into words. "Dita," he stopped before her and looked
+at her earnestly, "perhaps I am utterly rash and foolish, but will you
+answer me one question? But first get all melodramatic ideas of the
+state of my feelings out of your head." His smile was faintly cynical,
+obscurely so. "And believe me, that what really concerns me is your
+happiness. Are you in love with Eugene Gresham?"
+
+She started, cast one quick glance at him, and then stared frowningly
+before her, but he noticed that her hand trembled on the back of the
+chair. "Why do you ask me that? I--I am married to you--I--" her voice
+faltered, broke.
+
+"Oh, no conventional utterances, please," he cried quickly. "That is not
+worthy of you, not like you. There should be, there must be absolute
+sincerity between us now. Tell me, Perdita, are you in love with Eugene
+Gresham?"
+
+"Ah, that I do not know." She looked beyond him and, still gazing, shook
+her head. "I do not know. I never have known, never been sure. We were
+boy and girl together, he a few years older. He is associated in my mind
+with the life of green old gardens and the smell of jasmine flowers. He
+lives in a wonderful world, a world of color that something in me always
+yearns toward. It seems to me sometimes as if I would rise to it, and my
+heart would blossom in purple and red. I seem doomed to talk foolishly
+to you," she exclaimed rather piteously, "but most people's hidden
+thoughts would sound foolish to others, would they not?"
+
+"Go on, my dear." Then his controlled utterance gave way. "For heaven's
+sake, why should you not feel that you can say anything to me? What kind
+of an idea have I given you of myself? But tell me," quickly subduing
+his emotion, "what is it you feel?"
+
+"As if--as if my heart were a flower which had never really bloomed--a
+cold, tightly folded bud, that yet held within the colorless outer
+leaves wonderful red and purple petals. All there, awaiting a sesame,
+and I sometimes dream that only Eugene can give me that sesame. But,"
+the glow left her eyes, her head drooped, "I don't know, I don't know. I
+thought I was sure once that I loved him. I do not know now."
+
+"Where was Gresham during the time you were struggling here?" he asked
+presently. And it struck her irrelevantly.
+
+"In the East somewhere, I think. Doing his desert pictures. I used to
+hear from him once in a great while."
+
+He said nothing. Then he came nearer and took both her hands in his.
+
+"Dita, my clear, I'm going to be egotistical and talk about myself for a
+minute. Let me see if I can explain." Again that worn and flashing
+smile, with a deeper touch of cynicism, flitted over his arrogant face.
+
+    "'King Canute was weary-hearted,
+        He had reigned for years a score,
+      Pushing, struggling, battling, fighting,
+        Killing much and robbing more.'
+
+"Let us hope that it is not quite so bad as the last line infers; but
+it gives the idea, the picture. Well, Dita, I saw you, a beautiful
+flower, purple and red, if you will, although I do not think the
+combination of colors appropriate. And you were blooming in a tin can in
+a tenement window. It was insupportable, so I dreamed of transplanting
+the flower into its fitting surroundings, a marble court. That was what
+I crudely thought would mean your happiness. But I never secured the
+flower to adorn the marble court. Believe that. Above all, I wanted and
+I want its happiness. Dita, I'm weary-hearted, but I long--I long above
+all things--to make you happy. Take the poor surroundings that I can
+give you; but let your beauty have its meed, let your heart flower as it
+will. Feel free to meet, with outstretched hands, the romance your youth
+has dreamed of, for, Dita, I, who have only fettered you with jewels, am
+going to give you something really worth while, thanking God very humbly
+that it is in my power to do so, and the gift is freedom. You are free
+from now on."
+
+She started back, looking at him in frowning bewilderment and yet he saw
+deep within her eyes a wild gleam of hope, of joy. "Free!" she repeated
+uncertainly, "Free! How can I be free when I am married to you?"
+
+[Illustration: "Free! How can I be free?"]
+
+He laughed once more, and the dreariness of that laughter rang suddenly
+hours afterward in her ears. "Those things can always be arranged," he
+said. "But I am going to ask you a favor." Although he said "favor" her
+quick ear caught the ring of authority in his tone. "Since you are not
+sure that you love Gresham, I am going to ask that you wait a year
+before securing your legal freedom. You shall have it, whether you
+decide on him or not. Oh, believe that. Ah, one more request. Let me
+urge you not to have your portrait painted just now. In view of possible
+future events, it is much wiser, much safer to let that go for the
+present. I think you will have to trust my judgment here. There is no
+danger of your beauty waning." Again his worn and flashing smile. "And
+now, it is very late and I think you had better get some sleep. Good
+night." He smiled again, but she noticed how dreadfully tired he looked.
+She winced a bit in soul.
+
+"I am sorry that it has been such a fizzle," she turned to him with a
+sort of shy, girlish friendliness and impulsiveness.
+
+He smiled again and lightly touched her cheek with his finger. "Give no
+more thought to that." He turned abruptly away.
+
+"Ah, Dita," his voice arrested her from the threshold, "one more request
+I am going to make and that is that you get your amulet to-morrow. If
+not I shall have to see about it myself and I am really too busy to
+bother with it at present." Again that iron ring of authority was in his
+voice, but authority masked in velvet. "Will you very kindly attend to
+this, my dear?"
+
+She nodded mutely from the doorway, but did not lift her down-bent head,
+nor raise her eyes to his.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+FOOLS' LAUGHTER
+
+
+When Dita wakened the next morning, it was very late, almost noon. She
+came slowly to waking consciousness over wastes of apprehension,
+oppressed by some heavy sense of disaster. What had happened? Ah, she
+remembered it, it was last night. She squirmed uncomfortably and then
+lay gazing with somber and introspective eyes about the beautiful room.
+Slowly, the chaotic and uncomfortable thoughts which thronged
+confusingly in her mind resolved themselves into two or three distinct
+facts as scorching to her sensitiveness as if written in letters of
+fire. First, she had let herself go unwarrantably. An electric storm
+always exerted a sinister effect upon her, inducing a wildness, a
+recklessness at first, eventually followed by melancholy and culminating
+either in tears or temper. And she had yielded weakly to every phase of
+this storm-induced mood.
+
+Why did events have to take the bits in their teeth and gallop madly
+along the road to ruin at the most placid and unexpected moments? Why
+should an electric storm have blotted the sky and flashed its jagged
+lightning over her nerves that especial evening? Why had she not
+mastered the sirocco, driven it off in its first stealthy approaches?
+But she melted to self-pity; Cresswell should not have taken her so
+seriously. He might have realized that the storm, and that tiresome
+dinner, and those tiresome people had goaded her unendurably. Grant them
+every virtue, every grace, admit that there might have been an
+attraction between herself and them in ordinary circumstances, but the
+fact that they were old friends of her husband changed the whole
+chemical situation. Attraction became repulsion, attempt to conceal the
+fact as she would. But self-pity ultimately merged into self-accusation.
+No matter what the causes, she had made a melodramatic scene. She had
+told a lot of bare truths, which, like all bare truths, were only half
+truths; about Eugene, for instance, practically admitting that she loved
+him.
+
+Well, did she? She sat up suddenly in bed and pushed the hair back from
+her brow with both hands. She pondered intensely a moment. She didn't
+know. She really didn't know. Was it love, this feeling she had for him,
+had had for him ever since she had been a girl of fifteen? It was a
+powerful attraction anyway--a sympathy, an understanding.
+
+And Cresswell had offered her freedom, freedom! What did it mean? Her
+heart began to beat quickly, excitedly. It meant the great adventure ...
+if one had the courage ... one need "mourn no joy untasted, envy no
+bliss gone by." She would throw off this ennui, this apathy which
+afflicted her. She was free, free to seek and meet the unexpected. The
+great adventure, a thousand adventures were before her. At last, she
+would live. Suddenly she remembered her amulet. She must get it. She
+gave this a moment's consideration, and then, before summoning her maid,
+she went quickly to the telephone in her sitting-room, and rang up
+Eugene Gresham's studio.
+
+To her relief, he was there and answered the ring almost immediately.
+
+"Are you there, 'Gene. I want to see you to-day, as soon as possible,
+within an hour or so. Will it be convenient for you?"
+
+"Oh, perfectly. But," there was anxiety in his voice, "nothing is wrong,
+I hope."
+
+"Oh, nothing much," she replied evasively, "only I want to talk to
+you--but not here."
+
+"Why not take luncheon with me," he replied, "at half-past one and
+where?"
+
+"Oh, not in any crowded restaurant," she answered a little impatiently.
+"At some quiet place. A tea-room--the Wistaria?"
+
+"Very well. Then within an hour and a half."
+
+"And, oh, Eugene," her voice detaining him, "I want the talisman. Do not
+fail to bring it. Do you understand?"
+
+If Dita wore as a protecting disguise the simple and conventional dark
+gown which has been prescribed by certain unalterable rules of fiction
+as the proper costume for a lady hastening to a rendezvous, it failed of
+its effect, but served instead to accentuate her beauty; nor detracted
+in the least from her as an object of interest and comment.
+
+And Eugene, with his fame, and his air, and his eyes, his lifted
+shoulder and his limp, the pointed laurel leaves seeming to gleam
+through his cloud of hair, handed her from her motor-car with the manner
+of courts, his hat in hand, to the admiration of the passers-by. The
+whisper ran: "Eugene Gresham and the beautiful Mrs. Hepworth." They
+passed through a gaping aisle. They entered the tea-room to the craning
+of necks. Poor souls! This was their measure of seclusion. Beauty and
+genius! Fame and wealth! It is a combination New York loves. She serves
+them up to her multitudes on a salver.
+
+They were successful, however, in finding a remote table beneath swaying
+purple clusters of artificial wistaria and a dimly mellow light. And
+while Eugene ordered the luncheon, Dita glanced about her with a
+sensation of relief; new surroundings always seem to hold out the
+alluring if frequently vain promise of new thoughts and this was the
+beginning of adventure, of that new life of infinite variety she meant
+to live at last.
+
+Eugene turned from the waiter, and leaning across the table narrowly
+observed her.
+
+"A trifle pale," he remarked. "Mad Dita!" reproachfully and yet
+tenderly. "I hope all that atmospheric unpleasantness--mental, I mean,
+did not come boiling and seething to the surface after I left last
+night. I hoped the sirocco had spent itself before I left. But doubtless
+Hepworth understands how you are affected by a storm."
+
+"I'm afraid I did make rather a scene," she admitted, her lashes on her
+cheek. "However, that is neither here nor there."
+
+He drew a breath of relief.
+
+"Then it is all over, the atmosphere cleared and we are to begin our
+sittings to-morrow." He smiled in anticipation and laughingly drew her
+picture upon the air.
+
+"No," she shook her head, and spoke more reluctantly than before,
+"Cresswell has requested me not to have my portrait painted just now. He
+is kind enough," her smile was shadowy, "to think that there is no
+particular danger of an immediate waning of my beauty and he desires me
+to wait a few months."
+
+"But that is impossible! Incredible!" he scowled with irritation and
+threw himself back in the chair. "Oh, what a sirocco, what a sirocco it
+must have been!" He shook his head back and forth and then dropped it in
+his hands, studying the pattern of the table-cloth as though it were the
+map of the situation. "To pass over my disappointment"--he lifted his
+head and mechanically pushed about some of the dishes the waiter placed
+before him on the table--"ignore it, let it go. I'm not going to press
+that now; but there are other things to be considered. It is known that
+I am to do your portrait. It was openly discussed last night. All this
+must be taken into account. That is for appearances as far as you are
+concerned. Then regarding me. I am not a paper-hanger or house painter
+to be engaged and then dismissed at the whim of a millionaire. I can not
+accept a commission from Hepworth and permit him to cancel it by a
+negligent message, sent through a third person. Absurd!" He frowningly
+bit a finger. "My plans and arrangements must be concluded for months
+ahead. They can not be thrown askew like this. Oh, Dita, what did you
+do, what did you say that brought this about? I worked like a Trojan
+last night to avert anything of the kind."
+
+She did not answer, but sipped her tea with downcast eyes and he saw
+that the lashes on her cheeks were wet.
+
+"Ah, Dita," his voice fell to a charming note of tenderness, a note to
+stir any woman's heart, with the purple and white of the wistaria
+clusters swaying above their heads and the mellow light reflected in his
+eyes, his eager eyes which pierced life's stained and sordid curtain and
+saw the wonder and miracle of beauty; and it was this power to discern
+the eternal vision which illuminated his ugly, irregular, fascinating
+face upon which work and dreams and experience had stamped their
+impress. "You can not fancy what it means to me to paint your portrait
+now. I've painted it before, crudely, in boyhood, and experienced then a
+casual delight in the effort to portray a beautiful thing, and wrest a
+few new secrets of art from the portrayal. That was all. But now," his
+voice without being raised, yet lifted exultantly, "but now--my heart is
+swept with insurgent seas at the thought of what it means. I am lover
+and artist, fused in a fire of white enthusiasm. The lover sees, divines
+what the artist can only guess at, and the artist offers to the lover a
+perfected technique. I feel the stirring of this power to catch your
+loveliness, Dita, and fix it on canvas imperishably. It would be the
+great achievement. That is in the background of every artist's thoughts.
+It is his pillar of cloud by day and his pillar of fire by night. The
+great achievement!" He dreamed over it a moment. "I would paint the
+South in you, Dita, 'warm and sweet and fickle is the South.' Ah! I
+thought I loved you then. I thought I loved you the evening we parted,
+but I know now that I have never really loved you before or I could not
+have given you up."
+
+They were almost alone, nearly every one had left the room. A long trail
+of wistaria blew before her eyes. The light glowed through the silken,
+yellow shades. The South! She smelled roses and jasmine. It seemed to
+her for one bewildering moment as if her heart had indeed blossomed in
+purple and red. She smiled lingeringly, sweetly into his eyes.
+
+"The portrait's only postponed, Eugene, look at it in that way." The
+words recalled her to herself with a start. This was paper wistaria and
+electric light. She was no longer a girl in a flower-scented, green old
+garden about to pose for a boyish and impatient artist. Here she was, in
+spite of all her vows to the contrary, yielding to Eugene's spell
+without a struggle. She was quite sure of his charm and magnetism, but
+what she doubted now was her own heart.
+
+"'Ah, the little more and how much it is. And the little less, and what
+worlds away,'" she murmured beneath her breath, wondering unhappily if
+she were born to doubt everything.
+
+"But I can't and I won't submit to a postponement." He was now both
+impatient and impassioned.
+
+"It is not final," she explained. "Do take it as a postponement, nothing
+more. He has his reasons--oh, they are not what you suspect. He is not
+jealous. He is too big for that. It is something I can not go into now."
+Her sentences were disjointed. She seemed almost incoherent to him. "Let
+it be so for the present. I implore, no, I insist, that there be no
+explanations. But I must go, it is getting late," she started as if to
+rise; then sank back in her chair and held out her hand. "Oh, the
+amulet, Eugene."
+
+"I haven't got it," he threw out both empty hands and looked up at her
+from under his brows with the expression of a naughty child. "Now
+listen, Dita, before you get angry, although you're so wonderful when
+you're angry that any one might be forgiven for tempting you into that
+state; but after you called me up, the Nasmyths, those English people
+you know, mother and daughter, were at the studio, and I was so intent
+on getting them away in time to meet you, the mother is the most
+interminable talker, that I finally bundled them out of the door and
+came with them, with never a thought of the amulet."
+
+"'Gene, how like you!" Her face was full of dismay. "Cresswell
+especially asked me to get it to-day, and I don't think he believed for
+one moment that clumsy fib I told about having it mended."
+
+"I'll go at once and get it, and bring it to the house," he said
+contritely. "You can make any explanation--"
+
+"No, no more explanations," she said decisively. "They are perfect
+spider-webs, the most involving things any poor fly can tangle himself
+up in. They are, to mix metaphors, the quicksands of any situation.
+They make of the simplest matter a problem of complexities."
+
+"What does that go for?" Gresham tilted his head on one side and studied
+her. "Does it mean that you and Hepworth quarreled about me, last
+night?"
+
+She looked back at him in inscrutable pondering, as if considering the
+point, wondering, in fact, whether she and her husband really had
+quarreled about him.
+
+"No explanations, Eugene, that's fixed."
+
+"As you will," in careless assent. "But, Dita," again that ardent note
+of tenderness, warming his voice, and stirring her heart with all those
+intimations of romance which she had never known. "We might as well
+accept the inevitable, accept it with joy, face the light quite
+fearlessly. We might as well see clearly at last, what for years we
+should have known and believed and welcomed with all our hearts--that we
+belong to each other."
+
+Her quickly lowered eyelids veiled the sudden glow of her eyes.
+"Perhaps," she whispered, "only I want time to think it out, to be sure
+of myself. I--I've grown cautious."
+
+He looked at her with the smile that could say so many things and to her
+said but one. "Take time then, Dita, but permit me to pray that it will
+not be long. And I--I shall await with what patience I may that dazzling
+morning when you will open your beautiful, dreaming eyes, and know at
+once and for ever that you are at last awake. When you will say, 'This
+is my day of love, this is my hour and Eugene's! The world may go.' Take
+your days or months, Dita. I give them to you, for I know that every
+hour that passes will bring you nearer to me."
+
+Famous artist, famous lover! Men saw his irregular, swarthy face, his
+lifted shoulder, his limp, and wondered. But women saw the experiences
+and aspirations and dreams that that face held, they saw the smiles
+which said so many things exquisitely, they felt the subtle, intuitive
+comprehension of every word, an understanding which held no
+condemnation, but was as warming and stimulating as sunshine. His
+love-making was as delightful and perfect as his art.
+
+But again she threw off the sweet, poignantly sweet influence and strove
+to think clearly.
+
+"You had your chance, Eugene, before I was married. I would have
+listened to you then, the night before you sailed for Europe, but you
+didn't believe in me, you showed it plainly." Angry tears glittered in
+her eyes at the remembrance.
+
+"Ah, how could I?" His smile was at once cynical and tender. "I knew
+your temperament, that craving, artistic temperament. It is much like my
+own. We spring from the same stock, remember. You had all the inherited
+love of luxury and beauty as I told you then and you were starved,
+starved, Dita, and in a state of revolt. Your imagination was aflame
+with what Hepworth offered. And I--" he threw out his hands with a
+disclaiming gesture, "Where was I? My feet on shifting sands, I hadn't
+touched bedrock then. Ah, well, what's the use? The past is past. It's
+the future we face. My heaven, Perdita, what a future!"
+
+His eyes held her, drew her. Involuntarily, she swayed toward him. Then,
+impatiently, as if resenting her own attitude, she rose to her feet.
+
+Dita drove home, with the faint smile still lingering about her lips,
+still dreaming in her eyes. She drove through the park, green still in
+spite of frost. A mist palely irradiated by the sunshine it obscured
+enveloped the landscape in a sort of opaline enchantment and
+unsubstantiality.
+
+It was with a sigh of regret that she entered her own house. She felt as
+if she had wilfully shut the door on the wooing and pensive autumn
+without and gone into the bleak and wintry atmosphere of regret and
+puzzle and doubt.
+
+But as she moved listlessly across the hall a servant handed her a note
+from her husband.
+
+She tore it open and read it. Then she read it again. It seemed to her
+that the rustle of the paper was like the crackle of thorns, and the
+fool's laughter associated with it. She had meant to manage this
+situation in her own way, to keep her hand well on the lever, and behold
+it was all arranged for her.
+
+Very briefly the letter informed her that Hepworth's western interests
+would require his personal supervision for several months. That he hoped
+she would endeavor to make herself as comfortable and happy as possible
+and arrange her time in any way that best suited her. That was all. But
+as she walked to her own apartments it seemed to her that the air echoed
+and rang with the arid and mirthless laughter of fools.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A TELEPHONE CALL
+
+
+Maud Carmine was slowly pulling off her gloves before the fire in the
+old-fashioned drawing-room of the old-fashioned down-town house where
+she and her mother lived alone. It was not five o'clock, but the
+evenings were so short now that she hesitated whether or not to turn on
+the lights, but the firelight was brilliant and so much more attractive
+than electricity, no matter how softly shaded that might be.
+
+Yes, the firelight was so bright that in its radiance she could see her
+figure reflected in the long mirror between the windows with its ornate
+and early Victorian frame. She walked forward and standing before it
+gazed at herself with a little smile. She was not a pretty woman, but
+she was certainly a striking and attractive one and quite beautifully
+gowned. That was the most noticeable thing about her, the _dernier cri_
+worn with style and distinction. Her heart went out in gratitude to
+Perdita.
+
+While she stood there still surveying herself Wallace Martin was
+announced.
+
+"And no tea here for you," said Maud. "I've been out all afternoon.
+Mother is gadding somewhere at this unconscionable hour, so I suppose
+they thought I didn't want any. I'll send for some and it will be here
+in a jiffy."
+
+"I do want some, and some solid substantial bread and butter," confessed
+Martin. "I'm hungry. I'm dining out to-night, but the dinner is set for
+some unholy late hour, and I've been at a rehearsal all afternoon."
+
+"A rehearsal of your own play?"
+
+He nodded. "My very own," he said. "One of the million or two I've
+written has actually been accepted."
+
+"Oh, Wallace!" She held out her hands, her interest and pleasure showing
+plainly in her voice. "I am more than delighted. It seems too good to be
+true."
+
+"Don't be too enthusiastic yet," he strove to speak dryly. "It may be
+accepted by the managers, it is still a question whether it will be
+accepted by the public. It's run one gantlet, but whether it will run
+two remains to be seen."
+
+"Oh, Wallace," she cried again. "How can you be so pessimistic and calm
+and calculating and all that? Why, I should be off my head with joy."
+
+"I am," he said tersely. "Maud, don't tell any one, but I feel like a
+Wright aeroplane."
+
+"I won't breathe it," she promised gaily, "but please don't add to the
+fame I'm sure you're going to get from that play, by flying over the
+housetops to rehearsals. Oh, here is tea, muffins, bread and butter,
+cake. Anything else you'll have?"
+
+He sank back contentedly. "Nothing but to insist that you tell that 1820
+butler of yours that you're not at home to any one else. It's too
+deliciously cosy to be spoiled by women simpering and rustling and men
+lounging and clattering in. Just the firelight--it's a little early for
+fire, but this evening is quite chilly--and the tea-kettle singing in
+that nice homey way, and even a big Persian cat on the hearthrug. It's
+'ome and 'eaven. And what a contrast to last night! Better a dinner of
+herbs like this, where love is, than the stalled ox of yestere'en."
+
+A faint blush seemed to tinge Maud's cheek, but it may have been, after
+all, but the flickering firelight.
+
+"Last night wasn't awfully pleasant, was it?" she said with a little
+sigh.
+
+"Pleasant! It was deadly. Poor Maud!" helping himself to more bread and
+butter. "How hard you worked!"
+
+"How silly you are!" she cried indignantly. "Perfectly absurd the way
+you all acted. Horrid-minded creatures, bored and trying to make a
+situation out of nothing. Eugene Gresham and Dita have known each other
+for years. There is even some kind of a southern relationship between
+them, quite near, I believe."
+
+"La, la!" said Wallace, again helping himself generously this time to
+cake, "your loyalty is beautiful, but don't let it drive you to take a
+stand you may have to abandon."
+
+"Wallace!" she turned from him indignantly and the firelight showed that
+her eyes were full of tears.
+
+"I mean it just the same." He placed his tea-cup on the table and bent
+toward her. "Look here, Maud, your friend, Mrs. Hepworth, is a very
+pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one."
+
+"That is just where you are mistaken," she returned. "She is extremely
+clever but you don't seem to understand how much training and
+environment have to do with those things. Take a woman as pretty as
+Dita, a woman who has been beautiful and admired from her babyhood--she
+has always been the center of attraction, she has never had to observe
+people closely, to study their moods and characteristics, never has had
+to try to please." There was a depth of mournful experience in Maud's
+tone. "Therefore she seems to carry things with a high hand, seems to
+lack subtlety and finesse and deference to the opinions of others.
+Therefore, you, seeing this, immediately put it down to lack of brains.
+It is a stupidity unworthy of you, at least it is a snap-shot judgment,
+a lack of that careful, sympathetic study and analysis of character
+which I should fancy would be necessary to you as a playwright."
+
+He sat for a moment or two, with hands loosely clasped between his
+knees, gazing into the bed of glowing coals. This attitude and silence
+on his part continued for some minutes. "There!" he turned around so
+suddenly that she jumped, "I've given due and careful consideration to
+all you have to say and I will repeat my original statement. Mrs.
+Hepworth is a very pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one, not
+bright enough to be ordinarily discreet."
+
+Her shoulders twitched petulantly. "Wallace! The blot on your character
+is that you are a bit of a gossip, yes you are, and you mingle with a
+lot of idle people who have nothing better to do than to spend time that
+might be put to valuable uses in making mountains out of mole hills.
+Truly, it's an idiotic mental employment that is not worthy of you."
+
+"Maud, you rouse me to argument; you do, really. I am not talking about
+Mrs. Hepworth's very manifestly displayed interest in Gresham last
+night. That might be attributed to half a dozen different causes. She
+might have had a row with her husband or dressmaker, or have been so
+bored by the happy family group gathered about her that she was ready
+for anything. Any one could see that she was rather out-of-sorts,
+excited and reckless and all that. I am not even thinking of last night,
+and I will immediately withdraw any aspersions I may seem to have cast
+on Mrs. Hepworth's brain power, if you will tell me why she gave Eugene
+Gresham that old trinket, amulet, talisman or whatever it is?"
+
+Maud began to laugh, quite naturally at first, and then she stopped
+suddenly. She remembered the scene of the night before, the empty space
+in the tray. She remembered Cresswell Hepworth's surprise, and Dita's
+sullenness.
+
+"But you heard Dita last night say that it was broken and that it was
+being mended," she protested, but some way her protestations sounded
+flat and unconvincing in her own ears.
+
+"Yes, and you remember that she glanced quickly at Eugene Gresham before
+she answered. You also remember that Hepworth, in the innocence of his
+heart, explained that the old legend or tradition which had been
+connected with the charm for centuries had been that it could neither be
+bought nor sold, but that it could only be given away, given away with
+the heart's love of the possessor, and in that case it would prove a
+blessing to both him who gave and him who took."
+
+Martin stooped and lifted the Persian cat upon his knees. "Well, my dear
+Maud, the end of that story is that Gresham has the amulet."
+
+"If that is true," she flashed back, "he took it to be mended for her."
+
+"The circumstances do not seem to point that way," he said mildly.
+"Really, Maud, it's the deuce of a mix-up, and I'm simply trying to
+prepare you for the worst. You know those English people, the Nasmyths,
+in draggled tweeds and velveteens; the mother wears an India shawl, and
+the daughter a hat which looks as if it were made of carpet. Well, they
+were at the Hewstons' to luncheon to-day and they had just come from
+Eugene Gresham's studio where they had been pottering about the best
+part of the morning, although Alice Wilstead said their boots and their
+faces looked as if they had been chasing over plowed fields. Well, they
+were yelping about Gresham like all other women, and raving about the
+beautiful things he had, and Mrs. Nasmyth told how she got to poking
+about on a table and found your friend's amulet; and she, of course,
+made an awful scream about it, and Gresham, who, she naively remarked,
+didn't seem any too pleased at her discovery, explained that it was a
+good-luck charm, of very ancient workmanship, which had been given to
+him by a dear friend, and then he gently and firmly locked it up before
+her eyes in a little cabinet."
+
+"Horrid creature!" murmured Maud.
+
+"Who?" said Wallace eagerly. "You can't possibly mean Gresham, do you,
+Maud? What!" his tones expressed a wondering delight as she mutely but
+emphatically nodded her head. "To hear a woman speak thus of that hero
+of romance! Never has such a grateful sound saluted my ears. Never!
+Maud, I am really afraid I am going to hug you."
+
+"You are going to do nothing of the kind." She could not help laughing,
+although she was seriously worried.
+
+"Well, we'll waive it for the present," he conceded, again sinking
+languidly back in his chair, "but that isn't the worst. I told you that
+it was the deuce of a mix-up, and so it is. To continue now on page
+eight hundred and ninety-nine, the Nasmyths babbled all this out at
+luncheon, and old Hewston got perfectly apoplectic. He swelled up and
+became purple and emitted the most dreadful snorts and whiffles, and
+grunts and groans, until finally just as his wife and Alice Wilstead
+thought he was going to fall down in a fit, he got up and puffed away
+from the table, and Alice and Mrs. Hewston rushed after him, leaving the
+poor Nasmyths to take care of themselves. And not one thing could those
+two women do with him. You know what an obstinate, pig-headed,
+meddlesome old thing he is--and his head was set on jumping into his car
+and off to tell Hepworth as quickly as possible and, my dear Maud, that
+is what he did. Alice Wilstead said that she and Mrs. Hewston hung on to
+his coat-tails up to the very moment he entered the car, begging,
+praying, beseeching, imploring. She said he dragged them all the way
+across the sidewalk and literally kicked himself free from them." Martin
+threw back his head in a great burst of laughter in which Maud very
+feebly joined.
+
+"I wish I'd been there," she said regretfully. "He'd only have got in
+that motor over my dead body; but, Wallace, when did you hear all this?"
+
+"I met Alice Wilstead limping up the avenue, on her way home, and she
+told me about it."
+
+"I wish--" began Maud, but she was interrupted by a summons to the
+telephone. When she returned to the room a few moments later, her face
+was graver than ever.
+
+"I'll have to leave you, Wallace," she said. "You can stay here with the
+cat and the fire and the tea-kettle if you want to. Perhaps mother will
+come in, but Dita wishes me to come to her at once."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+OUT OF THE GILDED CAGE
+
+
+Prompt as Maud was in responding to Dita's plea for her immediate
+presence, Dita was equally prompt in hurling herself upon her friend's
+sympathetic bosom.
+
+Maud had been shown at once to the sitting-room of Mrs. Hepworth's
+personal suite of apartments, and there Dita sat in the dim and
+depressing gloaming of the unlighted chamber, a figure of dejection.
+
+She had not even removed her hat, but sat brooding in the twilight until
+Maud's entrance roused her and she flung herself across the room and
+into the latter's arms with the impetuous rush of a cyclone.
+
+Dita was temperamentally far more given to anger than to tears, but the
+strain of the last two days had culminated now in a burst of wild
+weeping, and Maud found it necessary to soothe and calm her before she
+could venture to inquire into the immediate cause of her friend's very
+poignant and unfeigned distress; so she applied herself to the task of
+consolation with only vague conjectures as to the cause for grief.
+
+She was able, however, from Dita's almost incoherent statements, to
+patch together a fairly accurate idea of what had occurred.
+
+"Just read this letter," Dita thrust the sheets into Maud's hand. "Oh,
+you can not, not in this light. Wait a moment," she touched a button and
+the room was flooded with a rose-colored radiance. Maud stepped nearer
+one of the lamps and gave her most earnest attention to the words
+Cresswell Hepworth had written. His utterance through the medium of the
+pen, was brief, self-controlled, restrained and to the point. And as
+Maud read his well-considered words, something like a feeling of despair
+swept over her.
+
+"He has gone, actually gone," cried Dita, as Maud handed the letter back
+to her without comment. "Gone," she repeated the words as if the fact in
+itself were quite unbelievable. She crushed the letter in her hand and
+threw it on the floor. "He will be gone months, looking after his mines
+and railroads and I'm to stay here. He never even said good-by to me,
+and this," she touched the crumpled ball of paper contemptuously with
+her foot, "gives me very plainly to understand that it is a virtual
+separation. Oh," she jerked the pins out of her hat and sent that plumey
+velvet head-covering spinning across the room, then turned to her calm
+and sympathetic friend with a real fear and a real appeal in her eyes.
+"What am I going to do? For a few months it will be all right, and then
+people will begin to talk like everything. And you know how it will
+appear. Every one will say that Cresswell discovered that I was having
+an affair with some one, Eugene, of course, and that he, Cresswell, and
+I had a row and that he refused to live with me longer, but that he
+nevertheless was so chivalrous that he turned over this house and the
+country places to me. Oh, dear, why did I have to have a sirocco?"
+
+"Heaven knows," said Maud. "Let it be a lesson to you. Never have
+another one. There, there, dear, I didn't mean any reproaches or I
+told-you-sos. So stop howling or you'll mar your beauty permanently.
+Oh, now, don't lift your head and glare at me indignantly and say you
+hope you will, that it's never been anything but a curse to you. I've
+been too plain all my life to listen with patience to anything of the
+kind. Now, let me think." She sat with finger on lip deeply considering,
+while Dita still punctured the silence with loud occasional sobs.
+
+"You will have to travel," she said decisively. "Yup will have to travel
+until people begin to talk and then you will have to keep on traveling
+until they stop talking. But oh, Dita, can't you try and patch it up?"
+
+Her words gave fresh impetus to Perdita's gradually decreasing sobs.
+"You do not know him," she wept, "and to tell the truth, neither do I;
+but I have enough of an understanding of him to know that he always
+considers a step very thoroughly before he takes it, looks well into the
+chasm before he leaps, and it's no use trying to get him to change his
+mind when he has decided what course he means to pursue. Anyway, I do
+not wish it. I want to be free, but not this way. Oh, was ever a woman
+placed in such a position as I? I believe Cresswell would forgive
+anything but the sin of not knowing one's own mind and I had to confess
+to him last night that I wasn't sure of mine or of my heart either. He
+has a contempt for me, of course, and," rising restlessly and moving
+about, "I can't and won't accept his contempt, and I can't and won't
+continue to live on his money and potter about his old houses. I feel as
+if I would rather die."
+
+"But, dearest," cried Maud bewildered. "What else is there for you to
+do? What else can you do?"
+
+"Nothing apparently," she said. Her dark gown fell about her in the long
+lines of perfect grace. As she stood there, beautiful as the tragic
+muse, her great eyes transfixed Maud with her scorn, but the scorn was
+not for her friend, but for herself. "What can I do? I am about the most
+useless creature on all this green earth. I sit and cry at a situation
+which tortures my pride, instead of coming to a decision. I made a
+beggardly pittance trying to earn my own living, and I won't go back to
+that kind of life, a disgusting, sordid, scrimpy life, which stifled
+every generous impulse or spontaneous action. I will not go back, I will
+not give up all the things I love and have become accustomed to. I was
+born to this. I love it, and will have it, but not on these terms.
+
+"I haven't been utterly futile here, as I was in those other
+circumstances. I have made Cresswell Hepworth's upholstery, stiff
+houses, 'decorated and furnished by the most expensive and artistic
+firms,' look really livable and lovely. Truly, haven't I? Great artists
+have raved over them. Oh, I'm not afraid of velvets and tapestries and
+embroideries. I have no burgeois reverence for them. Color was always
+like clay to me. I always long to take it and mold it into new
+combinations. Why, I couldn't keep my hands off a rainbow if I got a
+chance at it, even the angels couldn't shoo me away." She was in one of
+her swift, mercurial changes of mood, her mouth dimpling, her eyes
+sparkling. "I'm not afraid of all the splendor of color or of all the
+gorgeously rich materials that God or man ever devised. I ache to take
+them and combine them and melt them together and contrast them. I'll
+dare any combination to get an effect I want, an effect that haunts me,
+and is like music in my consciousness. Isn't it strange that I can do
+anything I like with great heavy draperies? I wave my hand at them and
+they fall into just the lines I want. I can get all kinds of effects in
+a room, but give me a little palette with little gobs of paint on it,
+and little, little brushes and I can't do even a decent lamp mat. That
+is one reason Eugene and I have always understood each other so well.
+He, too, knows the call of color. Oh, stop looking that way, as if I
+were going straight to shipwreck just because I mention Eugene. The
+important thing to consider now is what I am going to do."
+
+"I've told you once," said Maud, with settled conviction; "travel."
+
+"On Cresswell's money?" bitterly. "Well, I suppose you think it's either
+that or huddling into some black hole and attempting to earn my living
+again--a phrase that's the synonym for me of a cheap and nasty
+experience, but there must be some way out. No, I am utterly wasted,
+futile, ineffective. I do not believe, I solemnly do not believe, that I
+have one single, solitary gift in this world except being pretty."
+
+"Look at me!" said Maud with a rather whimsical, cynical little smile.
+"I think that I'm the living proof of one of your especial gifts. Why,
+Dita, my dear, I'm a creation of yours. I'm considered one of the most
+stunning women in town and about the best dressed and," Maud's really
+soft and attractive smile transfixed her face, "I've won, I am really
+beginning to dare to believe it, the interest and I hope the affection
+of the only man I ever cared for and who never gave me a glance when I
+was just 'that plain Maud Carmine, who is musical, you know.' Oh, I mean
+Wallace, of course," blushing. "I haven't got over the wonder of it yet,
+I assure you. I'm still mentally pinching myself and saying, 'If this be
+I.' Think of it, Dita! I know the treasures of the socially humble, if
+any one does. I always had position, but that amounts to very little in
+these days, unless one has other things to back it up. It has been
+gradually losing importance, pushed to the wall by money, the ability to
+entertain, personal charm and good clothes, an air, a flare, a wit;
+until now the poor, solemn, superannuated thing, so long unduly revered,
+is really trotted back into the corner. Yes, I had position, but not
+recognition. The back seats for me, so I rubbed along on my music and
+conversation as best I could, poor fool! And then you came, and waved
+your magic wand over me, took me in hand, and the world began to
+appraise me at your valuation."
+
+"That was nothing," said Dita carelessly. "I just have the knack of
+seeing people as they ought to be. I could do what I did for you with
+anybody, if they would only let me. You were nice and plastic and put
+yourself entirely in my hands."
+
+"Plastic!" echoed Maud. "You mean hopeless! But turn about is fair play.
+Take the advice I offer you, and travel. If you say the word we'll start
+for Japan to-morrow. And you needn't touch a penny of your husband's
+money either, my child. I have enough for both of us."
+
+"Maud, you're a darling." Dita smiled in warm appreciation. "But--"
+
+"But, Dita," Maud's voice held both fear and appeal, "if you do stay
+here, you will not, you must not see Eugene Gresham."
+
+Dita smiled at her again, inscrutably. "An idea has come to me," she
+said, quite irrelevantly, "a dazzling idea. I really believe that it is
+the solution of the whole matter."
+
+She considered this dazzling idea, her eyes growing brighter every
+moment.
+
+"Oh, Maud, Maud!" she cried, clasping her hands, "what an inspiration!
+I'm going on my own again. Yes, I am. Don't look so horrified. I know
+I've grouched and fussed a lot over my past efforts in that direction,
+but you see I tried to do things in a small way, cotillion favors and
+such, and it didn't suit me. It wasn't my _metier_, not my way. I loathe
+detail. I can do things on a big scale or not at all. You know that. And
+my present idea means the big scale. When I first came to New York I
+regarded it as the great adventure, but then I didn't know how to go
+about anything. I was as ignorant as a baby of everything--everything.
+The tremendous professional skill required, my own ineptitude, the utter
+inadequacy of my poor, amateur accomplishments, my entire ignorance of
+business methods, all frightened, dazed, stupefied me, but now, now, I
+just believe I'll have another try."
+
+"Oh, what _have_ you got in your head now?" cried Maud in frightened
+resignation.
+
+"You see it's like this," Dita ignored the question and continued to
+follow her own train of thought. "New York demands one of two things of
+the stranger who comes knocking at her gates, either training or a new
+idea. She can take care of any trained person, but if she has to conduct
+the educational process, she does it with a club. Now I'm going back to
+her with my new idea. Oh, I was crushed a bit ago, but now I am really
+enjoying myself as I have not done since the first dazzle of marrying
+Cresswell and seeing his money turn itself so easily into the beautiful
+things I had longed for all my life. But I've been getting tireder and
+tireder of being the twittering canary in the gilded cage. Cresswell
+opened the door last night and now I'm going to fly put, but in a
+totally different direction from the one he expects me to take." She
+laughed delightedly. "Oh, do you think New York will listen to my new
+idea?"
+
+"She'll listen to Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth," said Maud dryly. "It won't
+make much difference about the idea, whether it's new or old." She
+thought of a conversation Hepworth's friends had held at the wedding
+breakfast and sighed reminiscently. "I'm afraid you're making Cress
+rather a background."
+
+"Why not?" said Dita cheerfully and defiantly. "Serves him right, going
+away in the fashion he did and putting me in such a position. 'Moses an'
+Aaron,' as my old mammy used to say, you needn't try to dissuade me.
+You'll be as crazy about the idea as I am when I unfold it to you. The
+twittering canary is going to hop out of the gilded cage, and build her
+own nest. It's the great adventure. It is to live. Won't Cresswell open
+those sleepy eyes of his when he sees this move of mine on the
+chessboard? I'm done with failure, this venture of ours is a success
+before it's begun."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A DOLL OR A BOX OF CANDY
+
+
+Perdita, being one of those ardent, mercurial creatures who run with
+winged feet to meet every event in life, whether it be joyous or
+disastrous, had encountered her bad quarter of an hour the morning after
+the dinner party.
+
+Hepworth's, however, was postponed for a later and more lingering
+occasion. We euphemistically limit these seasons of judgment to quarters
+of an hour in speaking of them, but they are quite independent of time,
+and may continue through days.
+
+Perdita had a temperamental advantage. Hers were those swift changes of
+mood so disconcerting to the devils of ennui and depression; but her
+husband's period of reaction lasted, with but little mitigation, all the
+way across the continent.
+
+A most lusty and persistent demon of doubt and self-accusation boarded
+his car within a few hours after the train left the station, invaded his
+luxurious solitude and, indifferent to a chilling reception, there
+remained. To Hepworth, the demon's most searing insinuation was that,
+instead of a masterly retreat in good order, this departure of his for
+the other side of the continent was a virtual renunciation of all that
+he cared most to win and to hold. Fool and coward, the demon whispered,
+to quit the game just at the moment when his presence was an imperative
+necessity. But, although the demon was eloquent--it is an attribute of
+demons--and his suggestions were like red-hot pincers, it never entered
+Hepworth's head to turn back. On the contrary, it was characteristic
+that having decided on a certain course, he was not to be swayed by the
+demon's most subtle and ingenious arguments. He was merely rendered
+supremely uncomfortable by them.
+
+He had offered Perdita her freedom and he meant it without any
+reservations. She should decide on her own course, follow her own
+leadings according to the limits of her own folly or discretion, but
+free she should be, and free even from any shadowy influence that his
+mere presence might exert. Quixotic, scrupulously so: but then that was
+Hepworth's way.
+
+The demon laughed at this obstinately maintained, unalterable decision.
+What chance, it sardonically suggested, had any mere average man against
+a rival like Eugene Gresham? Women love glamour. Perdita especially
+adored it blindly. Most women, certainly Perdita, would rather follow
+the alluring, brilliant gleam of the will-o'-the-wisp, any time, than
+the smoky but dependable light of the useful household lantern.
+
+These gloomy reflections served to goad and stab like so many tormenting
+banderillos, but Hepworth's resolution to absent himself for a time, and
+thus insure Perdita a free hand, remained unalterable, in fact it
+hardened, became like iron.
+
+The journey over, his spirits improved; the demon was far less
+persistent and only occasionally showed himself. There were a number of
+business matters of varying importance requiring his attention, and
+these very fully occupied his mind. He had made his headquarters for a
+time at Santa Barbara.
+
+Then, suddenly, his busy, if rather monotonous and routine existence
+became diversified by a series of peculiar events which, in his most
+wildly imaginative moments, he would never have conjectured.
+
+One afternoon, as he sat before an open window in the villa he had
+taken, looking out over a wonderful garden, all fragrance and color, at
+the blue channel, the mountains, the distant islands gleaming fairy-like
+through their golden haze, the name of Mr. James Fleming was brought to
+him and served very effectually to rouse him from his spiritless
+daydreaming, on whose confines hovered the demon.
+
+Hepworth sat up, care vanished from his brow, the depressed droop of his
+mouth changed to a smile. "Fleming! Jim Fleming!" he exclaimed. "Show
+him in at once," to the waiting servant.
+
+Mr. Fleming wasted no time in appearing and Hepworth pushed back his
+chair and rose, meeting him with a hearty hand-clasp and one of his most
+brilliant smiles.
+
+This was the effect the arrival of Fleming invariably produced. One
+might have thought from the way men greeted him that he was some great
+public benefactor. Quite the opposite. Hepworth, and no doubt many
+others, had, through him, lost thousands of dollars, but this did not in
+the least affect their pleasure in his society nor tarnish their
+confidence in his good intentions.
+
+Fleming was about Hepworth's age, rather tall and rather stout. He had a
+broad, clean-shaven face, and the mouth of an orator, large, mobile,
+stretching across his face in a straight line and turning up sharply at
+the corners. His eyes, which were blue-gray, had a most ingratiating and
+irresistible expression of camaraderie.
+
+During the course of his life many unkind names had been applied to
+Fleming, but by women, mark you, never by men. There were quantities of
+good wives and mothers who regarded him very much as the devil is
+supposed to regard holy water. Had they not reason? At the very mention
+of his name they had seen a certain wild, primitive gleam light the eyes
+of even their most staid and house-broken men, and at the sound of his
+voice the most tractable and responsible husbands would seem to hear
+again the pipes of Pan, and forgetful of duty, daily bread and family
+obligations would follow eagerly whither those wild notes led.
+
+Beyond question Fleming possessed that magnetic quality which opens all
+doors. He was at home in any society and where he was laughter flowed as
+wine. He had neither profession nor settled business, but always
+referred to himself as a "prospector--a prospector of the old school."
+
+The first gay greetings over, Mr. Fleming established himself in a
+comfortable chair, and said without preamble, but with his usual
+devil-may-care nonchalance, "I've come to ask a favor of you, Cress, a
+mighty big favor."
+
+Hepworth mechanically stretched his hand out toward his check book.
+
+"Oh, it's not money I want this time," said Fleming easily. "It's no
+favor to me to lend me money. That's always spent on others. Anyway,
+I've got more than I can handle for once. You see, it's this way. I've
+got to go over to Idaho. I've just got wind of a big thing there, a big
+thing. Two boys I know want me to go over and look at it and I'm off
+to-day. Biggest thing that's been struck in years, they tell me. Both
+of them stone broke. Didn't have enough money to pay railway fare. Stole
+rides, practically no food for a week. If there's anything in it, I may
+be good enough to allow you to finance it."
+
+"Let me see," said Hepworth reflectively, "according to the invariable
+law of ratio, I'm about due to win on some of these ventures of yours
+I've so obligingly financed."
+
+Mr. Fleming solemnly and sadly shook his head. "Set a beggar on
+horseback and sooner or later he'll show his rags. The born millionaire!
+You show all the degenerate earmarks." He pointed the finger of scorn at
+Hepworth. "Even if I hadn't come along you would still have been a
+millionaire, climbed to it on some one else's shoulders. Entirely
+forgotten the old days, haven't you? Why who," explosively, "laid the
+foundation of your soul-deadening fortune? Me. Myself. Well, that's what
+a man has to expect in this world. But seriously, Cress, I do want you
+to do something for me."
+
+"Don't frighten me in this way then," said Hepworth. "If it isn't money,
+I'm getting apprehensive. You're in some scrape and I've got to take
+off my coat and work like a nigger to get you out."
+
+"Honest to God, no," said Mr. Fleming fervently. "It's just this. You
+see my little girl is here to spend her vacation with me--jumped across
+three states and got here day before yesterday, and under the
+circumstances it's kind of rough on her for me to go skating off this
+way leaving her all alone in a barracks of a hotel and in this place
+where she don't know a soul. Sure's I'm sitting here, Cress, I did my
+best not to listen to the boys," Fleming spoke earnestly. He always had
+the virtue of believing profoundly in himself. "It didn't seem fair to
+her, you know. But, oh Lord! What's the use? You know how it is when a
+new property swims into my ken. I get the fever so's I can't eat and I
+can't sleep, and it's 'my heart in the Highlands' so's I'm like to die
+unless I'm up and away to that little old new mine that's just been
+found, seeing what's to her, anyway. And you may believe it or not," in
+solemn asseveration, "but all the time I'm holding back and trying not
+to go. I've got the cramp in my feet so that I can't hobble, but the
+moment I yield, and take to the path again, it's gone. That's a fact.
+Now," the musical note of persuasion was strong in Mr. Fleming's voice,
+"now all I'm asking of you, Cress, is to look in on my little girl now
+and then and see that she has everything she wants. She's got a sort of
+vinegar-faced Sue with her that she calls her maid, so she's not
+entirely alone; but I want to be easy in my mind about her, to know that
+she's got some one to fall back on if anything unpleasant comes up.
+
+"She's pretty cute, you know. About on to everything that's going. Can
+take the best kind of care of herself. Has had to, poor kid. Her mother
+died, and you know, Cress, she might just as well have had a grasshopper
+for a father as me. Although I've tried, she'd tell you herself, I've
+tried, that is, as far as the limitations of my artistic temperament
+would permit. But when I feel the _wanderlust_ and the _weltschmerz_ and
+all that in my blood and hear the siren voices of new properties
+calling, why, the fireside fetters have got to fall, the white, clinging
+arms have got to unloosen their grip. That's all there is to it. You
+know in books how the father of a motherless daughter is always father
+and mother and brothers and sisters and grandmother, uncles and aunts to
+her? Well, I haven't been all those to Fuschia. I wouldn't have known
+how and she wouldn't have stood for it. She's got no particular use for
+fireside fetters, herself. Oh," optimistically, "I guess she'll be all
+right here. I'm leaving her all the money she can spend. But I just want
+you to keep an eye on her. Kind of see that the wheels are running all
+right and that she's amused and don't mope. You'll like her, you know.
+It's a funny thing, but everybody's just crazy and always has been about
+that kid."
+
+Hepworth was not proof against the appeal in his old friend's eyes,
+neither was he capable of shattering Fleming's simple faith that he,
+Hepworth, a jaded and middle-aged person, would find Fleming's daughter
+a delightful and interesting charge.
+
+Fleming's mind still ran on his child. "She's about the only thing in
+petticoats that has any real confidence in me," he said, with pride.
+"It's only been once or twice in my career that I've seen a look of real
+friendship in a woman's eyes. The first sight of me brings that wary,
+on-guard gleam way back in their blue or brown windows of the soul. You
+can't fool a woman. They've got those intuitions, you know, and they
+know instinctively that I'm a born missionary to the henpecked, that
+it's my mission in life to bring a little cheer into the lives of those
+poor shut-ins, the married men; scatter a little sunshine on their path.
+
+"By the way," as if struck by a sudden thought, "you've married since I
+last saw you. Some slip of a girl, I'll be bound. That's what the
+middle-aged millionaire's sure to do. Well, hold on to your money,
+Cress. Don't trust to your own fascinations. And you keep an eye on my
+little Fuschia, won't you?"
+
+Manfully concealing his apprehensions, Hepworth promised to do all that
+lay in his power to be a father to Fleming's daughter and had the
+consolation of seeing his old friend depart most jauntily and evidently
+with a weight off his mind.
+
+But when the door had finally closed on him Hepworth let his
+perfunctorily smiling face relax. But it did not remain merely grave and
+preoccupied, for as he continued to gaze fixedly, but unseeingly, at a
+large paper weight before him, his eyes narrowed and his brow contracted
+in a frown.
+
+He had neither the heart, time nor inclination to spend his leisure
+moments amusing such an utterly spoiled, untrained, undisciplined child
+as he was sure Fleming's daughter must be. Allowed to choose her own
+path from babyhood, wilful, headstrong--oh, well, what was the use of
+anticipating? He'd promised to look after her, and disagreeable duty as
+it was sure to be, he had to see it through, and that was all there was
+about it.
+
+He decided to look her up the next afternoon. Take her a doll or a box
+of candy. Perhaps, though, she was too old for a doll. How old was she,
+anyway? He had forgotten to ask Jim. Probably about twelve or fifteen
+years. Yes, certainly, the box of candy was safer. That was always
+acceptable and agreeable to any of the seven ages of women.
+
+He sighed again, and then, as if seeking distraction, he picked up the
+New York newspaper he was about to open when Fleming's card had been
+brought to him. He surveyed it languidly, his eye roving with
+indifference up and down the columns. Suddenly his attention was vividly
+arrested.
+
+His whole gaze, even further, his whole heart hung on a paragraph
+stating that Eugene Gresham had just sailed on the _Mauritania_. It was
+known among Mr. Gresham's friends that he had recently received a
+commission to paint the portrait of a princess of the royal house of
+Austria and that upon completing this he would go to England to finish a
+portrait, already begun, on a previous occasion, of the beautiful Lady
+Heppelwynd. Mr. Gresham, when seen on board ship a moment before
+sailing, would neither confirm nor deny these rumors.
+
+The frown disappeared from Hepworth's face. What commendable discretion!
+Whether the credit were due Dita or Gresham mattered little. It was the
+admirable restraint, this delicate and unexpected regard for
+appearances, which Hepworth applauded. To do him justice, that was his
+first thought, the sober second one was profound relief that the
+fascinating will-o'-the-wisp was as far away from the impulsive and
+curious Dita as was the smoky lantern. He put the paper down and rose to
+his feet. Fleming's little girl should have a box of candy that was a
+box of candy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+FUSCHIA FLEMING
+
+
+Procrastination was a thief that had never succeeded in wresting much
+time from Hepworth. He was one of those rare and exemplary natures who
+never put off until to-morrow what they can do to-day. Never did he
+stand shivering on the edge of his cold bath, but plunged in immediately
+without pause for consideration. Obnoxious virtues these--prejudicial to
+any popularity among his fellow-beings, therefore it speaks volumes for
+him that he was able to overlive them.
+
+This all goes to show that although the duty of keeping an eye on
+Fleming's daughter became more repugnant to him the longer it remained
+in contemplation, he yet lost no time in looking her up, as he expressed
+it to himself. Neither did he waver in his promise to himself fitly to
+celebrate Eugene Gresham's departure for other shores, but kept his vow
+by selecting the most gaudily decorated and wastefully beribboned box of
+sweets he could secure, and armed with it, as a hostage to impertinent
+childhood, took himself to the big hotel where Miss Fuschia Fleming was
+stopping.
+
+He sent up his name to her and was very shortly informed that Miss
+Fleming was in the garden and would be delighted to have him join her
+there.
+
+Hepworth curled his lip. What grown-up airs! Naturally, she had lost no
+time in turning up her hair and having her gowns lengthened since her
+father's departure, and he, Hepworth, would have to play up to this
+phase of missishness.
+
+He was dazzled for the moment by the bright sunshine, the brilliant
+flowers, and mechanically followed the page, threading his way through
+various groups of people. Before a table among the roses sat a young
+woman reading. The page stopped; Hepworth stopped; the young woman cast
+aside her book and rose.
+
+[Illustration: Before a table sat a young woman reading.]
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Hepworth?" She stretched out her hand with a boyish
+gesture, smiling into his eyes, and the sunshine grew dim. "Won't you
+sit down? I've just ordered some tea. If you don't drink it, won't you
+tell the man to bring you something else when he comes? Father said--"
+
+"But father is surely not Fleming, Jim Fleming," he said, firmly
+determined to get this absurd mistake straightened out at once.
+
+"But father just is," she asserted as firmly. "And since you asked for
+Miss Fleming, I am she, Fuschia Fleming. That is my ridiculous name."
+
+But Hepworth had so far lost his mental equilibrium that he could not
+immediately recover himself.
+
+"Fuschia Fleming is a little girl," he insisted, although this time not
+half so positively, "and great Heavens," with one of his quick smiles,
+"I've brought you a box of candy and just barely escaped buying you a
+doll."
+
+"I wish you had," she said. "I love dolls, especially the kind that you
+would bring me." There was undeniably something heady about Fuschia
+Fleming's glance. "And as for sweets, they're grateful and comforting to
+any age. You'd better give me that box at once, and I'll give you a
+practical demonstration of my appreciation."
+
+Fuschia had the curliest mouth. There is no other way to describe it. It
+was all in ripples, not small, but looking smaller than it really was
+because it turned up quite sharply at the corners, like her father's.
+And the lashes that lay on her pale, smooth cheeks were the curliest and
+longest Hepworth had ever seen. Her eyes were blue, blue as the sea, and
+very cool and gay and inclusive. Without being sharp or speculative or
+inquisitive, they yet took in all the details of whatever they rested
+upon.
+
+But Hepworth was a keen observer, and he noticed at once that although
+her pale face was for the most part alive with laughter, there was yet a
+certain worn look about it, as if she had been recently over-taxed and
+fatigued. There were faint but undeniable lines about the mouth and eyes
+that time had never etched there; and that blythe assured bearing, her
+detached, yet ready manner, were not suggestive of the ease of confident
+youth. They bespoke training.
+
+Hepworth's eyes, their droop rather more pronounced than usual, were
+fastened on an adjacent palm, as if he demanded from it the answer to
+this riddle. Getting no response there, he turned his speculating eye
+on a tree of magnificent crimson roses as if hoping for some
+enlightenment from that quarter.
+
+"Why do you not tell me all about it?" urged Fuschia gently. "What's the
+use of trying to puzzle me out unaided? Father has evidently told you a
+lot of conflicting things. I really can throw more light on the subject
+than any one else."
+
+Her voice was beautiful, soft and full and creamy, with all exquisite
+modulations and inflections, and its music cleared Hepworth's befogged
+brain. He released the palm and the rose tree from the third degree to
+which he had been subjecting them, and leaned back in his chair as if he
+relaxed his mind as well as his body, smiling back at her, as confident
+now, and as assured as herself.
+
+"I don't have to," he said. "I know. It's just come to me. You see your
+father didn't happen to mention that you are studying for the stage."
+
+"Studying for the stage!" she cried, as if to refute him, considered,
+and then nodded emphatically. "Of course I am, and expect to be until I
+die; but hardly in the sense you mean. My field of study at the present
+time includes a good deal of practical experience. I've been on the
+stage now for three years, ever since I left school."
+
+"On the stage!" he exclaimed. "But my dear child, under what name?"
+
+"My own," she answered. "Oh, do not look so puzzled. It is the most
+unlikely thing in the world that you should ever have heard of me. I'm
+far from a star, just one of the humble members of first this and then
+that western stock company. You see, my idea was to get my training and
+experience before I burst upon New York. But New York is beginning to
+seem too iridescent a dream ever to be realized."
+
+There was a fall in her voice, a touch of wistfulness, which Hepworth
+found rather touching because its pathos was both uncalculated and
+unconscious.
+
+"Why?" he asked in surprise. This note of resignation in her tones, of
+acceptance of a disappointing, inevitable circumstance, struck him as
+singularly out of character and aroused his curiosity.
+
+"It's been the same thing several times in succession now," said
+Fuschia, a touch of superstitious gravity in her expression. "Just as
+father is preparing to stake me, and I'm getting a company together to
+take New York by storm as Rosalind, why, father loses his last dime on a
+dead-sure thing. There's a law about it. The biggest winning proposition
+in years, always comes along just as I am ready to cross the Alps and
+storm Italy. Uncanny, isn't it?"
+
+"What nonsense!" Hepworth clipped off the end of a cigar as if it were
+Fleming's head. "Do not let yourself be affected by such an absurdity.
+The only law, and I admit it's a strong and binding one, is Jim's
+selfishness and irresponsibility. Now my dear child," Hepworth was
+beginning to fancy himself enormously in the role of paternal adviser,
+"you make him give you as much as possible."
+
+"I do," she interrupted softly.
+
+"And you lay it all aside, very securely, never touching a penny of
+it--"
+
+"What about my clothes?" another interruption.
+
+"Never touching a penny of it," went on Hepworth firmly, ignoring these
+asides on her part, "until you have saved enough to finance yourself.
+Isn't that reasonable?"
+
+"Ye-s," admitted Fuschia. "It is a very reasonable and sensible
+suggestion, Mr. Hepworth, that is," thoughtfully, "if you leave out
+father and me. But just get it into your head that at the moment I'd
+save a nice little heap, father would be hit with an overwhelming
+impulse to back the wrong horse, and, here's something awfully queer
+psychologically, Mr. Hepworth, I'd know as sure as I'm Fuschia Fleming
+that it was the wrong horse, and yet, I'd get inoculated with the mental
+virus before I'd know it, and beg him to let me in on it. And you know
+that father is incapable of staking half or even two thirds of his
+little all against any proposition he believes in. The only thing that
+can satisfy him and make his blood tingle is to stake the whole. No
+limit but the blue canopy of heaven. Limits do fret father."
+
+Mr. Hepworth slightly lifted his shoulders. Then he dropped another lump
+of sugar into a cup of hot tea she had given him.
+
+"I wish to seem neither irrelevant nor impertinent," he said at last,
+"but can you act?"
+
+Miss Fuschia Fleming threw up her white chin and laughter bubbled
+unquenchable from her throat, not vain-glorious mirth, as if the fact of
+her superlative achievement mocked his crude question, but the
+unrestrained laughter of genuine amusement.
+
+"The idea of asking an actress such a question," she said at last,
+touching each eye lightly and deftly with a delicate handkerchief. "You
+may thank your lucky stars that I don't nearly drown you with
+picturesque and highly colored tales of my triumphs and then hurl the
+full scrap-book at you. My, but you are a rash man! To ask a
+professional if she can act!" Again her full-throated laughter rang out
+delightfully and so heartily that it shook the petals from the cluster
+of pale golden roses she wore on her breast.
+
+"But look here, seriously now," her laughter died quickly away, her face
+assumed a gravity he had not dreamed her mobile features could express,
+her gaze fastened upon him with a sort of hungry, passionate eagerness.
+
+"That was a horrible question of yours," she shivered, as if the breeze
+blowing over the gardens from the Elysian sea chilled her. "One should
+know intuitively, instinctively whether an actress can act or not. Good
+Lord!" she brought her hand down on the table. "If you don't feel it,
+know it, beyond all argument, why it isn't there, that's all.
+
+"Unless I set you dreaming, unless I suggest in this or that varying
+pose or expression, the whole world of women, I'm not a born actress.
+Training, study can make a good mechanical nightingale of me, a clever
+imitation of the real thing. That's all. But unless I have the chameleon
+quality of reflecting my part, the unerring understanding of any type of
+woman I may be called upon to represent, how can I be an actress? What
+does it profit me to give the public a carefully studied, intellectual
+representation of Portia or Nora, or Juliet or Candida, wide apart as
+the poles as they may be? I must not only apprehend them, I must be them
+in every fibre of my being, in every cell of my brain, in every beat of
+my heart, or I'm nothing. Unless I can convince you that Camille and I
+are one in emotion and view of life, and then obliterate that
+impression when I speak to you as Rosalind, why I'm not an actress, not
+the kind I care to be, anyway."
+
+"By Jove, my dear," cried Hepworth, "you need have no doubts on that
+score." He had not felt the thrill of such genuine enthusiasm for many a
+long day.
+
+He forgot the delicate and uncertain state of his marital affairs,
+forgot the censorious world, his ennui and doubt and regret.
+
+"I have a conviction," he said, "that Jim is going to win a lot on this
+new proposition of his. If he doesn't, it's all the same anyway. Why
+should you waste your youth and your genius in twentieth rate stock
+companies?"
+
+In spite of these cheering words, her head continued to droop. Her face
+had grown paler, and sad were the eyes she lifted to his.
+
+"But you asked me if I could act. You weren't sure. You didn't see me as
+Camille or Rosalind. You just saw Fuschia Fleming all the time."
+
+"Of course I did." His smile was most comfortingly reassuring. "But I
+saw Fuschia Fleming as Juliet and Portia and all the others. I merely
+asked you if you could act to see what you would say. No, no, my dear,
+your future is written so plainly that he who runs may read. No more
+one-night stands in dreary little towns, Miss Fuschia Fleming, but long
+engagements, crowded houses, enormous box-office receipts, wildly
+enthusiastic audiences. Can't you hear and see them? New York, London,
+Paris for you!"
+
+"Oh-h!" Fuschia was herself again. She exhaled rapture in an ecstatic
+sigh. She rose. It is impossible to sit in moments of such high
+exultation. She positively seemed to soar, to tread on clouds. It was
+growing late and chill. Almost every one had left the garden, only a few
+absorbed groups remained. Fuschia was an actress. Self-expression was a
+necessity to her. She rested her hand, a snowflake, gratefully on his
+arm, she floated against him, a thistledown, and before he knew it had
+lightly, enthusiastically, unconcernedly kissed him on the cheek.
+
+"You dear," she cried, "I'll repay you by showing you what I can do. To
+tread the forest of Arden in New York! Oh-h! But you are not going. No,
+no, no!"
+
+That was what Hepworth, rather overcome by the unconventional and
+unexpected expression of her thanks, was preparing to do. He thought it
+best, but his decision was not adamantine, far from it. He always prided
+himself upon the open mind, and an ability to see all sides of a
+question, so when Fuschia suggested that he return later and dine with
+her, it struck him as a possible, even admirable solution of his daily
+puzzle how to put in the evening and he accepted without more debate,
+with an alacrity, in fact, bordering on gratitude.
+
+He was therefore on time to the minute and Miss Fleming was equally
+punctual.
+
+As they sat through a dinner, not elaborate, but as prolonged as if it
+were composed of all the courses on the menu, Hepworth was struck by the
+positive quality of Fuschia's beauty. It was not always so, evidently.
+She was as changeful as the chameleon she had spoken of. In the garden
+that afternoon, in her white serge frock, she had at first impressed him
+as a pale, rather attractive looking young woman whose charm was
+greater than her prettiness; but viewed in the rose-colored lights, and
+across the pink blossoms on their small table, she was a very wonderful
+creature. She was, in truth, wild with joy and her expression of it was
+delightful. Her eyes were blue as the sea when the sun is one vast
+sparkle over it, her mouth, made for laughter, grew curlier every
+moment. Her white evening gown was a dream.
+
+In addition to her admirable outward appearance, Miss Fuschia Fleming
+was a comedienne of unsurpassed gifts. She was also witty, well-read and
+sweet-natured, and when she chose to exert herself she could make sixty
+minutes seem sixty seconds by any one's watch, even that of the grimmest
+old curmudgeon, and Hepworth certainly was not the grimmest old
+curmudgeon. He was only a very lonely and sad-hearted man whose days had
+been hanging heavily on his hands.
+
+"Good old Jim," he soliloquized as he took his way homeward that
+evening. "He believed sufficiently in my friendship to come right to me
+when he was in a hole. Made no bones about it. Asked me to keep an eye
+on his daughter, sure enough of my affection for him to know I'd do it.
+I shouldn't wonder if this Idaho proposition is a good thing if it's
+properly financed. Jim's judgment is pretty sound. Well, we'll see,
+we'll see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+SHOCKING THE HEWSTONS
+
+
+As the winter wore on the weather in New York offered daily a more
+violent and odious comparison to the blue seas and balmy airs of
+California. The cold, sullen skies, dull, damp days and piercing winds
+set more than one dreaming of sunshine and summer, and among the many
+was Alice Wilstead.
+
+She was pondering thus, looking about her with surprise, one especially
+snowy, dreary winter afternoon as she took her way to Mrs. Hewston's. It
+was one of those thoroughly depressing days when nothing could really
+raise one's spirits but the inspiring glow of firelight. Mrs. Wilstead
+certainly looked as if she needed that and all positively cheering if
+not inebriating things as she entered Mrs. Hewston's drawing-room. Her
+piquant dark face was meant for smiles and gaiety, all of her features
+apparently designed to that end, for the corners of her mouth, the tip
+of her nose, the slant of her eyes, all inclined upward. It is a tragedy
+when a person of such countenance is in an introspective or melancholy
+mood. Sober meditations have an aging and blighting effect on the
+features of those born to look out upon the world with an arch and
+piquant interest.
+
+Isabel Hewston roused herself a little reluctantly. She was sitting
+alone most comfortably in a delightfully easy chair, she had on a
+becoming and loose Paris tea-gown. She had resolutely put behind her the
+haunting specter of increasing flesh, had taken an afternoon off from
+the persistent and continued battle she had been forced to wage with it,
+and now lay, a box of sweets on the table beside her, a new novel in her
+hand, enjoying to the full her temporary respite. It is to her credit
+that she put aside her book at the most nerve-tingling paragraph without
+a sigh.
+
+"Dear Alice," she exclaimed, lifting herself on one elbow, "you have a
+bad-news look all over you, the very rustle of your skirt proclaims it.
+What can be the matter?"
+
+"Give me some tea," said Mrs. Wilstead gloomily, "and let me sit down
+and rest." She slowly removed her furs. "My dear Isabel, do you mean to
+say you do not know?"
+
+"Know what?" asked Mrs. Hewston in bewilderment, ringing and
+mechanically ordering tea. "How could I possibly know anything after
+just getting off the steamer this morning? What has happened? You
+haven't been speculating, Alice, and losing all your money?"
+
+Mrs. Wilstead hastily disclaimed any such unforgivable crime and
+inconsolable grief as losing money. "Then really you have not heard,"
+she exclaimed. "Isabel, I am more worried than I can say. Lemon, please.
+It is stupid of you, Isabel, never to get into your head the fact that I
+couldn't be guilty of taking cream. To think of such a thing occurring!
+I had hoped that with Eugene Gresham out of the way, having the decency
+to go to England and France, and the papers full of his spectacular
+stunts, that all talk would cease and that when Cresswell Hepworth came
+back from that western trip that everything would be all right."
+
+"What are you talking about?" asked Isabel Hewston with the calmness of
+despair. "If it isn't too much trouble, would you mind making a few
+explanations? Just one might suffice."
+
+"It is that absurd, undisciplined Perdita Hepworth. She has had her head
+completely turned by the success of Maud Carmine and now she and Maud
+have gone into business together."
+
+"Into business?" Mrs. Hewston made a tremendous clatter among the
+tea-cups. "Business! What can you mean? Cresswell has not failed?"
+
+"Good heavens, no! But that is the reason he has been so long in the
+West. At least that is what every one says. Dita and Maud informed him
+of this scheme, and he, of course, expressed his opinion of the whole
+matter, refused to countenance it; but he couldn't do anything with such
+a headstrong creature as Dita, and so he simply cleared out; went West
+and has stayed there, while those two girls have gone stubbornly on and
+carried out their plans."
+
+"Business!" Isabel still rolled her eyes in dazed speculation. "But what
+kind of business? What could they possibly do? Lamp-shades, menu-cards?
+I'm sure I've always heard that Perdita didn't make such a brilliant
+success when she tried that sort of thing before!"
+
+"Menu-cards! Lamp-shades!" Alice laughed scornfully. "That's mere paper
+dolls to this venture. This is a business of their own invention,
+although Dita does take orders for house decoration also; but the main
+purpose is dressing the wealthy, telling the plain little daughters of
+the rich what to wear."
+
+"For pity's sake!" gasped Isabel. "What sort of place is it, beauty
+parlors or dressmaking?"
+
+"Oh, dear me, neither! Nothing so commonplace. They have taken a house
+just on the Avenue (they say it is a dream within), and you have to
+write for an appointment, and then if they will consider you at all they
+write back and set a time, and you go exactly as if you were calling,
+you know, and you are received by either Maud or Dita or both. Then you
+come again whenever they tell you, and all the time Dita is studying you
+just as a portrait painter would. Finally, when she feels that she has
+you thoroughly in mind, and is quite decided about the way you shall be
+clothed, she has designs made for you of hats and gowns, little water
+colors, you know, and sends you to her dressmaker. She also has your
+maid come and dress your hair before her, according to her directions.
+And it costs you!" Alice Wilstead pursed her mouth and lifted her brows,
+"It costs you! Oh, like the dickens!"
+
+"Who is that?" said Mrs. Hewston turning.
+
+"Only me," Wallace Martin replied modestly and ungrammatically,
+entering, as usual, unannounced, a privileged friend of the family, and
+greeting the two women with his usual barking cheerfulness.
+
+"I just walked up home with that pretty little Lolita Withers, and, as
+you were only a block or two farther, I came on here."
+
+The two women gazed at each other with a long, wondering stare. "Lolita
+Withers!" they exclaimed simultaneously. "Pretty!" Nothing could have
+been more eloquent than their tones.
+
+"My dear Wallace," said Mrs. Hewston, finding her voice, "is this some
+new joke? Are you quite sane?"
+
+"He means it for a joke," said Mrs. Wilstead, who had been peering at
+him curiously. "He is going in for eccentricity, or else the success of
+his play has gone to his head."
+
+"Not a bit of it," replied Martin with unmoved smiles. "Lolita Withers
+is at present an obviously pretty girl. Any one would so consider her."
+
+"Obviously pretty." Mrs. Wilstead had found her tongue by this time, and
+acrid and scoffing it proved. "That skinny, ineffective little Lolita
+Withers! Dull-eyed, anaemic, with stooping shoulders and wispy light
+hair."
+
+"She looks like a dream of spring," said Wallace, helping himself
+lavishly to tea and cakes. "A sort of an evanescent beauty. Truly, yes,"
+he affirmed, "she's been to Maud Carmine and Perdita Hepworth." He gave
+a great burst of laughter.
+
+"If they can make any one believe that Lolita Withers is pretty," said
+Mrs. Hewston dazedly, "they are indeed benefactors of the race."
+
+"Perdita Hepworth is a genius, a wizard. I always said so." Alice
+announced this with a sort of triumphant conviction. "She could make
+Aaron's rod blossom like the rose."
+
+"But where did they get the money?" Mrs. Hewston's mind turned always to
+practical things. "If Dita really quarreled with Cress, would he--?"
+
+"Maud's money." Martin spoke with the assurance of one possessing
+authoritative knowledge. "Cresswell Hepworth! Oh, no, he went off in a
+terrible huff because the girls laid their plans before him and told him
+what they were going to do. At least," he amended, "that is the idea I
+got from the little that Maud has occasionally told me. Yes, it's Maud's
+money; but they'll lose nothing, plucky girls! Double and treble it,
+more likely. They've already had an overwhelming success."
+
+"I'm going to them," cried Isabel Hewston excitedly. "If they are so
+wonderful they ought to be able to make me look slender without my
+having to go to all the bother of being really slender."
+
+"You'll have to stand in line then; that old Mrs. Peter Huff is jumping
+for joy and calling down blessings on their heads because they've
+literally transformed her three ugly daughters. Maud said they were
+splendid material, and Dita did wonders with them. The old lady hopes to
+get them married off now."
+
+"Alice! When can we go to them?" Mrs. Hewston's voice was trembling with
+excitement.
+
+"I can't go now." There was a distinct fall of disappointment in Alice
+Wilstead's voice. "The truth is, I'm going to California with the
+Warrens the first of next week. Why, what is that?"
+
+There was a sound of some one wheezing, puffing, muttering without the
+door, and then the curtain was violently jerked aside and Mr. Hewston
+entered. His hair stood up white and ruffled about his head, his face
+was of a much livelier crimson than usual, and he was puffing out his
+lips as if blowing fire and smoke from his mouth. In one hand he was
+tightly clasping a newspaper.
+
+"Willoughby! My dear!" his wife rose in consternation. "What is it, what
+has happened?"
+
+For answer Mr. Hewston spread open the paper and struck it with his
+hand. "Read that," he cried tragically, "read that! My poor friend,
+driven from his home by the vagaries of a mad, irresponsible girl, his
+life ruined by the foolish, frivolous creature he married! Turned from
+his home, he was driven to this."
+
+Wallace had seized the paper, and the two women hung over his shoulder
+to scan the sheet before them.
+
+What met their eyes were huge, black head-lines above and below the
+pictures of Cresswell Hepworth and a very pretty woman.
+
+The head-lines announced that the two had been in an accident in Mr.
+Hepworth's motor-car at Santa Barbara. Both were thrown out, but neither
+sustained any serious injuries. The article went on to say that Mr.
+Hepworth had, during his stay in the West, evinced great interest in the
+career of this beautiful and gifted young woman, an actress of
+reputation in her part of the world, but unknown in the East. It was
+understood, however, that she was to play a New York engagement during
+the coming spring, making her first bow to a metropolitan audience as
+Rosalind in a superb stage presentation of _As You Like It_. There was
+no question of the beauty of the mounting of this famous comedy, nor the
+strength of the company with which the young star would be surrounded,
+as the capital behind her was practically unlimited.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+PUBLICITY
+
+
+When the beautiful, young wife of a multi-millionaire takes advantage of
+her husband's absence on a prolonged and unavoidable business trip to
+embark upon a rather bizarre and eccentric venture of her own, it is to
+be expected the situation will be hugely discussed, especially in its
+three-fold phases--the lady first, the exact relations existing between
+husband and wife next, and third, the business itself.
+
+Perhaps in this case the business should be put first, above the lady,
+and above any sentimental interest in marital misunderstandings, for
+Perdita's skill in "bedecking and bedraping" was well known among her
+sisters, whose ideals in bedecking were those of Paris, and who had no
+Greek longings to be "noble and nude and antique." And had they not for
+the past two years enviously regarded Maud Carmine--who had been as a
+walking _mannequin_ among them, the living, breathing advertisement of
+Perdita's abilities.
+
+Therefore from the very first business bade fair to engulf the new firm
+and sweep the two partners off their feet, and if the list of those who
+daily assembled in "Hepworth and Carmine's" reception-rooms were to be
+published, it would look like a social registry or a page from _Who's
+Who_; that is, a page with all of the masculine names carefully culled.
+
+There were elderly ladies and young girls, and ladies in all the waning
+stages between the two. The elderly and waning ones all hoped before
+Mrs. Hepworth got through with them to look like the young girls, and
+the young girls, with all the enthusiasm of youth, hoped to look like
+Perdita Hepworth.
+
+There arrived then, one morning, at this palace of hope, Mrs. Willoughby
+Hewston, who, as she stepped from her motor, glanced nervously right and
+left and ascended the steps of the house Perdita and Maud had taken
+just off the Avenue with an agility of which her best friends would not
+have considered her capable. This nervousness, this hurry was due to the
+fact that only the day before she had mentioned her intention to her
+husband, with the result that she was thunderously ordered not to go
+near the place, under penalty of his worse than censure. He gave her to
+understand that this would be something too terrible for her imagination
+even to apprehend. Consequently, Mrs. Hewston wasted no time in getting
+to Hepworth and Carmine's as early as possible the next morning. She
+would have been less than woman had she not done so.
+
+The reception-room was spacious, sunny and restful, depending for its
+effect upon beautiful woods and long, unbroken lines; for color, there
+was the hint of ivory and tea-green, ineffably serene, and there Mrs.
+Hewston awaited Dita, her agitation subsiding somewhat under the calm
+influence of the place.
+
+But when Dita appeared it returned in full force. "Oh, my dear," she
+exclaimed, "what a charming spot this is! How original! How daring of
+you and Maud! Oh, my dear, if Willoughby knew I was here!" She raised
+her hands with a gesture full of meaning. "You know that he is in such a
+state anyway over those newspaper articles."
+
+"What newspaper articles?" asked Perdita. "Do you mean those that have
+appeared about all this?" she waved her hand comprehensively about her.
+
+"Haven't you seen them?" Mrs. Hewston looked frightened. "Oh, my dear
+child, how very stupid of me. Why, why did I mention them? I supposed,
+of course, that you knew. But if you do not, please do not ask me
+anything more, for I never, never will be the bearer of bad news."
+
+Dita stared at her in puzzled amazement for a moment and then she took
+her firmly by the shoulders. "Look here, Mrs. Hewston, you are
+frightening me dreadfully. I haven't an idea what you are talking about.
+Now you must tell me, indeed you must. Do you not see the state of mind
+in which you leave me unless you do?"
+
+"Oh, my dear," Mrs. Hewston shook her handkerchief out of her bag,
+evidently preparing for its possible use. "I didn't mean to frighten
+you, and you shouldn't allow yourself to be so easily upset. Now,
+understand, no one was hurt, but those dreadful papers yesterday were
+full of a motor accident which occurred in California."
+
+"Cresswell's car?" interrupted Dita quickly. "Was he--" She was about to
+say "injured," but Mrs. Hewston took the word from her mouth, or rather,
+substituted another for it.
+
+"Alone? No, dear," shaking her head a little as at the regrettable, but
+to be expected frailties of men. "He was not alone. He was driving the
+car, it seems, with a beautiful young actress by his side. She must be a
+very--er--persuasive person, too, because the papers said that she is to
+appear here this spring in some superb production or other, and they
+strongly insinuated that Cress' money is behind the whole thing. But you
+see, that, as I said, there's nothing in it all, nothing really to worry
+over."
+
+"I see," said Dita, but slowly and without enthusiasm.
+
+"And now, my dear," Mrs. Hewston had suddenly grown quite brisk, "let's
+forget all this and talk of something that is more interesting to you,
+because it's in your line. Perdita," in her most wheedling and cooing
+tones, "I want you to make me lovely."
+
+"You are lovely, Mrs. Hewston."
+
+"Oh, in a middle-aged, broad, pink kind of way, but I want you to make
+me look slender and lissome and girlish without all this awful dieting
+and exercise and these dreadfully tight corsets that make one feel as if
+one were nothing more nor less than blanc-mange in a tin mold. And you
+know you do come out of them with your flesh all fluted, just like the
+blanc-mange when it's set."
+
+"You shall be quite lissome, I promise you that," said Dita consolingly,
+if rather absently. "Come to me again early next week and I shall have
+some designs for you to consider, beautiful, long folds and all that.
+But I can't perform miracles, you know, and you'll have to diet a little
+and exercise; yes, and wear the boned corset; you don't want to look
+like a--"
+
+"Do not say it!" cried Mrs. Hewston nervously. "I am sure you are going
+to say either 'whale' or 'tub,' and I can't stand it. That's what those
+awful corsettieres always say when I protest the least bit against
+their tortures.
+
+"And Perdita, one thing more--my chin. I always say the chin is the
+greatest give-away a woman's got. She can get around anything else, but,
+no matter what she does, that chin sticks out like a cliff and reveals
+every year she's lived. Of course, you may try to draw off attention
+with a diamond dog collar or jeweled black velvets, but at the best
+they're only poor, miserable makeshifts; and one must wear evening dress
+no matter whether one has rolls of flesh or a gridiron of bones. If you
+don't, people either think you come from the woods or have something
+worse than bones or superfluous flesh to conceal. Just look at
+Willoughby!" Mrs. Hewston's emotions overcame her here and she dabbed
+her eyes carefully with her handkerchief. "He is fat as a pig. He
+shuffles and hobbles about with the gout. He eats anything he pleases,
+and never thinks of cultivating a pleasant expression. Yet if I should
+die, he could marry again without difficulty. Oh, it's a hard world for
+us women! But really, I must go, dear. Just look out and see if you see
+Willoughby by chance, either up or down the street."
+
+As soon as she was assured of safety and had departed, Perdita, who,
+fortunately for herself and her customers, had no other appointments for
+the morning, sent for the papers of the day before and carefully
+considered the incident of Mr. Hepworth, Miss Fuschia Fleming and the
+motor-car as set forth in the various journals.
+
+"And so," said Perdita to herself with glooming eyes, when she had
+finished an exhausting perusal, "he is going to back this deserving
+young adventuress, who has, no doubt, played upon his sympathies, in a
+great spectacular presentation this spring, and in New York. Well, there
+will be something else spectacular. I will make this venture of ours a
+stupendous success now or I will know the reason why. Where on earth is
+Maud? She is never about when I really need her."
+
+She frowned a moment over Maud's delinquency and then happened to
+remember that Miss Carmine had expressed an intention of being present
+at a rehearsal of one of Wallace Martin's plays. Dita then decided on
+the moment to drive to the theater and consult with her partner at once
+on the new and spectacular policy of their house which she was mentally
+outlining.
+
+But first, before starting, she thoughtfully selected some of a number
+of photographs of herself and also of Maud. "I suppose I shall have a
+dreadful time persuading her," she reflected as she drove through the
+streets. "She has bred in the bone those old-fashioned ideals of New
+York when it lived in Bleecker and Houston Streets."
+
+But curiously enough, while events of one character had led Perdita
+strongly to consider the adoption of a certain line of action,
+circumstances of a widely differing nature had impelled Maud practically
+to the same conclusion. Which only goes to show how clever a weaver is
+Fate and how wonderfully she contrasts and combines all her various
+threads.
+
+For two or three hours Maud had been sitting in a dimly-lighted, empty
+playhouse, watching the rather dreary and disillusionizing progress of
+Martin's latest play.
+
+It was an odd thing, she mournfully reflected, that Wallace never got
+himself, his own, bubbling, merry, joyous self, full of quirks and
+quips, into his plays. They would seem to have been written by a
+secondary personality, for they were all, without exception, intensely
+serious and depressing, dealing with problems of the most complex and
+dun-colored character.
+
+Maud was extremely practical. She never dreamed of buoying up her
+spirits with any ambrosial reflections that this latest offering was "a
+distinct contribution to the more serious drama." Neither did she
+attempt to convince herself that there were enough high-browed folk in
+the town to keep the play on for, peradventure, three nights. No, she
+simply, and with her usual common sense, reserved judgment until the
+third act, and then after a moment of wonder that Wallace had found a
+firm of managers willing to undertake the production, with all the
+expense entailed, when they had just one chance in a million to win (in
+her opinion, at least), she turned to more practical issues.
+
+"Dita and I," she remarked mentally, "have got to make a stupendous
+success if I want to marry Wallace, which I do, and he is going to
+continue to write plays, which he is. But I'll have a frightful time
+persuading Dita to run her business along the lines of twentieth century
+advertising. She has all sorts of ante-bellum ideas about stately
+procedure and measured methods, derived, of course, from those
+generations of lazy southern aristocrats."
+
+While she mused, amid the terrific racket of moving things about the
+stage in preparation for the fourth act, she felt a light touch upon her
+shoulder, and looked up to see Perdita, pale but determined, standing
+beside her.
+
+"I'll just slip into this seat beside you," said Mrs. Hepworth, suiting
+the action to the word. "I want to talk to you a few minutes. Now,
+Maudie, I know that you will not like it, but we've been doing
+awfully well lately, and I think it would be a good idea to put what
+we've made in advertisement. Of course, there's a lot we can get without
+paying for it. The Sunday newspapers will print pages about us,
+especially--especially if we let them have some of our most stunning
+pictures and allow those interviews where the artists sit and make
+sketches of you."
+
+Maud looked at her business partner as one who, bidden to rub a magic
+ring on his finger and wish, sees his wish come true. Here was Perdita
+approaching her tactfully, and timidly entreating her to do the very
+thing that was in her mind to accomplish. She could not grasp it, but
+sat staring at her companion in an amazement so profound that it bereft
+her of speech.
+
+Perdita misinterpreted the silence. "I've got to make a red-and-yellow
+success," she exclaimed with emotion. "I've--I've just got to be in the
+newspapers. Don't take it in this cold, reproving way."
+
+"My dear Perdita," Maud spoke with crisp distinctness. "I'm not! It's
+your attitude of mind, not your sentiments, that surprises me. The
+latter are my own. You," she continued virtuously, "are probably
+actuated by your vanity; I, by my heart. Look at that!" she waved one
+hand toward the stage, "or rather don't look at it. Now let us come to
+an understanding. You know that I have always loved Wallace. You know
+that he has lately loved me. You also know what it costs me a year to
+be one of the best-dressed women in New York and maintain my newly
+acquired reputation for good looks; consequently the business has to
+make handsome returns. We live in the twentieth century under artificial
+conditions, and it's no use pretending it's Arcadia and the simple life.
+It's not. We're hothouse blossoms, Perdita, products of this great
+forcing bed, New York, and we might just as well adapt ourselves to
+conservatory conditions. Wallace wouldn't look at me if I were a hardy
+annual. He didn't when I was what God and nature made me. But Wallace
+suits me, child though he is, in many ways, and I can do a great deal
+with him. I may even," but Maud's tone had lost its high confidence and
+was a trifle dubious now, "I may even make a playwright of him."
+
+"Why, here he is now with--with Eugene Gresham," interrupted Perdita.
+This was but the second time Perdita had seen Eugene since his return a
+few days before.
+
+Out from the wings stepped the two men and then clambered over the
+footlights and the orchestra space, and hastened down the aisle to join
+Mrs. Hepworth and Miss Carmine, who had now a number of large
+photographs spread over their knees, intently studying them.
+
+"Good morning," Wallace shook hands exuberantly with both women. "Went
+splendidly, didn't it? We're going to have the first act over again."
+
+"Very impressive, very," said Gresham, who looked in the best of health
+and spirits.
+
+Maud cast one withering look at him, but it glanced lightly off, turned
+aside by his smile. He saw it, however, and as quickly as possible got
+into a seat on the other side of Perdita.
+
+"Have you seen the papers?" he asked happily. "Blessings on Miss Fuschia
+Fleming. I shall do my humble best to keep the ball rolling. As soon as
+she appears in New York, I'm going to put in a request to do her
+portrait. Something bizarre, weird and splotchily thrilling, you know.
+Quite violent. That will keep a crowd around it from dawn to dark as
+soon as it's exhibited. It doesn't make the least difference whether she
+has any ability or not. She may be, and probably is, the most awkward,
+scrawny and nasal of western actresses; what of it? With Hepworth for
+her angel and Gresham for her painter, her vogue is secure. And Perdita,
+Rosita, your freedom is that much nearer."
+
+"Eugene," Perdita's eyes flashed, "I think it extremely bad taste, even
+vulgar, of you to talk in that vein."
+
+And Eugene hastened to retrieve his blunder, and soon Perdita, who was
+never long impervious to his spell, was smiling once more.
+
+Miss Carmine, however, was of sterner stuff. She did not wince, although
+she saw that there was no remedy for Wallace's malady but the knife, and
+he, unwittingly, wasted no time in precipitating his destiny.
+
+"What are you doing with all those photographs of yourself and Mrs.
+Hepworth?" he asked.
+
+"We are going to give them to some reporters, who are getting up stories
+for the Sunday papers."
+
+"Maud!" Martin spoke in the deep, pained tones of his leading man.
+"Maud, I have said nothing. In fact I admired and approved when you and
+Mrs. Hepworth went into this business venture. But such methods for you,
+for her! Do you not feel that you owe something to yourselves, and that
+she at least owes something to Hepworth? Oh, of what are you thinking?"
+
+"Money," said Maud succinctly. "Something you evidently are not thinking
+of." She glanced toward the stage.
+
+"I hope not," he answered stiffly. "Art--"
+
+"Art, art! Don't prate about art." Maud did not intend to spare the
+knife. "Art must be an individual expression and your play is simply
+hash seasoned with reminiscences. Oh, dear, dear Wallace, you can write
+a good play. I know you can, when you will write as Wallace Martin, and
+not after Sudermann, Ibsen, Hauptmann, Shaw. Look at this act. Wallace,
+tell me, is there no other way of picturing the gay, irresponsible life
+than by a costume ball in an artist's studio? Must the _vie de Boheme_
+always be thus presented? Then why does the lover in a problem play
+usually have to be a Russian prince in Moujik costume? And the heroine's
+midnight visit to his apartments! Couldn't you, wouldn't they allow you,
+to write just one play without it? And need the lady, after her past has
+been discovered and fully discussed, always go out into the tempest in
+search of her better self, and slam the door behind her?"
+
+"Maud! Maud! You--you are pulling down the pillars of the temple,"
+gasped Martin. "It's blasphemous! Every one says the play is good. You
+can not judge from a rehearsal. Let us change the subject," with
+dignity. "Since you have not hesitated to criticize me, I feel that I am
+justified in again urging you not to go into these gaudy advertising
+methods. Willoughby Hewston seems to feel that Cresswell was terribly
+chagrined at his wife's going into business. And truly, you should urge
+her to show some consideration for him."
+
+"A fig for Willoughby Hewston." Maud fumbled in her bag and drew forth
+an envelope. "Here is a letter I got from Cresswell yesterday. He
+congratulates me on the enterprise we have shown, and says that he is
+delighted that Dita's interests have found so congenial and healthful a
+channel in which to flow."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A WIDOW'S SMILE
+
+
+One morning, a California morning, all sea-breezes and flower-scents and
+golden sunshine, Mr. Hepworth read, as he ate his breakfast, a letter
+from Willoughby Hewston. The letter, in itself, was a long one, and it
+also contained a bulky enclosure. This enclosure was the full page of a
+sensational New York newspaper. This exhibited enormous, black
+head-lines, screaming innuendo of the most blasting character. In the
+center of the page were pictures of Hepworth and a dark, heavy-browed
+young woman, with large eyes and strongly-marked Hebraic features. The
+page was further embellished by pen sketches surrounding these
+photographic reproductions, sketches of a startling and romantic nature,
+a wrecked automobile, a picturesque young woman in very high heels and a
+very long coat, fainting into the arms of a tall, rather elderly man,
+presumably Hepworth.
+
+Hepworth had scowled and reddened at the first sight of this dreadful
+page, and his expression did not improve as he continued his perusal of
+it. Finally, however, his face cleared. He folded it neatly together and
+placed it carefully in his pocket-book. Not a pleasant incident, but
+closed. No use in crying over spilled milk. This newspaper account of an
+adventure had occurred nearly nine days ago and therefore any wonder it
+may have excited was practically over. He turned again to Hewston's
+letter and re-read it with mixed expressions in which amusement
+predominated.
+
+When Hewston set out to be profoundly serious, Hepworth always found him
+intensely funny. Finishing his friend's admonitory epistle, Hepworth
+next picked up one addressed to him in a smart feminine hand, Alice
+Wilstead's. He ran his eye over several pages, and then paused at a
+paragraph which he read over two or three times, his rather worried look
+changing the while to one of profound dismay, for Mrs. Wilstead not only
+stated that she was carrying out a long-cherished intention of visiting
+California with her friends, the Warrens, but, what was more, she was
+staying not upon the order of her coming, but coming at once.
+
+She digressed at this point to express her pleasure at the thought of
+seeing him so soon again. He bestowed upon these protestations of
+friendship one bare, ungrateful glance and rustled over the various
+sheets of her letter, hoping to gain, if possible, some more definite
+information; and there it was before his incredulous and resentful eyes.
+
+She was, she explained, writing this "hasty note" (it was eight pages)
+within an hour of leaving. She expected to arrive in Santa Barbara on
+the Thursday afternoon train. Why, Great Heavens! He clattered his
+coffee-cup impatiently in the saucer. This was Thursday morning and he
+had made all arrangements to spend a rather diversified day, including
+golf and a luncheon at Monticito with Fuschia and her father, a little
+fete in honor of Jim's triumphant return, with "the earth, by George,
+the earth and nothing less in my vest pocket."
+
+"And Alice," Hepworth clattered his cup again, he knew her of old. She
+was quite as inquisitive as her delicately-pointed tip-tilted nose
+indicated, and if he wasn't on hand to greet her, she would make life a
+burden to him until she discovered why.
+
+Hepworth, however, was used to coping with difficult situations. He took
+what odds fortune offered him and coldly, nonchalantly played to win. He
+sat for a few moments in deep thought. He had no intention whatever of
+giving up his day's pleasuring. The only problem which occupied him was
+what to do with Alice. Inspiration followed thought. He rang the bell
+and despatched a hasty request that Mr. Hayward Preston come to him at
+once.
+
+Mr. Preston was a favorite with all mothers, especially those with
+daughters. They spoke of him in an almost lyric strain. Naturally, one
+might expect to find him an egregious ass, and avoided of all men. The
+wonder is that he was not. He had an agreeable appearance, admirable
+manners, excellent business abilities. His virtues were all a little
+obvious and robust, and if one insisted on a flaw, it might be said that
+he lacked subtlety. So much the better. Subtlety destroys a healthy
+interest in the commonplace and makes of the straight and narrow way a
+tame and monotonous pathway too rocky for speed.
+
+"Preston," said Hepworth with his usual courteous charm when this
+younger associate in certain business enterprises appeared, "I wish to
+ask you a favor, or, to put it more correctly, I am going to do you a
+favor. I have just received a letter from an old friend of mine, Mrs.
+Wilstead, saying that she will arrive this afternoon on the three-thirty
+train. Unfortunately I have another engagement and can not meet her at
+the station, as, under other circumstances, I should very much wish to
+do; so," with another cordial smile, "I am hoping that you will be free
+to act as my proxy."
+
+Mr. Preston was not free. He had something else on hand, but this fact
+he did not hint by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, relegated it to
+the background of his thoughts to be settled later. He was not letting
+any opportunities to do "the chief" a favor slip lightly by him.
+
+"I shall be very glad to meet Mrs. Wilstead, if you can assure me that
+she will accept me as your proxy," he said with a frank smile. "Let me
+see. The afternoon train. And how shall I know the lady?"
+
+"I will send my chauffeur with you. He knows her. You are sure,
+Preston," solicitously, "that this does not interfere with any of your
+plans?"
+
+"Quite sure," returned Preston with convincing sincerity.
+
+"Thank you," said Mr. Hepworth devoutly; he made a mental vow to the
+effect that Preston should never rue this day.
+
+Thus, it happened that Alice Wilstead, on stepping from the train at the
+conclusion of her trip across the continent, found, instead of her old
+friend, a good-looking young man awaiting her, a young man after her own
+heart, with that gravity and stability of mien, and the dependable
+smile, which, being in strong contrast to her own volatile self, always
+impressed her pleasantly.
+
+Hayward Preston, on his part, gazed at the most attractive woman he had
+ever seen, of the type he particularly admired. Tall, graceful, her
+vivacious irregular face lighted by the gleam of white teeth and the
+sparkle of dark eyes, the air of the great world clinging about her as
+lightly as a perfume.
+
+To her joy, this delightful, wholesome-looking, grave man stopped before
+her. "Mrs. Wilstead?" he asked.
+
+She looked at him and smiled. It was the most effective smile in her
+whole arsenal reserved only for very special occasions.
+
+"Mr. Hepworth was at the last moment detained by certain business
+matters which are holding him a prisoner at his office and he asked me
+to act as his proxy. This ought to identify me, ought it not?" with a
+smile, and he gave her the card upon which Hepworth had written a few
+lines.
+
+She barely glanced at it and then smiled again, the same smile, only a
+little diluted. She had seen at once that it was strong wine for
+Preston.
+
+"You must meet Mr. and Mrs. Warren," she turned to the two who were
+fussing over their luggage. Warren was a tall, good-looking man and his
+wife an amiable, attractive little person.
+
+Preston left the question open to them whether they wished to go to
+their hotel at once or would prefer to drive about, and see something
+of this new world, into which they had just stepped, and they decided in
+favor of the latter suggestion.
+
+Through the town they drove, exclaiming over the roses, along the
+palm-lined boulevard by the shore and then in a rash moment at Alice's
+request, they turned toward the mountains. A rash suggestion and one
+that Preston had cause to rue, for presently they passed a carriage
+being rapidly driven in another direction and all apparently in the
+highest spirits. It was a party of three, two men and a girl, a slender,
+tanned, laughing girl, who caught Alice's eye at once. The next glance
+revealed the man who sat beside her, and who was leaning toward her
+explaining something, to be Cresswell Hepworth. As Alice bent forward,
+doubting the evidence of her senses, this girl lifted a bonbon from a
+box on her knees and held it out toward Hepworth with a pair of tiny
+gilt tongs. He snatched it deftly in one bite, to the accompaniment of
+immoderate laughter from his friends, in which he joined.
+
+Oh, dignity! Oh, austere grief! What crimes are committed in thy name!
+In these days one might well paraphrase the famous lines from _The
+School for Scandal_ and render them: "When a young girl marries a
+middle-aged man, what is she to expect?" The situation was graver than
+even Willoughby Hewston could have predicted. In the first surprise
+Alice had exclaimed, "Why, that's Cress!" And then to relieve Preston of
+embarrassment before the Warrens, an embarrassment which was manifesting
+itself in the deep flush which overspread his face, "He probably got
+through sooner than he expected," she said in a matter-of-fact tone and
+dropped the subject.
+
+But she thanked fortune that both Mr. and Mrs. Warren were talkative
+people given volubly to voice their enthusiasm over the beauty about
+them, and thus her rather stunned preoccupation passed unnoticed.
+
+She had upon her journey, and even before she started, pictured herself
+as a sort of missionary, with the not altogether unpleasant task before
+her of cheering up poor Cresswell. She knew the strength of his few
+affections, his devotion to Perdita and therefore she had some idea of
+how deeply this breach between them had affected him. But like most
+women, even the experienced ones, she had never realized that the
+masculine and feminine attitude toward grief is as wide apart as the
+poles. They may both wear rue, but with a difference. Woman seeks a
+cloister that she may brood over her sorrow, commune with it, hug it to
+her heart in solitude, but man does his best to shake that black,
+haunting shape, tries to lose it in a crowd, and willingly sips any kind
+of a nepenthes which seems to offer him forgetfulness.
+
+Alice Wilstead had not expected that Hepworth would make any unmanly
+exhibition of his woes, weep on her shoulder or be excitingly dramatic;
+she knew him too well. But she had expected to see him a little older,
+perhaps; a little grayer, sadder, more quiet, with a hint of melancholy
+in his eyes. He might--occasionally she pictured the scene--open his
+heart to her now and then in a grave and reticent way and disclose a
+strong man's grief; but instead she had seen him sitting up in a very
+smartly appointed carriage beside a correspondingly smart young woman
+in a white serge gown, who was in the very act of popping an enormous
+_marron glace_ between his willing teeth.
+
+"Men," said Mrs. Wilstead to herself, with cynical humor, "are all
+alike." A nugget of wisdom, by the way, which frequently falls from the
+lips of a sex prone to generalize from a personal experience.
+
+On arriving at the hotel, Mrs. Warren professed herself a bit weary and
+retired to her rooms, followed by her dutiful husband, but Alice
+Wilstead, afire with repressed curiosity, suggested, with another of
+those smiles, full strength now, that Mr. Preston take a cup of tea with
+her. She was more tired than she had thought.
+
+For a few moments, Mrs. Wilstead spent herself in enthusiasm for the
+beauty and charm of the place. Such air! Such scenery! Such flowers!
+Then she was solicitous about Preston's tea; two lumps of sugar and two
+slices of lemon? What mathematical exactness! She took a sip of her own.
+Just the right strength and of excellent flavor. What interesting
+looking people at the table over there; she believed, no, she was quite
+sure that she had seen them, perhaps met them before. Yes, she
+remembered the daughter distinctly. It was in Switzerland, a year ago.
+She was completely absorbed in the scene before her. "Look at that
+absurd man yonder, Mr. Preston." Preston eagerly fell in with her mood,
+lulled to a false sense of security. Then without a minute's warning she
+opened fire.
+
+"A charming young woman," she began, "is a much more plausible, less
+hackneyed and convincing excuse than a 'pressing business engagement.'
+I'm surprised Cresswell did not think of it. But that would be telling
+the truth, and you men avoid that as much as possible in dealing with
+women, do you not?"
+
+"You have taught us that you prefer the other thing," he returned with
+some spirit, although his soul quaked within him.
+
+"Who is she?" asked Mrs. Wilstead, without preamble.
+
+"I don't know," said Mr. Preston miserably. He knew perfectly well that
+Mrs. Wilstead was too experienced to believe him, and would scorn his
+clumsy subterfuge. This confused him frightfully, but he hadn't the
+faintest idea what else to say, so he stumbled on with what he felt was
+yokel-like stupidity. "Really, I do not know."
+
+"No, of course you would not know under the circumstances." Mrs.
+Wilstead's tone was sweet and sincere, but beneath the sugar-coating of
+innocence he discerned the bitter pill of her complete understanding.
+His ears burned and felt the size of an elephant's. He was very unhappy.
+He stirred his tea round and round, as if his spoon were an egg-beater.
+
+"Now that you are here," he said awkwardly, "she will be heard of no
+more."
+
+Although he never knew it, that speech advanced him leagues in Alice
+Wilstead's favor. The genuine sincerity of his tone would have warmed
+the heart of any woman standing with reluctant feet where the brook of
+_passe_ joins the river of middle-age.
+
+Alice regarded the opals on her fingers (she was born in October) with a
+pleased yet humorous smile.
+
+"Accepting your inference, what chance has an elderly widow against a
+young and lovely actress?"
+
+Preston started. She had played trumps when he was least expecting
+them. "Then you know--" he said.
+
+"That Miss Fuschia Fleming is a star that will shoot madly from her
+sphere to brighten the firmament of New York this spring."
+
+"I supposed, of course, that was her game," he said soberly. But he was
+thinking not so much of Fuschia Fleming as of that after revelation
+which this delightful woman had made. A widow of charm, of sparkle, of
+money. One felt the latter. She unconsciously exhaled it. And best asset
+of all, the old and valued friend of Cresswell Hepworth. Preston was no
+cold-blooded schemer, neither was he an ardent, impetuous Hotspur. He
+merely calculated chances, not only by virtue of temperament but
+training, and when this jewel of a chance flashed its dazzling rays, he
+instinctively estimated its weight, the accuracy of the cutting and
+possible value.
+
+Therefore Mr. Hayward Preston made such hay in the next few minutes,
+that when he left, or rather when Mrs. Wilstead dismissed him, he
+received another of that particular brand of smiles and walked home with
+his head among the stars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FATHER AND DAUGHTER
+
+
+One morning, shortly before she left for New York, Miss Fuschia Fleming
+and her father sat in the sitting-room of their suite in the hotel at
+Santa Barbara. The sunshine without lay broad and white and dazzling.
+Within it seemed to be reflected, although through many tonal shadings
+in subdued, but still golden points of emphasis. There were bowls of
+yellow roses, there were baskets of oranges and lemons, there was
+Fuschia herself in a morning gown as pale as the gold of her hair which
+looked paler than ever in contrast to a great tawny, orange-colored
+flower, which she had leaned from her window and plucked a short while
+before and thrust carelessly above one ear.
+
+Her chair was completely surrounded by newspapers, colored supplements,
+Sunday magazine sections. They billowed about her like waves. Whoever
+would reach her must cross a crackling sea. On the opposite side of the
+room, her father reclined comfortably in a large easy chair, smoking an
+excellent cigar and poring intently over a page of "past performances,"
+with pencil in hand poised above it.
+
+"Goodness!" said Fuschia suddenly, "she's a dream!"
+
+"Who?" asked her father, looking up.
+
+"Mrs. Hepworth." Fuschia was gazing at a page which presented many
+pictures of the same lady. "Put down that dope sheet, papa; it's time
+wasted studying it. All your money is needed to back just one favorite,
+and copper just one bet, and that's me."
+
+"In common with my brothers, men, the workers and the shirkers, I am
+always ready with advice," obediently laying aside his paper.
+
+"Save it for the weak brother then. I want to talk to you, to clear out
+my own thoughts. Now Mrs. Hepworth--"
+
+"Cress' wife?" her father interrupted with a show of interest. "What's
+the matter there, Fuschia? Why isn't she here?"
+
+"She's got a mission in life, just like you and me," Fuschia showed her
+beautiful even teeth in one of her widest, curliest smiles. "Yours, with
+the great motto inscribed upon your banner, 'Home-keeping youths have
+ever homely wits,' is to rescue your brother from the deadly thraldom of
+the home; mine is to reform the stage; Mrs. Hepworth's is to redeem
+women's clothes. She has all kinds of theories about color and design
+and she wanted to put them in practice. That nice Mrs. Wilstead says
+that she's an odd, capricious, undisciplined creature, but a genius in
+her line. Oh, I've learned a lot about her from what Mrs. Wilstead and
+all these newspapers have told me, and what Mr. Hepworth hasn't told me.
+Papa, dear, I never admired any one in my life as I do that man. I've
+tried every way but using a drag-net to get him to tell me the whole
+story, but he's stood every test. He'll talk freely on any other
+subject."
+
+"Didn't happen to give you any inside talk about those Arizona
+properties, did he?"
+
+"He did not. You see he married the poor but beautiful girl, and then
+she got playing too gaily with Eugene Gresham, the great artist. You've
+heard of him surely. It was the triangle, you see. Same old dramatic
+motive. Then suddenly, just as every one was standing on their tiptoes
+to enjoy the view, why the triangle flew to pieces. The Cresswell
+Hepworth part landed out here, the Eugene Gresham part went to Europe,
+the Mrs. Hepworth part went into business with a Miss Carmine, and
+opened a big establishment in New York, and every one came down on their
+heels with a thud, and are still staring at each other wondering what's
+doing."
+
+"If Cress really wants her," remarked Fleming, flicking the ashes from
+his cigar, "he surely wouldn't be such a fool as to leave the field.
+He'd stay and fight for her."
+
+"That's man-talk," said Fuschia lightly contemptuous. "A crazy idea you
+all have, that you can make women love you. Don't you know how the
+leading man always walks about the stage clenching and unclenching his
+hands, and muttering, 'By heaven, I'll make her love me; I'll win her
+against all the wir-r-rld.' Poor souls, they think they can dazzle us
+into loving them; and many feel that if they only talk enough about
+themselves, and their great achievements, what they've done and what
+they're going to do, that they can't fail to fascinate us; and it often
+suits us to let them think so. Awfully funny, isn't it?"
+
+"I never succeeded in fascinating 'em, no matter what line I took," said
+her father with feeling.
+
+"Women don't care much for you, do they? Well, cheer up, Daddy, dear.
+They've never loved me. Once in a while, they're very nice to me, and we
+purr and purr and rub noses, but all the time we are watching each other
+out of our green eyes, and then one day there's the swift stroke of the
+velvet paw and the deep mark of claws."
+
+"Mighty little purr and velvet for me," Fleming's petticoat
+reminiscences were invariably gloomy, "mostly claws."
+
+Fuschia's unfeeling smile curved nearly up to her eyes. "How is that
+Idaho property anyway?" she asked with apparent irrelevance.
+
+"Fine, my dear, fine. I think Cress may really make something on it
+himself, but in any event, he'll have no difficulty in unloading it."
+
+"I'll need a pile of money for my campaign." She took an orange from
+the basket and began tossing it from one hand to the other. "I've
+brought a good deal of study to bear on the arrangement of this
+checker-board. I always like to get on to the game just as much as
+possible. Why have I been traveling about with those miserable little
+stock companies putting up with all kinds of hardships? Just to get
+experience. Now I'm ready for New York!" She mused a moment, and then
+took up the subject with fresh enthusiasm. "It's helped me a lot, all
+this newspaper notoriety about myself and Mr. Hepworth. Puts me before
+the public as nothing else could. Just look at these pictures!" She
+plunged her hand down into the rustling sea, and held out a Sunday
+supplement to him. "There's a lovely picture of the auto tumbling over a
+cliff and me landing in a tree. Simply great! Now just as soon as I get
+to New York, Mrs. Hepworth's got to be a sister to me."
+
+"How do you know she'll cotton to you?" asked Fleming.
+
+"What's that got to do with it?" His daughter opened her eyes in
+surprise. "I need her, for through her, I mean to have my portrait
+painted by Gresham. And his prices! La, la! Sure, you can put your hands
+on real money and plenty of it?"
+
+"Fuschia, my child," her father laid aside his "dope sheet" and bent
+impressively toward her, "this new proposition has more in it than even
+you can spend, and you know what that means. It's one of those
+spectacular properties that make a poet of a man. You can talk it
+beautifully, splash on the color, you know, and it writes as well as it
+talks. Shows up superbly in a prospectus, photographs like an artist's
+dream. Just the thing to capture the eastern imagination. You see, it
+matters very little whether the property is intrinsically all right or
+not. That is always problematical, and to be left in the hands of
+Providence. The great thing is to know what is going to capture the
+eastern imagination. That's what you're really dealing with, not the
+proposition itself, by Jingo, but the eastern imagination."
+
+"That's just what I tried to tell that unborn babe of a press agent this
+morning," cried Fuschia, nodding her head in emphatic agreement. "I got
+him because he was a Mayflower Yankee, just out of Harvard, and yet
+he's got no more idea of how to deal with his own people than a new-laid
+kitten. He came bounding to me an hour or two ago with a lot of stuff
+he'd been working over nights with wet towels around his head and a pot
+of black coffee at his elbow.
+
+"'I think I've struck it,' said he. 'It is both true and new!' Pop, it
+was like this. 'Miss Fuschia Fleming can really do things, therefore she
+does not waste time talking about them. One of the most competent of
+stage managers, she never loses her temper. Admirable self-control a
+striking characteristic. Thoroughly systematic and methodical.'
+
+"Lord, Papa! I felt sorry for the kid. It like to killed me, you know.
+Well, I waited a bit till the daze wore off and then I said, 'I'm sorry,
+honey, but it won't do. If I'd made good in New York and had 'em all
+rooting for me, it would be different, but they're effete Easterners,
+boy, used to ruts and routine, and you can't change their breakfast food
+on 'em like that. They won't stand for it. Give 'em the same good old
+press notices that mother used to make back in 1860. Don't talk about
+my "trim neatness." You won't believe it, Daddy, but the poor kid
+actually did that! I said, 'Say that my favorite house costume is a
+Mexican riding-suit hung with silver dollars, and that, in cold weather,
+I always wear a Navajo blanket over my shoulders. Have a sketch of me
+rolling a cigarette between the thumb and second finger of one hand and
+throwing the lariat with the other. Describe me, when only fifteen,
+playing Rosalind in the redwoods of the Yosemite before a wildly
+enthusiastic audience of miners and cowboys. Then say that once before,
+when appearing before the most brilliant audience ever assembled in a
+San Francisco theater, I became so overwrought that I began to shoot
+holes through the drop curtain.' Do you think that was all right, Papa?"
+
+Her father gazed at her with an almost awed admiration. "Honest to God,
+Fuschia," he said at last, "I don't know what to think of you. Here I've
+spent my life handling those Easterners, singly and in bunches, and here
+are you, without either experience or training, on to the game
+intuitively. Fuschia, this is a proud day for me. I've never told you,
+little girl, but sometimes I've had my doubts about your bringing up. I
+tell you after your mother ran away with my best friend and then
+divorced me for desertion and shortly died, leaving you, a two-year-old
+girl baby to me as a last bequest, it was a black hour. Like one of
+those Bible boys--Peter, wasn't it?--I went out and crew bitterly. 'If
+she was only a boy!' I said. 'What can Jim Fleming do with a she thing
+like this?' Then I took another look at you, in your white dress and
+blue shoes, smiling at me with your mouth all over your face, and, true
+as I stand here, Fuschia, you were the first thing in skirts that didn't
+seem to be looking at me across a great gulf.
+
+"And then I talked to myself a while. You see, if your mother had come
+to me as man to man and said, 'Jim, I'm tired of you and I want to marry
+Henry,' I'd have said, hard as it might have hit me, you know that,
+Fuschia, 'Kate, I don't blame you, and I'll do what I can to help you.'
+But she preferred the feminine route, a note on the pincushion and she
+gone with all her jewels and ten thousand I'd given her to buy a
+diamond necklace. But as I say, I looked at you in your white dress and
+blue shoes and that friendly grin on your little mug, and I said, 'God
+knows how it'll work, but this girl thing here ain't going to grow up
+thinking that there's fences built all around her and that she's got to
+coax and sneak and pretend to get her way. Poor Kate! With great price
+she obtained her freedom, but my little Fuschia, here, she's born
+free.'"
+
+"Good old Poppy-doppy!" Fuschia's tone was fondly approving and
+something like a tear glimmered in the depths of her turquoise eyes.
+"I'm glad you never tried the snaffle bit of parental training and home
+influences on me, because I'd sure have kicked myself free, and it
+mightn't have been pleasant. But to come back to the present, Mr.
+Hepworth is so splendid, that unless his wife is really in love with
+this boy-Raphael or whatever he is, I'm going to get into the game and
+make home happy for the Hepworths."
+
+"Cautiously, cautiously, daughter," admonished Fleming, looking a trifle
+alarmed. "That's all right on the stage; but in real life when an
+outsider tries to join the parted hands of husband and wife, he's
+likely to get a cuff on the ear."
+
+"Oh, men are crude," sighed Fuschia. "You didn't suppose I was going to
+do the child at Christmas act, did you? No, what I mean to do, that is,
+if it's just her imagination and not really her heart that's captured,
+is to take her boy-Raphael away from her."
+
+Fleming gasped, and, lowering his head slightly, looked at his daughter
+from under his eyebrows. "Fuschia," he said, "there are few things that
+can feaze me. 'No limitations and no limits' has always been my motto,
+but you do, child, you really do take my breath away sometimes. Why, if
+report is true, Cress' wife is one of the most beautiful women in the
+world."
+
+"Um-huh," Fuschia yawned indifferently. "What has that got to do with
+it? I've usually," she continued thoughtfully, "succeeded in getting
+anything I wanted; that is, men. The wildest of them will trot right up
+to me, and eat out of my hand."
+
+"You're your father's own little girl, Fuschia," said Jim with emotion.
+
+"Yes, and it's a good thing I inherited father's constitution as well as
+his spell-binding abilities, considering that I have to be practically
+my own press agent, stage manager and all the rest of it; the management
+of Fuschia Fleming and Fuschia Fleming herself and then take up the task
+of reuniting families besides. But Mr. Hepworth is a good, good man,
+Papa, and we're going to make him happy, even if we have to do it on his
+money."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+DO YOU LOVE ME?
+
+
+The Warrens and Mrs. Wilstead had remained in Santa Barbara a week, time
+enough for Alice to discover that Hepworth was in no apparent need of
+the consolatory offices of his old friends, that Fuschia Fleming was a
+most entertaining young woman, and that Hayward Preston's attentions
+were persistent and his intentions manifest and purposeful.
+
+During the next month, no matter in what part of the state they were and
+in what hotel Alice and her friends registered, Preston was sure to turn
+up before the day was over; and to begin at the earliest possible moment
+his unending argument. Along palm-shaded boulevards, under avenues of
+pepper trees, in orange groves, on lonely mountain trails, in the shadow
+of old missions, on surf-pounded beaches, in secluded nooks of great
+hotels, everywhere and at all times he told his plain, unvarnished
+tale. He had now asked Mrs. Wilstead to marry him in every resort in
+California; and had not yet succeeded in winning her consent, and the
+day of her departure was drawing near. Within two days she would be
+leaving for New York. It was at Pasadena that Mr. Preston made his last
+desperate stand.
+
+He and Alice were strolling about the gardens of the hotel; she had not
+wished to get too far away from the sheltering Warrens, and there
+Preston was making what he assured her was his last appeal.
+
+She, however, preferred to view his condition of mind and heart in a
+psychological rather than a sentimental way.
+
+"It is a habit, an obsession," she asseverated, tilting her rose-lined
+parasol toward the sun so that charming pink reflections fell upon her
+face. "You have lost sight of the object in the zest of pursuit. It is
+the game which absorbs you, believe me. The winning would disconcert
+you. Yes, it's the game. I am convinced that you have lost sight of the
+goal and all that it entails."
+
+Mr. Preston merely looked at her. "It entails you," he replied simply.
+
+"It entails a great deal more," her speech was as quick as his was slow.
+"You are, you tell me, exactly thirty-three years old. I, Alice
+Wilstead," she shut her lips and breathed hard a moment and then
+gallantly took the fence, "am just thirty-eight."
+
+Not by even the flicker of an eyelash did he show either surprise or
+dismay. Alice's heart went out to him. She really adored his
+impassivity; it was so unlike anything she was capable of.
+
+"What has that got to do with my loving you and your loving me?" asked
+Preston stolidly.
+
+"Everything," she answered deeply, regarding with drooping eyes and
+wistful mouth a great, fragrant rose which she held between her fingers.
+"If we could but hold this moment, if neither of us would know further
+change, why--"
+
+"Then you admit that you could care for me, that you do care for me," he
+exclaimed with brightening eyes.
+
+"Let it remain at 'could' and 'might,'" with one of her swift smiles.
+"But under any circumstances, I do not wish to marry any one. Look at
+my admirable position, rich, free, supposedly attractive, young--a
+widow, you know, is always a good five or six years younger than either
+a married or an unmarried woman. One is regarded as a young widow until
+one is quite an elderly person. Now, really, why should I marry?"
+
+"There isn't any possible reason," agreed Mr. Preston unhappily, "unless
+you love me, and then there is every reason. But are you not tired
+walking up and down, up and down these paths? Shall we not sit down on
+this seat a few minutes?"
+
+She acquiesced. It was a glorious morning and the spot was enchanting
+with all this fragrant, almost tropical plant life blooming and blowing
+about them, and Alice, impelled by the softness and sweetness of the air
+and scene, forgot her adamantine resolutions and lifted her eyes to his
+in one long and too-revealing glance.
+
+"Alice, Alice"--there were all manner of tender inflections in his
+usually colorless and unemotional tones--"you can not now deny--"
+
+"Yes, I can," she cried quickly; "I can and I do. Hayward, believe me,
+it will never, never do. You are looking at the matter from the man's
+viewpoint, I, from the woman's, and, in cases of this kind, the woman's
+is the surer, the more safely intuitive."
+
+"Bosh!" Preston's exclamation was calm, but pregnant.
+
+"But consider, consider," she besought him. "Look at us, you are the
+robust, ruddy, phlegmatic type that will not change in twenty years, and
+I am exactly your opposite in every respect and that's the reason you
+like me and therein lies the whole tragedy. I'm nervous, mercurial,
+emotional, and nothing, nothing brings wrinkles so quickly as vivacity
+and expression."
+
+"But you haven't any wrinkles."
+
+"Not yet. Care, massage, a good maid and a light heart have kept them at
+bay. And, oh! gray hair!"
+
+"But you haven't any gray hair," he said, with the same patient
+obstinacy.
+
+"Not yet, but when they do begin to come, they come all at once.
+Hayward, I do not deny that I could care for you if I would let myself,
+but when I realize that for a woman to marry a man younger than herself
+makes life one long, hideous effort to keep the same age as her husband;
+oh, it is too frightening! Just think! No matter how much one may long
+for repose to have to be always up and exercising to keep one's figure;
+to have to hold on to one's complexion by always sleeping in stifling
+masks and slippery cold cream; to be always watching the roots of one's
+hair to see if it doesn't need retouching, and, worst of all, to have to
+be gay and vivacious and conceal, heaven knows, what twinges of
+rheumatism under a smiling face."
+
+"You're just talking," said Preston calmly. "Keep on if it amuses you.
+It doesn't mean anything at all to me. Not at all." His success in life
+was largely due to the fact that he always kept the main object in view
+and never permitted himself to be diverted by side issues. "Your
+personal appearance ten years from now has nothing to do with the
+matter. We may both be dead ten years from now. There is only one
+question to be discussed and that is, 'Do you love me?'"
+
+The petals fell from the red, red rose as Alice twisted it nervously in
+her fingers.
+
+"I think I have given you ample proof of my liking for you," she said at
+last, "but the _loving_ is obscured in doubts."
+
+"Forget them, for my sake," he murmured. "Can't you, won't you, Alice?"
+
+"If I could only get away from those mental pictures," she confessed.
+"They stand between us like a barrier. Just think of arriving at the
+point where you want to doze after dinner and dream over some nice,
+slow, old book, with your head comfortably nodding now and then. And the
+fire flickering and the cat purring on the rug. Lovely, isn't it? And
+instead, think of realizing wearily that you've got to spend the evening
+at the opera or playing bridge. And that, of course, means turning
+yourself at an early hour into the hands of your maid for repairs and
+decoration. And then you've got to sit upright the whole evening because
+your stays, which are guaranteed to give you the lithe and willowy
+figure of youth, will not let you lean back. And you do not dare to
+smile, because you will crack the kalsomining on your face; neither may
+you move your head, you are so afraid that the curls and puffs and
+braids may not be pinned on tight. Oh, it's a dog's life!" she sighed
+heavily.
+
+"And it's not for you," Preston spoke firmly. "There is nothing coltish
+about me." Alice laughed, it was so true. "Business is all that very
+deeply interests me, and amusements bore me very much. I like the
+after-dinner doze and the fire and cat already. You will probably have
+more of that kind of thing than you like, if you marry me. Alice, will
+you not consider?"
+
+"Mrs. Wilstead, Mrs. Wilstead," a page's voice rang through the
+shrubbery and came nearer and nearer and Alice took from him a thick
+letter addressed to her in Isabel Hewston's hand and adorned with a
+special delivery stamp.
+
+"From a dear friend," Alice exclaimed. "Will you excuse me while I look
+at it? There may be some matter of importance, you know."
+
+In Preston's manner there was no hint of his annoyance. He behaved as
+well as a man could when interrupted in the most fervent declarations of
+affection which the limitations of his nature permitted him. He even
+suggested that he withdraw, and rose, hat in hand. Could complaisance,
+consideration go further? There were only two days before him, and she
+had never been so near yielding before.
+
+"Oh, no, no," almost possessively, she stretched forth a hand to detain
+him. "You have nothing to do but wait, and I shall run through this,"
+touching the letter, "in a moment."
+
+Preston sat down beside her again and lighting a cigarette, smoked and
+looked out over the brilliant garden before him while she read.
+
+It was evident, Alice discovered this before she had finished the first
+page, that Isabel Hewston was actuated by no deeper motive than pure,
+erratic impulse when she placed that special stamp upon the letter. At
+least so Alice and Preston probably would have agreed and Isabel
+reluctantly would have admitted it. But the Fates who sit in the
+background and transmit wireless messages to mortals would have smiled
+inscrutably and shaken their heads. If Isabel hadn't stuck that stamp on
+for no reason whatever, and if the page hadn't sought Alice through the
+breeze-caressed, rose-scented garden and given her the missive at the
+exact moment he did--but, as Eugene Gresham would say, "What's the use?
+Why conjecture?" What really occurred was this:
+
+"Dearest Alice," wrote Mrs. Hewston, "how I envy you in that southern
+paradise while here the weather merely changes from sleet and snow to
+rain and then back again."
+
+There was a page or two of this and of Willoughby's various ailments and
+symptoms, and then a long and glowing account of her visit to Perdita
+Hepworth, and a great deal of minute, enthusiastic description of the
+gowns that Dita was designing for her.
+
+This Alice read with interest, but greater interest still did she bestow
+upon the statement that there appeared to be a coldness between Wallace
+Martin and Maud Carmine, owing, it was said, to the fact that she had
+ruthlessly criticized his last play, and prophesied accurately its
+speedy failure.
+
+"It does seem too bad, dear," Isabel wrote next, "that you, away off in
+California, should have to come in for your share of the gossip which
+seems so sadly rife this season."
+
+Here Alice clutched the pages and, bending over, bestowed upon them an
+almost breathless attention. What could Isabel mean?
+
+"It is perfectly stupid, of course," the letter ran, "and I would not
+think of mentioning it to you except that we have always been frank
+about such things, and, anyway, you ought to know. There is a rumor
+about that you went to California hoping to catch Cresswell's heart in
+the rebound. People now believe that he and Perdita have definitely
+separated and that you knew this, and, as some one put it to me, so
+vulgarly too, dear, camped down on his trail. They say now that the
+incident of the actress was merely to make things easier for Perdita in
+gaining her freedom, but that soon after that is granted her, Willoughby
+says that, as those coarse men express it, you will lead Cress to the
+altar."
+
+"Darn Willoughby!" Alice breathed hard as she muttered the words between
+her clenched teeth, the vivid scarlet of hot anger suffusing her face.
+Preston turned quickly to her, throwing away his cigarette, and ceasing
+to regard the brilliant garden through meditative, half-closed eyes.
+"What is it?" he asked. "Something has worried you."
+
+"No," she smiled, with an effort, and shrugged the matter lightly off
+her shoulders, "some mistake about a very trifling matter. It annoyed me
+for a second, that is all."
+
+For a moment or two neither spoke. Alice was watching the flight of a
+butterfly that soared in the air until almost out of sight and then came
+back to drift about a group of tall, white yuccas.
+
+"Hayward, do you still love me as much as you did ten minutes ago?" She
+smiled charmingly at him, that very, very especial smile of hers, and
+he, with his rather slow perceptions quickened by love, read
+capitulation and a real affection in her softened eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "Hayward, do you love me?"]
+
+"Alice!" And the depth and fervor of his love will be appreciated when
+it is recorded that he, Hayward Preston, the most conventional of men,
+deliberately tilted her rose-lined parasol and in the face of the world
+and before the very eyes of an advancing couple, kissed her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+PLAYING THE GAME
+
+
+It was only a day or two after her arrival in New York that Fuschia
+Fleming, who had been rehearsing the greater part of the night, opened
+her sleepy eyes in the hotel chamber to find her maid bending above her
+with a visiting card in one hand and a perplexed expression upon her
+face.
+
+"I hated to waken you, Miss Fuschia," she said, "but when I saw the
+name--"
+
+"What is the name?" Fuschia's voice was drowsily indifferent.
+
+"Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth."
+
+"_Mrs._ Cresswell Hepworth!" Both indifference and sleepiness were
+things of the past. Miss Fleming sat up in bed with a spring. "She's in
+the parlor, isn't she? Here, Martha Mary, hustle about. Get me out my
+gold-colored kimono with the silver wistaria on it, and some yellow
+stockings and slippers. Tell her I regret having to keep her waiting,
+late at rehearsal last night. You know the proper thing. Now, go ahead
+and do your prettiest and then dance back here and help me get into
+things."
+
+"Certainly no time wasted," reflected the actress standing before her
+mirror, winding her long ash blonde hair round and round her head. "I
+dare say it's a case of 'Gur-rl, what have you done with me husband?'
+There is only one reply to that. I shall draw myself up haughtily and
+say, 'Pardon, Madame, it was you who first carelessly mislaid him, not
+I.' Where the deuce are my hair-pins? She'd never come to my apartments
+with a cat-o'-nine-tails under her golf cape, or a bottle of acid in her
+shopping bag. Sure-ly not. They always choose the foyer of the theater
+for such stunts. Oh, Martha Mary," as that person whom Jim Fleming had
+once designated as a "vinegar-faced-Sue" returned to the bedchamber. "I
+can find nothing. Everything has crawled under the bed or the bureau.
+How is the lady dressed for the part? Handsome, dark garments, rich,
+dark furs, black veil over face, handkerchief handy?"
+
+"The lady is wearing rose-colored cloth and chinchilla," replied Martha
+Mary literally.
+
+"Rose color and chinchilla. That is a note out, positively frivolous.
+Oh, dear me! I am only half put together. You get more worthless every
+day, Martha Mary. Put on all my moonstone rings, for luck. They may save
+my life."
+
+When Fuschia entered her temporary drawing-room, Perdita Hepworth was
+standing with her back to her, gazing from the window out upon the bleak
+wind-swept streets. March was departing with lion-like roars and buffets
+and striving bravely but vainly to obscure his ugly countenance in
+clouds of dust. Hearing a slight sound, she turned and saw advancing
+down the pleasantly warmed, flower-scented room, a young woman whom she
+instantly likened to a pale but radiant ray of spring sunshine.
+
+This sunshine, yellow kimono, pale yellow hair, a cheek like the heart
+of a tea-rose, gold-colored silk stockings and slippers, paused between
+a jar of white lilacs and a basket of hyacinths. The lion-like roars
+without seemed suddenly all hollow pretense. Spring had come to New
+York and involuntarily Perdita smiled in greeting.
+
+"Miss Fleming, please forgive this unseemly early call; but you see it
+is important, this matter I wish to see you about." Perdita thus opened
+the conversation.
+
+"She can chew up the scenery about me husband all she wishes," said
+Fuschia to herself, "if she just lets me look at her. Her pictures give
+no idea of her. She's red roses and music and emotion. She's poetry and
+romance. My Lord!"
+
+In spite of Perdita's brave attempt, conversation languished. She
+appeared to be weighing some matter which lay on her mind. At last she
+looked up with a slightly ironical smile. "You will think I have come on
+some affair of state, Miss Fleming, the way I am hesitating--"
+
+Fuschia here made a violent mental protest. "Now don't you begin by
+telling me that I broke up your home, because I didn't. You broke it
+yourself."
+
+Mrs. Hepworth made an impatient gesture as if at her own unusual lack of
+adequate expression.
+
+"Do you play cards at all?" she asked, "bridge or--"
+
+Fuschia could not suppress one stare of surprise. "Play bridge!" she
+murmured, wondering what that had to do with the matter. "No, I have no
+card sense. Strange, too, for papa has a lot."
+
+"The reason I asked was this," in rather diffident explanation; "I was
+wondering if you could appreciate what it means to make an unexpected
+play which takes several tricks--to play trumps in such a way as to make
+the other players gasp with surprise, to--"
+
+"Oh, I know what you mean," said Fuschia comprehendingly, a light
+dawning in her puzzled eyes. "You are talking about playing the game.
+Why, of course, I understand. That's all there is; that's what I'm on
+this dizzy old planet for."
+
+But although a basis of mutual agreement and understanding was thus
+established, Dita seemed still to struggle with an unwonted
+embarrassment.
+
+It was not, however, within Fuschia to prolong a situation of this kind.
+She bent forward, her elbows on her knees, her fingers covered with
+moonstone rings clasped lightly in front of her, her eyes full of a
+thousand twinkles and the upturned corners of her mouth curving almost
+to her eyes.
+
+"Let's get down to cases, Mrs. Hepworth, man to man. Is it a go?"
+
+Perdita drew a breath of relief and smiled back. She certainly was not
+one of the few, the very few, who could resist the twinkles in Fuschia's
+eyes.
+
+"It's a go," she answered; "then man to man, it is this way. You have
+made it easy, you see, for me to say the things I wanted to, although I
+did not know in what feminine phrases I might have to clothe them. But
+you and I are, at present, very much in the public eye. Now every one is
+waiting to see what our attitude toward each other will be. It is
+assumed openly by the newspapers, as you probably know, that there is a
+sort of woman's war on between us. Now, Miss Fleming, I want--"
+
+"Your husband," supplemented Fuschia mentally. "Well, I haven't got him;
+never did have him; don't want him."
+
+"--to design your stage costumes and to have it so announced," concluded
+Perdita.
+
+Then she saw a remarkable change come over the dainty, thistledown Miss
+Fleming. Her mouth became an almost straight line, the gleam in her eyes
+was almost uncannily shrewd. She gave Perdita's words a concentrated
+consideration for a few moments and then nodded two or three times,
+brief, quick, clean-cut little nods.
+
+"Great!" she said succinctly. Then her mouth curled again, the twinkles,
+like splintered diamonds, came back to her eyes. She flew across the
+room and threw her arms about Perdita, enveloping her in a momentary and
+rose-scented embrace. Her enthusiasm was unrestrained. "The
+advertisement is above rubies," she cried. "No wonder you are such a
+success."
+
+"Oh, that is no credit to me," replied Dita carelessly. "I have a sort
+of sixth sense about clothes, you know. It is my one gift. I know the
+moment I put eyes on any one exactly how she, it is always she, of
+course, ought to look. I see colors when I look at people. Women often
+say to me, 'Oh, I can not wear this or that color,' when it is just the
+one thing they should wear, it is their mental correspondence."
+
+"And how are you going to dress me?" asked Fuschia with intense
+interest.
+
+"Principally in gold and silver," Dita answered without hesitation. "You
+have on the right thing now. Most designers would put you in black,
+because you are so very fair. They would try to make you striking by
+force of contrast, but not I. You see very few women of your coloring
+could stand the dazzle of gold and silver. It would completely eclipse
+them; but you are mentally dazzling. Your personality is strong enough
+to reduce anything you wear to its proper place. One must take all those
+things into account in designing, you know. Now you are quicksilver,
+sunlight, glimmer of day on speeding waters, and we must accentuate that
+fact; not ignore it and slur it over."
+
+"It sounds fascinating," said Fuschia. "How sweet of you to do this for
+me."
+
+"For myself, you mean." Perdita rose. "You'll do, my dear. You're new,
+you're different. New York will be yours whether you can act or not."
+
+A flame went over Fuschia's face and seemed to pass as swiftly as it had
+come; but instead, it remained, focused in her eyes.
+
+"I can act," she said briefly, "and, look here, New York may accept me
+on the magnificent advertising I've had and will continue to have; or
+New York may accept me on the strength of my wonderful gowns designed by
+Perdita Hepworth. That's all right, that's as it should be. But I'm
+going to make New York forget my press notices, and your gowns and
+Fuschia Fleming, and I'm going to make it sit tight and still in its
+boxes and orchestra chairs and balcony seats and laugh and cry with the
+heroine on the stage who shall be the realest thing on earth to them for
+the time. That's the game for me, Mrs. Hepworth. That's all the game I
+care a hang about."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Maudie," said Perdita to Miss Carmine, an hour or two later, "I have
+just secured a new commission, a big one."
+
+"What?" asked Maud with interest.
+
+"Hepworth and Carmine are to design the costumes that Miss Fuschia
+Fleming will wear in the repertoire of society dramas in which she will
+appear after two weeks of Shakespearean roles. Paula Tangueray, Mrs.
+Dane, you know the lot of them."
+
+"Perdita! The cheek of her. To make such a request under the
+circumstances."
+
+"Maudie! The cheek of _me_," mocked Dita softly.
+
+"You!" astonishment was beyond all bounds now. "You!"
+
+"Yes. Did you fancy--" there were those deep vibrations in Dita's voice
+which always bespoke some strong emotion, "that I was going to endure
+the spectacle of Miss Fleming triumphant 'in our midst,' and every one
+watching to see how I would take it, and predicting that only one course
+remained open for me and that was with dignity to ignore the incident?
+Not so. The world will see, and this, amusingly enough, happens to be a
+fact, that Miss Fleming and Mrs. Hepworth are excellent friends, that
+Mrs. Hepworth is one of Miss Fleming's warmest admirers, and that she,
+still speaking of myself, has assisted in Miss Fleming's unparalleled
+success in New York by designing for her some of the most wonderful
+costumes ever seen on the stage."
+
+"Unparalleled success!" scoffed Maud. "It is rather early to predict
+that. New York is like a cat. You never know which way it will jump."
+
+"It will jump Fuschia Fleming's way," replied Dita confidently. "You
+haven't met her."
+
+"Is she so beautiful then? As beautiful as you?"
+
+"Oh, no," Perdita was smoothing out her gloves on her knee. She shook
+her head decidedly. "Nothing like. She isn't beautiful at all. She's
+just a slender creature with rather colorless _blonde cendre_ hair and
+blue eyes."
+
+"Oh," Maud was plainly puzzled. "Then what do you mean?"
+
+But Perdita only smiled. "Have you and Wallace made up yet?" she asked
+with what appeared to the other woman striking irrelevance.
+"Impertinent, I know; but there's a reason?"
+
+"No-o-o," said Maud reluctantly and evidently wondering if Dita had
+suddenly lost her mind.
+
+"Then do so at once," advised her business associate. "Do so before he
+meets Fuschia Fleming."
+
+"From what you say." Miss Carmine's chin was high and haughty. "I see no
+cause for alarm."
+
+"No?" Perdita tapped the table with her finger-tips, still inscrutably
+smiling.
+
+Maud rarely permitted herself to become angry, but she did so now. She
+had never imagined that Perdita could be so aggravating. "Just because
+Cresswell lost his head about her, you think--" she flashed out.
+
+"He didn't," cried Perdita not with bravado, but with a confidence which
+Maud realized with surprise was genuine. "I hadn't been with her three
+minutes before I knew that. But take my advice," again her voice fell to
+that teasing note. "If you really love Wallace make up your differences
+with him to-day, to-day, before he, a playwright, meets the actress.
+Then get a new steel chain, one that he can't chew through, and fasten
+it securely to his collar."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HE CALLS ON HIS WIFE
+
+
+Early in April Hepworth returned to New York. It was a gentle, smiling
+April, inclining more to laughter than to tears and striving to
+obliterate the memories of March. He arrived one evening and wasted no
+time in communicating with Perdita. The next day in fact was marked by
+the passage of notes between them, severely businesslike, and yet models
+of courtesy.
+
+The result of these diplomatic negotiations was that Mr. Cresswell
+Hepworth, at a suitable hour the following morning, wended his way to
+his wife's business establishment.
+
+It was a deliciously balmy morning, the rare sort of a day that slips in
+now and then between April showers and sets one dreaming of the glory of
+the spring in the silent woody places. The great, roaring canyons of
+brick and stone floated in a silvery, sparkling mist, and in that
+atmospheric alembic dreary perspectives assumed an unsubstantial and
+fairy-like beauty. The little leaves on the trees fluttered in the soft
+breeze and were so young, so green, so gay that they lifted the heart
+like tiny wings of joy.
+
+In spite of himself there was the hint of a smile about the corners of
+Hepworth's mouth and this deepened and deepened until as he rang the
+bell of his wife's door, he suddenly became conscious of it, and
+carefully suppressed it.
+
+The sphinx, past mistress of inscrutability of expression, would have
+paid him the tribute of a flicker of admiration as he entered the
+reception-room. It was without a suggestion of curiosity or even
+interest in his eyes that he glanced absently about him; perhaps the
+long droop of the lids at the corners, which appeared to accentuate his
+rather weary and listless gaze, was more marked than usual, but this was
+always so when he was making mental notes and registering his
+observations with the rapidity and accuracy of a ticker.
+
+He awaited Perdita in her reception-room, that charming apartment, and
+here, in view of certain events which occurred later, it would be well
+to give the plan of the first floor.
+
+This room opened from the hall and ran the length of the house with
+windows at the front looking out upon the street while those in the rear
+opened upon a strip of garden. There was another door at the lower end
+of the room, which, with the long room, formed an ell, and terminated
+the hall.
+
+Dita kept Hepworth waiting a bare moment. Her approach was unkindly
+noiseless, but nevertheless he heard her, and was on his feet, his eyes
+meeting hers full as she appeared in the doorway. The conventional
+banalities of greeting were gone through with ease on his part, grace on
+hers.
+
+Merciful banalities! They gave him time to consider the change in her, a
+change which was to him sufficiently striking almost to have trapped him
+into an expressed surprise, and this change was so subtle that he
+wondered that it should yet be so apparent. It was not a matter of
+outward appearance, that remained the same in effect. It was a mental
+change so animating and vital that Cresswell felt all former estimates
+of her crumble. Had she always been so, and had he never really seen her
+until now? Had time and absence in some way cleared his obscured vision?
+He felt a momentary sense of confusion, a brief mental giddiness, and
+then he pulled himself together. The first impression was the correct
+one. She had changed, and thereby had gained, gained tremendously in
+poise.
+
+But there was no time now in which to analyze impressions.
+
+"So this is the magic parlor where all the ugly women are transformed
+into beauties." He looked about him as if he had not thought to glance
+at her surroundings before. "The presence of mere man here seems rather
+profane, do you not think so? Ah, well, my stay is brief. You have
+proved, haven't you, that it is not an impossibility after all, to paint
+the lily and gild refined gold?"
+
+"So few women have any taste," she said carelessly. "And oh, their
+houses! You should see them when I go over their hideous houses like a
+devouring flame and ruthlessly order out all their dreadful junk. And
+the most awful objects are always the most precious in their eyes. I
+feel so sorry for them. I have always a guilty sense of being a naughty
+boy robbing a bird's nest, and the poor mother birds stand around and
+flap their wings and hop and shriek. It's very mournful, but they
+needn't have me if they don't want me."
+
+He laughed. "And Maud? Is she, too, well and happy?"
+
+Dita lifted her hands and eyes. "That is a very tame way of describing
+her. Her gowns are dreams this spring, she is considered almost a
+beauty; people, you see, are gradually forgetting that she was ever
+'that plain Maud Carmine who plays nicely,' and Wallace Martin and
+herself are engaged to be married." A faint, amused smile crept around
+her mouth at this announcement.
+
+Hepworth looked up with sudden interest. "Indeed! Well, that might have
+been expected, I dare say, but will it not rather seriously interfere
+with the business?"
+
+"No," she shook her head. "No, I think not, Maud has no intention of
+quitting. Wallace's plays are more or less problematical and Maud has
+invested a good deal of her money in this. It is really paying
+remarkably well, you know."
+
+"Dita," his voice was low, and he could not conceal the chagrin, the
+touch of pain in it. "Why have you never touched a cent of your own
+money, since my departure? I only learned a few days ago that you had
+not. I can not begin to tell you how it made me feel. It not only
+distressed but deeply wounded me."
+
+She twisted a little in her chair. "It--it has never been necessary,"
+she said. "We began to make money at once. Really, Cresswell, Maud and I
+have prospered beyond our wildest dreams."
+
+"But suppose you had not. Is your prosperity the only reason you have
+not touched it? Would you have done so under any circumstances? That is
+what I have been asking myself for the past week, and am now asking
+you."
+
+She flushed uncertainly. "Ah," she said. "I can not answer you that. I
+can not tell. One never knows what one will do when the pinch comes."
+
+He smiled faintly. "I'll not put any more embarrassing questions to you,
+but confine myself to perfectly safe topics. You are looking very
+well."
+
+"I am well."
+
+"And happy? But there, that is hardly a safe topic, is it?"
+
+A sudden light came into her eyes, making them warm and softly bright.
+She smiled at him with a fresh, almost childlike enthusiasm. "Yes, I'm
+happy," she said, "happier than I've ever been in all my life. Why,
+Cresswell, it's been fun, fun. There's been lots of work, and lots of
+planning, but nevertheless, I've never enjoyed anything so much in my
+life. Often I go to bed at night tired out, but it's always with a
+comforting sense of satisfaction. It's all so varied and interesting,
+you know, but it isn't that that makes me happy." She clasped her hands
+and looked up at him with an unconscious appeal for sympathy and
+understanding in her eyes. "It's better than that, better than anything
+else. It's meant success, think of it, success. Not a horrid, little
+picayune one either, but a nice, big one."
+
+He leaned forward and looked at her curiously as if he really saw her
+for the first time.
+
+"Why, Dita," he exclaimed, "has it meant so much to you as that?"
+
+"Indeed, yes." There was ardor, fervor in her answering exclamation. "I
+can not tell you how much. I believe I was really morbid on the subject.
+I believed in failure as a real atmosphere always encompassing me. I had
+all manner of superstitions, beliefs about it. I believed that with all
+my strength and youth and energy, I was yet doomed by fate to a tomb of
+inaction. I seemed so futile, so ineffective. With a restless, active
+brain I accomplished nothing. You see that was such a dreadful
+experience, my attempt to earn my living before I married you, and I was
+so ignorant and inexperienced of every condition of life in which I
+found myself, that it prevented me from striking out boldly, from
+believing in myself. So I made the fatal mistake of beginning small, and
+began to paint all those wretched little articles, and it wasn't my
+_metier_ at all, Cresswell, really it wasn't, so, naturally, I failed.
+And," as if it had suddenly occurred to her, "I have found it so
+interesting to dress Miss Fleming. Designing her costumes has been
+fascinating."
+
+"That was a very wonderful and a very clever thing of you to do,
+Perdita." There was a tone in his voice she did not understand. She
+began to praise Fuschia and he leaned back in his chair listening. She
+could see the mere gleam of his eyes between his almost closed lids. She
+wondered if he had really heard one word she had said. In reality he was
+bestowing upon her such attention and study as he had never dreamed of
+giving her before. She felt, however, in spite of his apparent
+indifference, that he was so far in sympathy with her, that she was
+impelled in spite of herself to continue her confidences.
+
+"Do you know, Cresswell, it's a horrible thing to be considered a
+beauty. Oh, you may laugh," he could not help his mirth. "I know beauty
+is supposed to be the heart's desire of every woman; but there are many
+drawbacks. Every one, without exception, takes it for granted that you
+are a fool. Your sense is always considered in reverse ratio to your
+good looks, and then, it's such an uncertain thing. Just when you need
+it most to console you for the disappointments and disillusions of life,
+it departs, and horrid things, wrinkles and gray hairs, take its place."
+
+"Perdita! What an absurd creature you are!"
+
+"Ah, Cresswell," her tone was pensive. "You have always been successful.
+You can not imagine what failure feels like, that deadening, hopeless
+sensation." She was vehement enough now.
+
+"Can I not?" At last he lifted his drooping lids and looked straight at
+her. "My dear Dita, I can give you cards and spades on every emotion of
+failure you have ever felt. I recall one case in particular, where I
+failed so conspicuously and brilliantly, that I am overcome with
+surprise at my own stupidity every time I think of it. But as you have
+been talking that case has reverted again and again to my mind, and it
+has struck me that there is still a chance that I pursued the wrong
+tactics."
+
+She drew back wounded. He had then, as she had once or twice suspected,
+not been listening to a word she said, and how his cold face had glowed
+at the mere thought of retrieving a business blunder.
+
+Hepworth got up and began walking about the room. "And Gresham, what of
+him?" he asked presently, breaking the silence which had fallen between
+them.
+
+"He is quite well, I believe," she was furious at the conscious note
+which crept into her voice, at the scarlet which flew to her cheek, but
+one thing she had never been able to endure and that was any evidence of
+cowardice in herself. She lifted her eyes bravely to his and held them
+there. "He has been in town since January," she said. "I have seen him
+very often."
+
+"Ah, painting as brilliantly as ever, I dare say? A genius, Eugene!
+Unquestionably."
+
+Again silence fell between them, and lasted until she broke it with the
+constrained question: "Are you--are you going to be here for some time
+now?"
+
+"No, I shall have to be in London more or less during the summer, but I
+have some matters which must be attended to first. By the way," as if
+struck by a sudden thought, "what are your plans for the summer?"
+
+"I have made none. I have not even thought of such things yet. I dare
+say I shall go somewhere for a bit of a change, but," with a smile,
+"business is so very brisk."
+
+He laughed and took one or two more turns up and down the room.
+
+"Dita, do you remember that I told you once that you were a remarkably
+clever woman? Well, I merely wish to call that fact to your attention,
+and reiterate my statement. Oh, I must tell you, I have a new amulet, a
+wonder. I will tell you the history of it when you have more time. You
+have the case in your keeping have you not? And the tray with the one
+empty space?"
+
+The blood rushed to her face. "I have the case," she said coldly. "It is
+locked in my safe here. Do you wish it now?"
+
+"No," he shook his head. "Wait until I bring the amulet. May I bring it
+late Wednesday afternoon? And why not dine with me then? Say you will,
+Dita. Give the world something to talk of, something to puzzle over."
+She had never seen him so eager.
+
+She hesitated a bare second. "I will. Yes, I will be very glad to," but
+lifting her eyes to his: "Are you so sure that one of those amulet trays
+has an empty space?"
+
+"It had when I last saw it." His voice was unreadable.
+
+"But that is months ago; perhaps you will think differently when you see
+it Wednesday evening."
+
+There was a flash over his face, which vanished as quickly as it had
+appeared. He drew nearer to her as if about to speak, then apparently
+reconsidered the intention. "I really must not keep you longer," he
+picked up his hat. "Of course, there are a number of matters to be
+discussed, but they can wait. We will reserve them for Wednesday
+evening. Good-by." He held out his hand. She placed hers in it.
+
+"Good-by," she returned.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE MAGIC WORD
+
+
+"Maud," said Dita, walking in upon that young woman, a package of
+letters in her hand, "a lot of things are happening. Here is a letter,
+among other things, from Mrs. Wilstead. She says that she is just back
+from California, and that she needs stacks and stacks of new clothes,
+and wants our designs. It will be fun dressing her. She is so extremely
+good looking."
+
+Maud stirred restlessly, frowned, bit her lip, but did not speak.
+
+"Just back from California," went on Dita. "I wonder--I wonder, Maud, if
+she could possibly have come on with Cresswell?"
+
+"Very probably," said Maud. "In fact, I think nothing could be more
+likely."
+
+"Why, what do you mean by speaking so mysteriously?" Dita widened her
+eyes. "Suppose they had? Nothing, after all, could be more natural."
+
+"Nothing, I suppose." Maud was trying hard to be non-committal. "But let
+her go to some one else. If we take any more people, we shan't get away
+this summer. We have more on our hands now than we can manage. Yes, let
+her go to some one else."
+
+"But, Maud," Dita hesitated, "I really think we should refuse some one
+else and take her. She is an old friend."
+
+"Old fiddlesticks!" cried Maud impatiently.
+
+"Maud! What is the matter with you? A touch of spring fever? Really, I
+think we must consider her."
+
+"But if I ask you not, Dita"--there were almost tears in Maud's voice.
+
+"But why should you ask me not? This is too bewildering."
+
+"Ah, well," Maud spoke now with the calmness of despair, "since you
+force me to tell you, I ask you not because Mrs. Wilstead has been
+constantly with Mr. Hepworth in the West this winter, and the current
+gossip is that he is only waiting for a divorce to be arranged between
+you and himself, to marry her."
+
+There was silence for a moment on Dita's part. Her eyes were downcast,
+mechanically she sorted the letters in her hand. "Then what of the talk
+about Fuschia Fleming and himself?"
+
+"Oh, they say that she took a back seat when Alice Wilstead appeared on
+the scene. But really, Dita, this move on Alice's part makes me furious.
+The idea of her being guilty of such wretchedly bad taste. I have always
+liked her, been really fond of her, in fact, but this crass exhibition
+of bad breeding disgusts me. I dare say that she doesn't care so long as
+she gets results; that is, the benefit of your taste and skill to
+enhance her waning beauty; but look at the position it is going to place
+you in, Dita. For number one to design the trousseau for number two is
+really too absurd. It simply goes beyond all belief. Dita, you must,
+indeed you must, write her the curtest, coldest of polite notes and tell
+her that we are entirely too busy to consider her."
+
+"Very well. I'll humor you so far," returned Perdita. "What is it?"
+turning to a maid who entered with a visiting card. "Ah, Eugene! I asked
+him to come this morning. I particularly wanted to see him and I don't
+want you present. There, don't get that stony look of despair on your
+face, Maudie; think how good I have been all winter, only seeing Eugene
+once in a blue moon, and then in your company."
+
+"But I want you to keep on being good," pleaded Maud; "especially now."
+
+"I am gooder than you can possibly imagine," laughed Perdita, "but, all
+the same, I do not wish you tagging about this morning." She smiled
+teasingly at her puzzled business partner as she left the room.
+
+She went down to meet Eugene in the same room at the same hour she had
+talked with her husband the day before.
+
+But Eugene was not one to endure for one moment a situation dominated by
+the shadowy third person. No woman should gaze at him with the
+remembrance of yesterday in her eyes, the smile of wistful reminiscence
+on her lips. An hour with him must be a dazzling and kaleidoscopic
+episode. He would hold it in his hand, and at the bidding of his will,
+the moments, like bits of colored glass, should revolve and melt and
+mingle--rainbow arabesques on the background of Time.
+
+"Your meditations, remembrances and regrets for your oratories, my
+dear," his challenging eyes seemed to say, "but with me you live, you
+laugh, you thrill responsive to the harp of life; the yesterdays
+forgotten, the to-morrows unborn."
+
+"Dita!" he caught her hands in his as she entered. His eyes were
+shining, his head thrown back. He was more vivid than the spring
+sunshine which fell through the open windows.
+
+"Eugene! You look as if you had just received some wonderful new
+commission."
+
+"So I have, a commission to love you. That is right, blush. Dita, why do
+you not always wear rose color? But no, don't listen to me. If it were
+blue or green, I would be making the same request. Dearest, my eyes
+drink in, drink up your loveliness. You never, never were so beautiful
+as you are this morning."
+
+"Eugene, you are mad; too foolish for anything. What is the matter with
+you?"
+
+"Mad doesn't half express it. May I smoke?" He took her consent for
+granted, for he was already rolling cigarettes in his deft, supple
+fingers. "Yes? No? I am delirious with joy. Hepworth is back as, of
+course, you know. That can only mean one thing; every one says that just
+as soon as a divorce can be decently arranged, he and Alice Wilstead
+will be married. The verdict of the world is that he was so angry at
+your going into business that he flung off to the West. It was the most
+spectacular of your many caprices and it proved the last straw for him.
+Blessed last straw!" lifting his eyes devoutly. "And then Alice Wilstead
+cleverly appeared on the scene and the consoling offices of friendship
+did the trick."
+
+"Three months ago it was Fuschia Fleming, according to gossip." Her eyes
+were downcast, her tone expressionless.
+
+"Oh, that," he blew rings of smoke lightly through the air and followed
+them with gay eyes; "that is a part of the game. That was making
+evidence for you. It is all arranged that I am to paint her portrait,
+you know. I have not met her yet, either." He threw his cigarette
+through the window. "Dita, Dita, how can you sit there so cool and
+still? When I think that you are actually on the very eve of freedom, I
+become delirious with joy."
+
+"So sure of the winning, Eugene?"
+
+"Dita!" His face clouded, there was a world of reproach in his voice.
+"That is a terrible trait in your character, that teasing desire of
+yours always to fling a little dash of cold water on one's mounting
+enthusiasms."
+
+"There is another dash coming," she laughed. "I want my amulet, and I
+want it at once, to-day. I know," anticipating his protestations, "that
+you returned it to me the afternoon Hepworth left for the West, and I
+would not see you to receive it in person. Then, my mind was so
+perturbed and occupied that I didn't think of it again before you
+sailed, and since your return," a little smile creeping about her mouth,
+"I haven't thought about it either; but now that the matter has come up
+between us, please see that I have it to-day, Eugene."
+
+He had looked slightly annoyed while she was speaking, but now he bent
+toward her with his most charming manner, his most winning smile. "You
+know my greatest weakness, Dita? I try to overcome it, really I do," in
+laughing excuse, "but in spite of will or reason those superstitions of
+mine persist. Alas! They do." He admitted it as a naughty little boy
+might admit a passion for stealing jam. "And I have tremendous faith in
+that old charm of yours." He picked up another cigarette from his
+skilfully rolled little heap, placed as orderly on the table beside him
+as if they were his paint brushes.
+
+"Ever since I have had it," he went on, "the luck of the high gods has
+been mine. Princessin, Contessin and high Altessin still clamoring to
+have their portraits painted. The critics amiable and almost
+intelligent, money pouring into my coffers and pouring out faster than
+it comes in--I wish there were such a thing as a money-tight purse--and
+best of all, ah, best of all, the love of my heart so near, so near."
+His eyes held the warm glow which changed, irradiated them. "The star of
+my life comes slipping, wavering through the spaces of the sky and down
+the purple pathways of heaven to my arms." He leaned forward quickly
+and almost enfolded her.
+
+"Eugene!" She stood haughty and tall before him. "You assume entirely
+too much. You have from the beginning. More, much more, than I have ever
+given you any reason to assume. According to the tradition the amulet
+can only bring one luck when it is given with the heart's love; and I
+never gave it to you, Eugene, never. You laughingly filched it one day
+when I took it off the chain about my neck, that you might look at it
+more closely. And you are so sure, so sure of me, when I am anything but
+sure of myself. I have never deceived you as to the state of my
+feelings. How would that have been possible when I am still so doubtful
+myself? Ah, those doubts!"
+
+"They are nothing, dearest, nothing. I shall brush them away as I brush
+cobwebs." He put his hands upon her shoulders and stood gazing deeply
+into her eyes.
+
+"Ah," she shook her head, and, at the same time, stepped away from him,
+"I am no more sure that I love you than I was six months ago."
+
+"Never any more sure?" His voice deep and rich as a low-toned bell.
+
+Her black eyelashes lay long on her cheek, where the crimson, the hue of
+a jacqueminot rose petal, was spreading. "There are moments," she
+admitted, "times when I am with you that I believe that the magic word
+has been spoken and that my heart has blossomed in purple and red, that
+I truly love you, but," she shook her head sighingly, "the moment I am
+away from you, I know that that is not so; that you haven't said the
+magic word yet, 'Gene."
+
+"But I know it, that magic word," he whispered, "and I shall awake you,
+just as the Prince did the Sleeping Beauty. Not with a word at all,
+dear, but with a kiss." He bent forward, but she had slipped away from
+him, and before he knew it had put almost the length of the room between
+them.
+
+"You--you must not talk so to me now, 'Gene," the words were barely
+breathed, "and," with a desperate clutch at a safe topic, "my amulet. I
+must have it by to-morrow morning."
+
+There was a flash like fire in Gresham's eyes. A quick scowling change
+darkened his whole face. He picked up the five or six beautifully
+rolled cigarettes which yet remained of his neat heap and tossed them
+out of the window.
+
+"I see it," he cried harshly. "You probably have Hepworth's box of
+amulets in your keeping. You wish to return it to him, and show him when
+you do so that your old charm is safe in its place. Oh, I can see the
+whole scene. He will courteously hand it to you and say, 'Your property,
+I believe, my dear Perdita.' I can hear his frigid, formal utterance.
+And you will accept it with that grand, ancestral manner of yours,
+murmuring, 'Thank you, yes, I regret that I can not ask you to accept it
+as a small contribution to your collection, but that being out of the
+question on account of certain traditions which adhere to it, I feel
+that I must continue to hold it in my possession.' Why not be honest,
+Dita, and tell him that you have given it to me?"
+
+"Eugene, you are impossible. You go entirely too far." There was no
+mistaking the displeasure in her voice, and his immediate recognition
+that it was cold, not hot anger, brought him to himself at once.
+
+"Flower of magnolia!" his voice fell to all those exquisite and
+heart-touching modulations of which he was master. "I was only teasing.
+Forgive me. You shall have your bit of glass early to-morrow morning.
+And until I see you again I shall dream only of the wonderful, beautiful
+years we shall have together. We shall wander about the world, here,
+there and everywhere, and I shall paint the glory and color of the
+universe and you, always you, Perdita, the focus, the center, the heart
+of all beauty."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS
+
+
+Dita had barely finished her breakfast the next morning when the message
+was brought to her that a lady who refused to give her name but insisted
+on seeing her at once upon important business awaited her in the
+reception-room.
+
+Dita hesitated a moment, debating whether or not to rebuke the maid, who
+must have yielded to the lure of gold so readily to forget her orders,
+and send back a peremptory request for the lady's name and her business,
+or whether to yield to her natural and feminine curiosity and grant an
+interview to this visitor who appeared so desirous of maintaining an
+incognito.
+
+This brief hesitation proved a loss, however, to the waiting lady, whose
+method of being announced showed that she hoped to take Perdita by
+surprise, for Maud Carmine entered at the moment and with some show of
+indignation in both voice and expression informed Dita that Mrs.
+Wilstead was the person guilty of strategic entrance.
+
+"Such impertinence!" breathed Maud. "Scrawl a note in pencil, Dita, to
+the effect that it will be impossible for Mrs. Hepworth to see Mrs.
+Wilstead. That will show her that her ruse and her bribes have been
+quite unsuccessful."
+
+In her ardor for Mrs. Wilstead's demolition Maud had forgotten that the
+last thing Dita could endure was dictation. Now, no sooner had the words
+of admonition left her lips than, to her chagrin, she saw Dita's chin
+lifted, Dita's nostrils quiver, Dita's shoulders flung back ever so
+slightly.
+
+"I think I shall see her." Mrs. Hepworth was on her feet, her voice
+cool, firm, pleasant, with just that little warning vibration which
+always meant danger. "You may tell Mrs. Wilstead that I will see her
+immediately." Her eyes scorched the maid, who hastened to obey, with the
+impression of an X-ray having been turned on her immaculate white waist,
+and exposing with startling vividness the crisp, green bill hastily
+thrust within.
+
+"Come, Maudie," Perdita touched her on the shoulder in passing. "Do not
+look so downcast. Why do you wish to deprive me of a little legitimate
+amusement?"
+
+Maud, strong now in tardy wisdom, said nothing, and Perdita's light,
+quick step might be heard a moment later descending the stairs.
+
+Alice Wilstead turned hastily from her contemplation of the small green
+yard without the window.
+
+"My dear Perdita!" She came forward with Dita's note of the day before
+in her hand. "I just received this in the morning's mail, and I lost no
+time in getting here, I assure you, and making the attempt to see you by
+hook or crook. I know it's outrageous of me, but I don't understand, and
+I want to understand. Why is it, my dear, that you have refused to take
+me? Surely I'm not a hopeless case." She smiled ingratiatingly, and Dita
+was bound to admit that never had she appeared more attractive. Her
+piquant face was radiant with happiness, the whole effect of her was of
+a sort of buoyant joyousness.
+
+Dita's chin was just half an inch higher than when she had left Maud,
+her smile was sweet and cold and faint, as remote as if it had been
+bestowed upon a passing acquaintance in Mars, and she remained standing.
+
+Mrs. Wilstead's mental recoil was but momentary. Her cause was good, her
+motives pure, her courage high. Above everything, she desired the
+benefits of Perdita Hepworth's genius. They were on sale, to the high
+bidders, and she did not purpose to be excluded merely because it was to
+be supposed that she would espouse the cause of her old friend,
+Cresswell Hepworth, in the event of open differences between himself and
+his wife.
+
+"I regret, Mrs. Wilstead," Dita's voice matched her smile, "that it will
+be quite impossible for us to take any one else now. The summer is
+almost upon us, you see."
+
+Mrs. Wilstead should not be blamed for not seeing. April, as wind and
+sky portended, was about to burst, not into tears, but into a snowstorm.
+Alice shivered in her furs.
+
+"Oh, but, my dear child," she begged, "do have some mercy on me. Here am
+I getting my trousseau. Oh, no wonder you start. I've always said that
+I never, never either would or could do anything so idiotic as to get
+married again, and yet here I am not only considering it, but actually
+committed to a wedding-day. And that is to be so appallingly soon. I
+tried and tried to put it off a little longer, but he is so impatient."
+
+Dita's mouth had frozen, and the haughty and incredulous gaze which she
+cast for a brief, indignant moment on Alice would have turned one less
+bubblingly gay into a pillar of salt. This interview seemed incredible.
+She had always regarded Alice Wilstead as an especially well-bred woman,
+but this greed to attain an object at the sacrifice of her self-respect,
+even decency of feeling, and regardless of the position in which she
+would place the woman with whom she pleaded, was, to Dita, shocking,
+insulting, unforgivable. While she waited the fraction of a second to
+command her voice, Alice spoke again.
+
+"But you seem angry." She was obviously both hurt and bewildered. "What
+have I done? Surely, you will not fail me now at this most crucial
+moment of my life. Why, consider, I am going to marry a man five years
+younger than myself."
+
+Dita caught at a chair, and sat down, the room seemed to whirl about
+her, she pressed her hand to her brow.
+
+"Alice Wilstead," she said, "what on earth do _you_ mean?"
+
+"I mean what I say," returned Alice with a touch of acerbity. "I am
+going to be married. What do you mean?"
+
+"But to whom, to whom?" Dita was all impatience.
+
+"To whom? Why, to Hayward Preston, of course. One of your husband's
+business associates in the West. Surely you knew that?"
+
+"I wish I had Maud by the throat," muttered Dita irrelevantly.
+
+It was twenty minutes later when Maud put her shocked and disgusted head
+within the door.
+
+"Dita," coldly surveying the two enthusiasts before her, who sat
+together in jocund amity, "Mrs. Hewston is out here in a state of great
+perturbation. Do you wish--"
+
+But she got no further, for Mrs. Hewston, in the superiority of her
+greater bulk, pushed Maud into the room before her and now stood, the
+picture of pink and white and plump tragedy, on the threshold.
+
+"Oh, Alice, I am glad to find you here," she wailed, advancing further
+into the room, while Maud discreetly closed the door, not upon herself,
+oh, no, but behind both of them. "You are always such a support." She
+sank into the chair Dita pushed toward her. "It's Willoughby, of
+course." She drew her handkerchief from her bag and mopped her eyes.
+
+"Perdita Hepworth," she abandoned her spineless attitude and sat
+upright, speaking with vehemence. "I am more ashamed of being here than
+I can ever make you understand. But Willoughby!" There was resignation
+in her uplifted eyes, acidity in the purse of her mouth. "He is the
+dearest, most lovable fellow in the world," she looked at her listeners
+suspiciously, but meeting no correction, permitted her irritation a
+natural outlet, "but he is the most obstinate, stupid mule the Lord ever
+made."
+
+"What is it now, dear?" asked Alice sympathetically.
+
+"This, and it's quite enough," returned Mrs. Hewston bitterly.
+"Cresswell Hepworth, your husband," accusingly to Dita, "and may Heaven
+forgive him, for I never can! dined with us last night and just before
+he left, Willoughby got to asking him about his plans and Cresswell was
+telling him that he was due in London before long. 'But how much longer
+will you be in New York?' asked Willoughby, and Cresswell said, with a
+queer little smile, 'I can't quite say. There are a number of things to
+be looked after, among others a duel I may have to fight.'"
+
+The women looked at each other in pale horror. Dita herself ghastly,
+half rose from her chair.
+
+"I told Willoughby," sobbed Mrs. Hewston, "that it was just one of
+Cresswell's jokes. You know that odd, dry humor he sometimes shows,
+but," despairingly, "you also know Willoughby. He tore and snorted and
+raved and routed all night long. I would rather have had a hippopotamus
+in my room. And he excoriated you, Perdita. Called her the most dreadful
+names, really," this to Alice and Maud, confidentially and quite as if
+Dita were not present. "He said that Cresswell's life was ruined
+because of the caprices of an ungodly, wanton girl. Yes, Dita, I don't
+blame you for being angry, but it was worse than that, too. You see,
+he's got the idea firmly into his head that Cresswell is going to fight
+a duel with Eugene Gresham and--"
+
+"For goodness sake, let us keep our common sense," said Mrs. Wilstead,
+laying a detaining hand on Dita's shoulder, noting that Mrs. Hepworth's
+eyes were turned longingly toward the telephone. "You know perfectly
+well, Isabel, you know, Maud, and you, also, Dita, that Cresswell
+Hepworth does not for one moment contemplate anything so crazy. Nothing
+could induce him to put either himself or you, Dita, into such a
+position. Such a thing would be entirely against his nature. He would
+regard it as farcical melodrama, turn from it even in thought with
+infinite contempt and scorn. The idea of Willoughby thinking such a
+thing. Just like him. Meddlesome idiot. Ah, I don't care, Isabel, you
+know he is one. I wish I had him here now."
+
+"He's out there in the motor," wept his wife. "He was afraid I wouldn't
+come and tell Perdita unless he came with me. But, Alice, you shan't
+speak of him so, he's the best--"
+
+"He's still there," interrupted Maud, who had gone to peer from the
+window at Mrs. Hewston's announcement that this watch-dog of Dita's
+morals waited without, "with his head out of the window looking up at
+the house. And, oh, Heavens!" falling back against the lintel, "here is
+Eugene Gresham coming up the steps, and Mr. Hewston is glaring at him
+until his eyes are standing out of his head. He is purple in the face.
+Now he is speaking to the chauffeur. Why, they are off, gone like the
+wind."
+
+Mrs. Hewston fell back limply in her chair. She seemed incapable of
+speech for a moment. "Alice," she said at last, in awe-stricken tones,
+"he has gone to tell Cress that Eugene Gresham is here."
+
+"Well, what of it?" snapped Mrs. Wilstead. "Cresswell will only laugh at
+him and smooth him down. You know that."
+
+"I hope so," breathed Mrs. Hewston. "He seems to amuse Cresswell. Fancy.
+But then," more understandingly, "he doesn't have to live with him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+HEPWORTH MISUNDERSTANDS
+
+
+Dita's fears calmed by Mrs. Wilstead's essentially common-sense point of
+view, her confidence was further restored by Eugene's evident ignorance
+of any plots and plans on Mr. Cresswell Hepworth's part of bringing this
+triangular situation, involving himself, his wife and the other man, to
+a fiction-hallowed and moss-grown conclusion.
+
+It was therefore without particular apprehension, at any rate
+apprehensions of the kind nourished by Mr. Hewston, that she dressed for
+the dinner _en tete-a-tete_ with her husband. It was rather with a sense
+of mounting interest, even excitement.
+
+She wavered in her choice of a gown, scanning with hypercritical eye a
+dozen or more. White savored of a school-girl simplicity and disarmed
+her if she chose to be subtle. Blue was unbecoming; sufficient taboo.
+"Green's forsaken and yellow's forsworn," she murmured ruefully. Black
+remained, thin, soft-falling gauze, distinguished, distinctive,
+exquisite in design and effect; above its shadow rose her neck of cream,
+her hair was the dusk shadow of copper, her eyes were darkly brilliant.
+
+She hesitated at jewels. He had given her so many. Which would go best
+with her gown? Then she turned away from even the mental contemplation
+of them with a feeling of distaste. She could not, even to please him,
+wear his jewels when he and she were almost strangers, when but the
+details of their final parting remained to be settled. And yet would it
+not look a bit odd to appear without any ornaments whatever?
+
+She considered the matter a moment, and then smiling a little, she
+opened the box which Gresham had given into her hands that morning, and
+which lay upon her dressing-table.
+
+She turned over this old trinket in her hand, and gazed at it, forgetful
+of the passing time. How impressive Eugene had been when he had returned
+it to her!
+
+[Illustration: She gazed at the old trinket.]
+
+"I am only lending it to you, remember that, for you will give it to me
+with your heart's love, Dita, and soon."
+
+She was roused from her reverie by the sound of a motor stopping
+without. Her maid waited to place a black and gold wrap about her
+shoulders. "One moment," said Dita. Quickly she slipped the amulet on a
+thin, old-fashioned gold chain and fastened it about her throat. Then
+she went downstairs to greet her husband.
+
+Commonplaces of the most conventional and banal order they talked.
+Nothing else on the drive to the restaurant, nothing else on first
+taking their seats at the table on one side of the great garish room.
+There were many curious eyes on them, necks craned, the incredulous
+whisper ran:
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell Hepworth actually together! What does it mean!"
+
+The stereotyped babbling went on intermittently, until dinner had been
+ordered and the earlier courses come and gone, and then Dita suddenly
+awoke to the fact that her husband had taken the conversation into his
+own hands and was actually talking to her. Oh, of course, he had often
+talked to her before, arranged new amusements for her, discussed what
+jewels she would like, what plays she would care to see, what people
+interested her most, what journey she would enjoy.
+
+But now, she almost caught her breath at the surprise of it, he was
+talking to her as if she were a man, or at least an intelligent human
+being and not just merely--a pretty woman.
+
+He was talking straight ahead, discussing business matters, several
+interesting problems which had come up in his affairs during his recent
+western sojourn. He did not pause to explain anything to her, quite took
+it for granted that she would understand. He did not apparently stop to
+consider whether she was interested or amused, and that pleased her
+enormously. She began to ask questions, and he answered them fully, even
+pondering some of them carefully before replying. One he considered for
+a moment or so and then said: "Do you know, I had not thought of that
+before, that puts a new phase upon the whole situation." Her strand of
+rubies had never given Dita such a glow of pride and pleasure.
+
+"Ah, why have you never talked to me like this before?" she asked
+naively. "Think of all the stupid dinners we've eaten together when you
+treated me like a tiresome little girl who had to be continually amused,
+and I was one, too; as tongue-tied and missish as anything, because you
+took it for granted that I was."
+
+"No one could accuse you of being either tongue-tied or missish
+to-night. You are quite matronly in that black gown."
+
+"Oh, I love to hear about the big things that go on," she said
+enthusiastically, if irrelevantly, "but men will never talk to me about
+them. All my life, whenever I'd try really to talk sense to a man, he'd
+say, 'What wonderful eyes you have,' showing that he hadn't heard one
+word I'd been saying. They always seem to think that I expect them to
+tell me how lovely I am. It's the curse of the pretty woman."
+
+"Oh, well, console yourself," he said carelessly. "There are prettier
+women in the world than you, quantities of them!"
+
+"I--I--suppose so." Dita had rarely been so taken aback. She looked at
+him a moment like some insulted queen. His eyes, however, were
+discreetly downcast. "Oh, of course," she said as quickly as she could
+recover her breath, "of course," her laugh was forced and rang hollowly.
+
+"Oh, yes, don't let your beauty get on your nerves. The world is full of
+beautiful women. My new amulet--I told you that I had a new one, did I
+not?--was given me by one of the most beautiful women I ever saw. I have
+her picture somewhere. I must show it to you."
+
+Mr. Cresswell Hepworth was entirely without design in his choice of
+topics. He had spoken of some of his great western enterprises because
+his mind had been more or less occupied with them during the day, and
+had been so surprised and pleased that these subjects had gained his
+wife's interests that he had continued the discussion of them. Again, in
+his seeming disparagement of her beauty, he had merely thought to
+console her for what she regarded as the constant belittling of her
+mental endowment, evidently a sore spot in her consciousness.
+
+Dita played with her fork a moment without answering his last remark.
+She had no right to feel either resentment or irritation. Her sense of
+justice assured her of that, but she suffered a twinge of both emotions,
+nevertheless.
+
+"Wallace Martin tells me that good old Hewston made an awful scene when
+those distorted pictures of Fuschia Fleming and myself appeared in the
+paper." Hepworth laughed more heartily than usual.
+
+"Oh, do not mention that unspeakable old creature!" she cried
+petulantly. "Tell me of more interesting things."
+
+"Dita," he spoke to her more earnestly, more self-revealingly she felt
+than he had ever done before, "I am going to tell you something. When I
+went west last winter, it was not alone because I was called thither by
+various business affairs, but because, after thinking the matter all
+over, I definitely decided that the only thing for me to do was to
+relieve you of my presence. I was convinced that, although you might not
+be fully conscious of it, still in the depths of your heart you really
+loved Gresham. I was also convinced that I loved you infinitely, and
+that it was quite beyond my power to interest you. But since my return I
+find myself at sea. The moment I saw you I saw the difference in you,
+the change that made me revise my former crude, stupid estimates of you.
+I realize that you are the sort of woman who must have an object, a
+purpose in life, an expression; in fact, that you set little store by
+the beauty others praise extravagantly, because it has always been
+yours. You value it no more than one values the sun and wind. It is
+achievement that fascinates you, isn't it?"
+
+"Ah, yes, but I had failed, you know, and I was afraid to try again. I
+knew that you were doing big things, but you never would talk of them to
+me, and I thought that you considered me too stupid to understand them."
+
+"Dita, how blindly we have misunderstood each other. Is it too late?" He
+whispered the words as he put her wrap about her shoulders, his voice
+ardent, impassioned as she had never heard it.
+
+She cast one astonished, almost frightened glance upon him. Then, as in
+a daze, a dream, walked down the room, never seeing the admiring eyes
+that everywhere met her. She might have been in the desert, as far as
+they were concerned.
+
+As the door of the motor closed on them a panic of shyness seized her.
+"You, you spoke of your new amulet," she said, snatching at a topic.
+"Have you it with you?"
+
+"Yes. But I do not know whether you can get a very good idea of it in
+these shifting lights."
+
+He took the case from his pocket and, lifting out the ornament, gave it
+into her hands. It was fashioned of half a dozen uncut diamonds in a
+setting of the most delicate and exquisite filigree.
+
+"Old Spanish, you see," he said.
+
+"Beautiful!" she exclaimed, turning it over and looking at it more
+closely. But the attention she was bestowing upon it was a mere seeming.
+She was thinking, or rather attempting to think, but her heart was
+fluttering wildly, her whole impulsive nature seemed to impel her to the
+action she was meditating.
+
+"Cresswell," she lifted a face white as a snowdrop to his, "will you
+make an exchange with me? Will you give me this amulet and take mine?"
+
+"Perdita!" he cried, "you do not--" his voice broke.
+
+"Yes, I do," she exclaimed, "it is not a wild whim, a caprice on my
+part. I have been thinking about it all day, ever since this morning."
+
+"This morning!" sharply; looking at her keenly, quickly. "Ah," with a
+long breath, "it was this morning that Hewston drove poor Isabel to your
+house to prevent the duel between Gresham and myself." He laughed, but
+it was dreary mirth. "Hewston is a most imaginative fellow. I have a
+railway deal on which I spoke of to him as a duel. And so, you were
+going to sacrifice yourself in order to make quite sure that I would
+spare Eugene. Oh, rest content, Perdita. He is quite safe from my
+poignard or pistol. Never fear."
+
+It seemed to her that the satire in his voice bit into her soul. With a
+great gasp of relief she realized that the car had stopped before her
+door. "Oh, take your amulet," she cried, "since you will not have mine."
+She almost threw it at him.
+
+He thought that she was angry and sullen as she walked up the steps and
+into the house without a word to him, and with the barest inclination
+of the head. In reality, she was striving hard to control her sobs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+ITS ANCIENT CHARM
+
+
+The hour which Dita had set for her appointment with Cresswell Hepworth
+was twelve the next morning, consequently she was not only surprised but
+perturbed when Eugene's name was brought to her a little after eleven.
+
+He looked haggard, she thought, as if he had not slept, but his eyes
+were brighter than usual.
+
+"Good morning, Queen of the May," he cried, coming forward to take both
+her hands in his as she came through the doorway. "Did you know, by the
+way, that this is May day? Ah," his eyes fastening themselves on the
+crystal amulet gleaming against her white gown, "you have it still. That
+was what disturbed me and drove slumber from my eyelids during the long
+night. He is a strong man, a very able and masterful man and he wants
+that amulet and you, Dita, and I feared--oh, you know how things appear
+in the dead of night, what monstrous and fantastic ideas come to one."
+
+"You might have saved your fears and your fancies," she answered with a
+delicately ironical smile. "He does not want me. He would, I think, like
+the amulet. Nevertheless, he declined it."
+
+"Then you offered it to him? Really!"
+
+"Yes," the irony still in her voice. "You were a better prophet than you
+dreamed, Eugene, you predicted exactly what happened. I offered it to
+him and he declined." Her voice faltered.
+
+"Naturally," laughing, "what else could he do under the circumstances?
+Even he, with all a collector's greed, would hardly care for a gift
+which is supposed to be invariably accompanied by the heart's love of
+the donor. He knew, poor wretch, that all he was getting was the bit of
+glass, while the heart's love was mine, for ever and ever mine."
+
+His voice sank to those musical cadences which ever prove so enthralling
+to the ear. And Dita, who loved music and beauty and romance, smiled
+dreamily. But doubt, like a shadow, lay in her eyes and about her
+mouth.
+
+"No," she cried, "oh, I do not know, Eugene. When I am with you, you
+throw a glamour over me. I believe that I am just on the eve of loving
+you--that any minute you will say the word which will make me fully
+realize that I do, but as soon as you leave me, Eugene, the moment
+passes."
+
+"It is because you are perplexed, worried about this other matter, that
+is all, dearest. When that is settled and you are free, then I will
+sweep away at once and for ever all these doubts in your mind, sweep
+them away as if they were cobwebs."
+
+"Will you? Perhaps," but she shook her head as if only half convinced.
+"Hush! What is that! I think it was the bell of the outer door. You must
+go at once, Eugene. Cresswell was to be here at twelve o'clock. It must
+be quite that now."
+
+"And I have no desire to meet him." He picked up his hat. "I will step
+through the little back room into the hall, and thence out. I dare say
+you and he have some final arrangements to make. Is that it, eh?"
+
+She nodded, but without looking at him. Her face had grown very pale and
+the hand which she placed on the tall back of a chair to steady herself
+trembled a little.
+
+Her ears had not deceived her, it was Hepworth's ring--and the echo of
+Eugene's retreating footsteps had barely died away before a maid drew a
+curtain and Hepworth crossed the threshold.
+
+If he upon his arrival had at once noticed a subtle but marked change in
+Perdita, she now was struck by an equally vital and informing alteration
+in him. He had always seemed to her before as one who leaned back in an
+automobile and merely dictated the directions the chauffeur was to take,
+but now he was the man who was driving his car himself, at unlawful
+speed, and keeping quite cool and collected during the performance.
+
+He took the chair opposite the one in which she had seated herself, and
+she noticed a flicker of a smile across his face as his eye caught the
+amulet hung about her neck, a tender, humorous, sad little smile.
+
+"Yes, I am still wearing it," she said, as if in answer to some question
+of his, "and I have had the box containing the others brought down here.
+It is there on that table in the corner." She spoke with a bravado
+which only half concealed her embarrassment.
+
+He glanced toward it indifferently. "Then we will fasten my new one in
+the space left vacant by yours," his swift, delightful smile came and
+went, transforming his face for the moment like a gleam of sunlight, but
+although brilliant, it was sad, sad as all regret, and Dita, seeing it,
+felt some wild, momentary impulse to beseech forgiveness, she could not
+tell exactly for what.
+
+The amulet, her old bit of crystal, was swinging at the end of a long
+chain, and, a little embarrassed, she lifted it in her hand and gazed at
+it mechanically, turning it this way and that to catch the different
+reflections of light.
+
+"Did you know that we are lawbreakers, you and I, Dita?" asked Hepworth
+with another smile, "meeting to discuss the details of a properly
+arranged divorce? Well, my dear, it will not rest particularly heavy on
+my conscience if it makes things easier for you in the least degree.
+Your lawyers will instruct you just what to do, but there is one matter
+which I wish to discuss with you personally, and that is some
+settlements.
+
+"Why, Dita," breaking off sharply and starting to his feet, "what is the
+matter? Are you ill?"
+
+Indeed he was justified in thinking so. She had grown white as snow. The
+color had left even her lips.
+
+"No," she spoke with an effort, but she lifted her head, as if by main
+strength of will. "No," and he was infinitely relieved to see a bit of
+color creep back into her lips, but the eyes she courageously raised to
+his were dark with an emotion which he could only translate as fear or
+horror, he could not tell which.
+
+"Have I offended you, then?" he murmured. "Believe me--"
+
+"No, no," she insisted so definitely that he was forced to believe her.
+"It was something quite different. Something, something I just
+remembered."
+
+She was manifestly so confused and disturbed that he did not press the
+point. It would have seemed both unkind and unwise to do so, and then,
+although her eyes still retained that curiously shocked, almost
+horror-stricken expression, the color had returned to her cheek.
+
+"You were saying?" she began, her voice steady enough now. "Oh, yes, I
+remember, about the money." Those deep vibrations of emotion thrilled
+her tones. "Well, I won't have it. Won't touch it. I will not hear of
+settlements. I can make enough for my needs."
+
+He lifted his eyes and looked at her quickly and then the eyelids almost
+closed. Perdita was under very close observation.
+
+"Naturally, I do not for a moment dispute that. It is a fact already
+proven, but it is my wish to remove the necessity from you. Your
+occupation will then continue to be a source of amusement, of interest
+to you, but you will not feel that it is your sole dependence."
+
+She shook her head with a sort of irrevocable gentleness with which he
+could not fail to be struck.
+
+"No," she said, "it is really quite useless to discuss the matter.
+Truly, Cresswell, I will not even consider it."
+
+"But, Dita," he began, then paused a moment as if to make a choice of
+arguments, desirous of using at once the most potent and evidently
+preparing to undermine and break down the barriers of her decision if it
+took a month.
+
+She forestalled him, however, with a quick flank movement. She rose to
+her feet. "Cresswell," she said, "I promised you last night that I would
+discuss this matter with you this morning, but now," there was the least
+hesitation in her voice, "I am going to ask a favor. I dined with you
+last night, now will you dine with me to-night? Will you? There will
+only be Miss Fleming and her father, and she will just sit at the table
+a few minutes, she never dines before playing; Wallace Martin and Maud,
+and they are going somewhere, so you and I will have the leisure of a
+long evening to discuss all the pros and cons of this question, your
+side and mine. Will you come?"
+
+She was looking at him so earnestly, there was something so strange in
+the depths of her dark eyes, that he felt tempted on the moment to beg
+an explanation of this postponement. Then, as quickly he relinquished
+it.
+
+"I shall be delighted to come," he said heartily. "And if to-night you
+are in no mood to talk over dry details, we will put it off again until
+a more convenient season."
+
+"No." Her tone was positive. "I am quite sure that we will come to one
+decision or another this evening. Good-by."
+
+When the curtain at the door had fallen behind him, Dita sat down again.
+She did not seem to be thinking or mentally engaged in any way whatever.
+On the contrary, she seemed to be waiting, two or three minutes passed,
+five. Still she waited. Ah, a bitter smile hovered for one moment around
+her lips. Her whole tense figure relaxed a little as if the moment which
+she had so confidently expected had come.
+
+There was the sound of the shutting of the outer door in the small room
+to the left, then a halting step across the bare and polished floor.
+Eugene's step. He paused a moment in the doorway leading into the larger
+room, but as Dita did not turn nor give any sign whatever of having
+heard him, he came on.
+
+"Back again, you see," he said. "I saw Hepworth leaving the house just
+as I came about the corner up here, so I knew the coast was clear. May I
+sit down?"
+
+For the first time Dita looked at him. He was unmistakably not of the
+same temper in which he had left her an hour before. The buoyancy and
+spring of him had vanished. His eyes were clouded, his mouth depressed,
+certain lines on his brow and about his mouth stood out more markedly
+than usual. In fact, he seemed to have halted midway in some mood
+between dismay and anger. And as Dita observed this, there again played
+about her mouth for one instant that same, sad, bitter, secretive smile.
+
+She had leaned back in her chair as if prepared to remain some time, but
+she made no effort whatever to carry on a conversation or even to embark
+on one.
+
+The frown deepened on Eugene's brow. This attitude on her part was
+evidently irritating to him.
+
+"Everything settled, Dita, and satisfactorily?"
+
+"What do you mean by satisfactorily?" she asked, letting a moment or
+two lapse between his question and her answer.
+
+"I mean everything arranged in your favor," he replied with a short
+laugh. "He is rather sure to do that, you know. He likes to do things
+with the grand air."
+
+"Oh, no, Eugene, it is you who like to affect the grand air. With him it
+is natural."
+
+He looked up at her quickly. "It sounds, it sounds," he said, "as if you
+might possibly be on the verge of a sirocco. Don't Dita, I implore you.
+I am off the key myself."
+
+"Why?" she asked.
+
+He lifted his shoulders. "Ah, that I do not know."
+
+"I refused any alimony, Eugene," she said abruptly.
+
+"What! Oh, Dita, you must not! Why, it is the height of folly! My dear
+child, it is quixotic to the verge of idiocy." All his moodiness had
+vanished. He was arguing her case fervently enough now. "You have had
+your head turned by the success you and Maud have enjoyed in this
+venture this winter, but that is purely ephemeral. You were a fad, a
+novelty. How long do such things last in New York? And here is Hepworth
+willing and anxious to endow you with houses and lands. Dita," and never
+had she heard him plead his love with such fervor, "Dita, you must not
+ruin your whole life by a blind whim. You must listen to advice. You
+must be guided by your friends in this matter.
+
+"It is true, of course," he continued, "that I make a very large income,
+but I lay nothing by. It is impossible. I must keep up an
+appearance--the painter prince, and all that sort of thing. It is
+expected of me. It is a part of my stock in trade."
+
+"Then you consider, 'Gene," her voice was calmly, reassuringly
+reasonable now, "you consider that fully to enjoy life we must both
+possess more than an ordinarily large income?"
+
+"Dearest Dita," he bent forward with his tenderest, most ingratiating
+smile, "do not for one moment mistake me. I think, I know we could be
+happy without a centime between us, but viewing life as it is lived and
+considering your tastes and my tastes, the mode of existence to which we
+have accustomed ourselves and all that, I think we, like most other
+people, would do well to avoid the perilous experiment of comparative
+poverty. Whether we wish to believe it or not, really to invest life
+with romance and interest and charm requires more than mere imagination,
+of which you and I possess an abundant store, Dita. It also requires
+money."
+
+"It would require a great deal more than that for me, Eugene," she rose
+to her feet now and stood looking at him as if from mountain heights, so
+remote and distant she seemed. "Remember the old legend of my
+amulet,"--she lifted it and swung it to and fro as she talked,--"that
+sooner or later it would force the one who possessed it to reveal
+himself in his true character? Well, it has proved its ancient claim.
+You apparently possessed it long enough for it to force you to reveal
+your true self; or perhaps that was inevitable under any circumstances."
+
+"What do you mean, Dita?" he, too, had sprung to his feet, and stood
+facing her, both fear and chagrin in his eyes.
+
+"This," she flung out her hand with the amulet in it; "while I sat here
+talking to Cresswell, I was turning this square bit of crystal this way
+and that, watching it catch the light. Suddenly, as I held it between my
+thumb and forefinger, I saw you, it reflected you quite clearly. You
+thrust your head a little forward from the door, down there," indicating
+by a gesture the door at the lower end of the room, "anxious to hear the
+better what Cresswell was saying and quite sure from the position of our
+chairs that we could not see you. Then I sent him away and waited. I
+knew, I knew instinctively, that you would do just as you did, Eugene,
+and--so I waited. I knew that I should hear that outer door close, that
+I should hear you walk across the floor, I knew it."
+
+The moments pulsed like heartbeats between them.
+
+"I shall not deny it," he said at last, "but Dita, Dita, I did it for
+you. I felt that you would follow some quixotic course, which you would
+regret for a lifetime. I know so well your mad, impulsive recklessness.
+Oh, Dita," he stretched out his arms to her.
+
+There was no responsive movement on her part. She stood mute, immovable,
+eyes downcast, as if she could not bear to look upon his humiliation.
+
+The long chain had slipped through her fingers, and the amulet swung at
+the end of it, to and fro between herself and him, like the pendulum of
+an inflexible fate.
+
+"Dita," his voice was irresistibly appealing, "you will not thrust me
+thus out of your heart, oh, not for this!"
+
+"You never had a place in my heart, Eugene, I know that now."
+
+She swept across the floor, but as she put up her hand to pull aside the
+curtain before the door, she paused. "I--I'm sorry, Eugene," she
+faltered and by an effort of will lifted her eyes to him at last.
+
+But they fell neither on the shamed nor the conquered. His head was
+thrown back, his eyes met hers. He was smiling, and his smile held
+unfathomable things. It spoke of a spirit eternally young and yet which
+had felt the weary weight of all dead and crumbling centuries. It was
+sad, disillusioned, yet eagerly joyous. It had tasted all things and
+found them vanity, yet pursued an unending quest with infinite zest.
+
+"Dear Dita," he murmured, "never doubt that I loved you, love you still,
+but as the artist loves, not the plodder. You or any woman can only be
+to him the 'shadow of the idol of his thought,' the mere symbol of
+beauty, but what he really loves, Dita, is beauty's self."
+
+[Illustration: Before she knew it, his arms were about her.]
+
+He spoke now with a sincerity almost stern. "You or all the world may
+think me false," his head lifted lightly, "it is nothing to me. To the
+one thing I know as truth I am eternally true. I really, fundamentally
+do not care that," he snapped his fingers, "for the rest of the show. I
+have always the dream and before me lies the great achievement. So out
+of your house, out of your life, out of your heart I go." He came near
+her as he spoke, his voice was like music. Before she knew it, his arms
+were about her and he was kissing her hair, where the copper shadows
+rippled into gold above her temple. "Beautiful and still loved Perdita!
+Good-by."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+WAITING FOR PERDITA
+
+
+Perdita committed an unpardonable social sin that evening. She, the
+hostess, was late in her own house. In fact she had sent down word that
+they were to begin dinner without her.
+
+The three of them then, Maud, Wallace Martin and Hepworth were sitting
+gazing at one another in a rather mournful and embarrassed fashion, when
+Mr. and Miss Fleming were announced. Fuschia had stipulated that she was
+only to remain with them until the appearance of the roast. That was the
+signal for her departure, the definite limit of her stay. She was due at
+the theater before eight and it was her custom never to eat anything
+before the evening performance. This was the first time any of the group
+had seen her since her tremendous success of a few evenings before.
+
+"Hands up!" she called from the doorway, her gay, delicious voice
+pealing through the room, "hands up, I say," making an imaginary pistol
+of her thumb and forefinger and covering the three. "I don't want either
+your money or your life, but I do insist upon seeing who has blisters on
+his hands. I shall accept no other proof of friendship."
+
+Hepworth and Martin promptly held up their hands. "I'm entitled to first
+honors," said Hepworth, "I've sprained both wrists, can't write my
+signature and have to have my food cut up for me."
+
+"My hands," said Wallace Martin proudly, "are trained. They no longer
+show wear and tear. You could drive a dagger against them and it would
+splinter harmlessly. From long practice in trying to make my own plays
+go by virtue of my own applause they have acquired the substance and
+fiber of hickory."
+
+"But dear Miss Fleming," cried Maud, "I deserve more credit than they,
+for I recklessly sacrificed my most beautiful fan. When the curtain went
+down for the last time and we climbed off our seats and stopped howling,
+I held in my hand a limp shred of something and discovered that I had
+beaten my poor, exquisite, fragile fan to bits."
+
+Fuschia's eyes were full of starry twinkles, her smile was a revelation
+of joyousness. She drew a long, ecstatic breath, "Boys and girls, it was
+nice, wasn't it?"
+
+"Nice!" exclaimed Hepworth pushing a chair forward for her, "Nice! Is
+that the only word you can find to express your pleasure in the fact
+that the curtain rose thirty times amid continuous cheers, and New York
+simply took you to her heart and hugged you?"
+
+"Good old New York! She knew her own little Fuschia by the strawberry
+mark on her left arm, didn't she? I heard Caruso sing for the first time
+the other afternoon, and when they asked me afterward how I liked it, I
+said I only knew of one thing more heavenly and that was the sound of a
+great audience clapping and shouting. There's no music like that."
+
+Dinner was announced, and Maud, with a slightly worried expression,
+began explaining to Fuschia that Perdita had been detained; but as they
+moved toward the door, Hepworth noticed that Fleming had not stirred
+from the remote corner he had sought upon entering the room.
+
+"Jim, what is the matter?" said Hepworth with some concern; "you haven't
+interrupted Fuschia once since she came in and you know it's always a
+neck and neck race between you to see which can talk the faster?"
+
+"He's been asleep," said Fuschia, taking her seat at the table. "Poor
+papa! the gay life, you know!"
+
+Fleming eyed her indignantly across the bank of primroses in the center
+of the board. "The gay life! I've had no sleep since I struck New York,
+that's true. I've had to keep going, and take these poor little
+pick-me-ups of cat-naps whenever I can get them; but why? For a week
+before this great first night, I had to sit up with Fuschia and hold her
+hand and tell her what an unparalleled success she was going to have and
+then that night, after all the excitement and anxiety I suffered as her
+father, and the exhaustion incident upon being first _claqueur_, why she
+drove me out into the cold, damp, rainy streets with one of your New
+York blizzards just setting in, to buy her the first morning papers,
+and since then I've had to celebrate her triumph. I'll tell you what it
+is, friends, I'm a raveled sleeve of care and no kind sleep to knit me
+up."
+
+"Do you know what has really happened?" said Fuschia, in calm
+explanation. "Dear papa can't help putting in those Dumas and Poe
+touches, but come to me for the straight truth. It's really the funniest
+thing about papa. His luck always comes right along with mine. Now what
+do you think?"
+
+"He's made a million since he came to New York," said Wallace Martin.
+
+"Lost the other fellow's million, you mean," said Hepworth with feeling.
+
+"Wrong. It's the most unexpected thing you ever dreamed of," Fuschia's
+voice was triumphant, "papa's got a social success. Yes," nodding
+impressively, "just look at him closely and you'll see that he's lost
+his natural, unconscious man-look. He now has a drawing-room-pet
+expression and he's wearing his hair differently, and throwing out his
+chest. Oh, you needn't laugh, Mr. Hepworth, it's true. 'Hyperion curls,
+the front of Jove himself.' When we were coming on I determined that I
+would always be very kind to papa. I'd never neglect nor ignore him, no
+matter how famous I became; but, of course, he'd just be Fuschia
+Fleming's father. But what are the real facts of the case? Father sits
+in the seats of the mighty, flattered by great ladies and avoids mention
+of his humble actress daughter. King Cophetua and the chorus girl!"
+
+"I had to come to New York to find out that the feminine boycott against
+me wasn't complete," said Mr. Fleming with emotion. "I tell you, Hep,
+it's a wonderful experience suddenly to realize that the entire crew of
+petticoats the world over don't look at you as if they all had glass
+eyes in their heads instead of real ones."
+
+"How do you account for it, Jim?" asked Hepworth.
+
+"From camp to court, my boy, has ever been but a step, although
+sometimes it's a mighty long one," returned Fleming oratorically. "Now
+this is the way I've explained it to myself. You see, I've got that
+wild, free, above-timber-line flavor about me that simply locos the type
+of woman that keeps husband hobbled to a stake under the big tree by
+the back porch where she can keep an eye on him from the kitchen
+windows. Now, personally, the catnip and parsley kind of woman never did
+appeal to me; but these New York orchids are different. They know how to
+appreciate the Rocky Mountain edelweiss, and seem grateful to me for
+taking their husbands off their hands now and then. And they're so
+interested, too, in the little every-day incidents of an old
+prospector's life."
+
+"You just ought to hear papa Othelloize those Ophelias," said Fuschia,
+deftly seizing the first opportunity to get into the conversation.
+"He'll tell them about being carried down a thousand feet in a mighty
+snowslide and escaping unhurt, and of the fabulous properties he's
+discovered, and of frequent encounters with enormous grizzlies, where
+he'll tap them lightly on the jaw and advise them to hasten home and
+then if they get too familiar, he gives them a twist of the wrist that
+sends them howling back to the woods."
+
+"Fuschia," said her father sternly, "you talk entirely too much, and
+there's a day of reckoning coming for you. Just wait till you get to
+London. There you'll be sneaking in at the back door and eating a cold
+biscuit in the pantry while you're waiting to do a few recitations for
+the ladies and gentlemen; while I'll be sailing in to dinner with a
+belted earless on one arm and a tiaraed duchess on the other."
+
+"I'm afraid I see your finish, Jim," sighed Hepworth. "You'll end as a
+leader of cotillions. Your head is badly turned."
+
+"There's no denying, Hep, that we are apt to set and undue value on what
+we've never had, and these late-blooming feminine smiles are like a
+bottle of champagne in the desert."
+
+"Oh, dear, here is the roast," cried Fuschia disconsolately, "and
+Cinderella must run away. Is there no hope of seeing Mrs. Hepworth this
+evening?" turning to Maud.
+
+Maud hesitated a moment, then, "I really do not know," she confessed
+frankly, "she--she has not been particularly well all day." She simply
+could not plead for Perdita the conventional bad headache while
+Hepworth's steady eyes were fixed upon her.
+
+Fuschia, who happened to be looking at him, saw a quick shade of
+disappointment pass over his face, and her impulsive sympathy was roused
+by the depth and poignancy of that immediately suppressed emotion. She
+threw herself into the breach.
+
+"Oh, I want dreadfully to see her to-night about the gown I am to wear
+when I play the scheming adventuress next week. We were to have decided
+it to-night. She is thinking of putting me in green instead of the usual
+black with touches of scarlet, and the accustomed badge of the
+adventuress, high-heeled scarlet slippers. And I am so anxious to know
+if Mrs. Hepworth has decided upon green, a wonderful, wicked, dazzling
+green, with strange blue lights in the shadows. Oh, may I send a message
+and ask her to see me just a moment?"
+
+But before Maud could answer, Perdita entered the room. She pleaded the
+usual headache, which Maud had so carefully avoided, and that threadbare
+social fiction was for once upheld and substantiated. Dita's appearance
+fully bore it out. Her face was pale, her eyes heavy. She promised,
+however, to give a full consideration to the question of Fuschia's green
+gown the next morning, and the actress who had already overstayed the
+limits of the time she had allotted herself prepared to take her
+departure.
+
+"Oh," she cried from the door, "I forgot to announce my two important
+bits of good news. Mr. Martin is going to write me a comedy and Eugene
+Gresham is going to paint my portrait."
+
+A faint smile hovered for one moment about Perdita's lips. "When did
+Eugene make his request?" she asked in her usual low tones, although her
+head lifted suddenly.
+
+"This afternoon," replied Fuschia, and Dita's smile deepened. "And he is
+going to give me a fete in his studio."
+
+"The usual ball in the artist's studio?" laughed Maud looking at Martin.
+
+"Don't you dream it," Fuschia laughed irrepressibly, also; "not the
+stage kind with its crowd of maskers. This is to be patterned after an
+afternoon among the great artists in Japan. You wear Japanese things and
+crawl through a little door into a room with nothing in it but just one
+perfect flower in a perfect vase, and we will all sit on the floor and
+drink tea."
+
+"It sounds very much like him," said Maud, "but is it true Wallace that
+you are really going to do a play for Miss Fleming?"
+
+"It happily is," said Martin, "a comedy."
+
+"Not a problem play?" The light of hope dawned in Miss Carmine's eyes.
+
+"Oh, dear me, no," cried Fuschia; "and he's going to write it just as he
+talks."
+
+"I'd very much prefer to have you talk it as I write," said Martin, but
+she had already vanished.
+
+In a very few minutes the others followed her example, Fleming leaving
+the house with Maud and Wallace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+WITH MY HEART'S LOVE
+
+
+Scarcely had the hall door closed behind them when Hepworth turned to
+Dita inquiringly. "Would you not very much prefer that I left you?" he
+asked. "I can see that you are not well, and we can discuss anything
+that remains to be talked over at any other time."
+
+"No," she shook her head, "I am quite well. I have not even the headache
+I claimed, and I must, indeed I must, talk to you to-night."
+
+"But if our conversation this morning so upset and unnerved you," he
+urged, "would it not be wise to defer this?"
+
+"Our conversation didn't," she replied with emphasis. "It was another
+conversation. Cresswell, will you answer me a question or two?"
+
+"Anything you wish to know," he replied.
+
+She got up, and, after a fashion she sometimes showed, perhaps
+unconsciously copied from him, began to walk restlessly up and down,
+occasionally stopping to pick up and examine some ornament quite as if
+she had never happened to notice it before.
+
+She had picked up a small jade vase from the mantelpiece and was now
+bestowing upon it what appeared to be an exhaustive observation. In
+reality she was hardly conscious that she held it in her hand.
+
+"Cresswell, why did you marry me?"
+
+He started ever so slightly and then answered unhesitatingly, "Because I
+loved you, Dita."
+
+A little spasm of some emotion he could not fathom passed over her face.
+"It was not because you wished to see how the flower blooming in a tin
+can in a tenement window would bloom in a wonderful lacquered vase in a
+marble court? It was not from curiosity or pity, Cresswell?"
+
+"It was love, Dita."
+
+Again that wave of emotion over her face, and then she looked about her
+with sad, tear-wet eyes and a trembling mouth.
+
+"And my caprices, my stupidity, my inadequacy, soon destroyed that?"
+
+"Never," he repeated. "Believe that. I was no gardener trying
+experiments. It was the flower I loved, Dita; the flower whose happiness
+I longed for, whose happiness I still long for. You do not need my love,
+do not care for it, why should you? But give me the happiness of still
+being able to assure for you the marble courts and the lacquered vases."
+
+The little jade vase dropped from her fingers and fell unheeded to the
+rug at her feet. The tears were pouring now, down her white face. She
+made no effort either to conceal or to staunch them.
+
+"Ah, blind and wasteful creature that I am!" she cried. "Why, why should
+you have chosen to love me?"
+
+She stepped toward him and with both hands unwound the slender
+old-fashioned gold chain from her throat. She lifted her face,
+quivering, broken with feeling, and still streaming with tears, to his.
+She held out the amulet toward him. "Cresswell," poignantly, "will you
+take this now, my old talisman, with my heart's love?"
+
+He made one quick movement as if to take her in his arms and hold her
+close, close to his heart for ever. His face was irradiated, his cold
+eyes glowed with a warmth and fire that more mercurial and mutable
+natures can never know.
+
+Then the light went out of his eyes and face. It did not fade, it was as
+if it were extinguished by some strong effort of will. His arms fell to
+his sides.
+
+"My dear, my dear," his voice trembled, "how like your sweet, generous,
+prodigal nature! I see it all now, the reason for your pallor and heavy
+eyes. You have spent the day, since I left you this morning, in accusing
+and denouncing yourself until you have reached the frame of mind where
+you can only appease your offended and tyrannical conscience by some act
+of high sacrifice. And do you think I would accept it, poor, heroic,
+overwrought Dita? All day," that swift, flashing, heart-breaking smile
+of his gleamed a moment, "you have been convicting yourself of
+ingratitude, merely because I was offering you some of my money with
+the entirely selfish motive of securing my own happiness."
+
+"You are wrong, wrong," she cried vehemently, passionately. "What can I
+do to convince you? Oh, of course, you think that I am a creature of
+moods; you have every reason to think so; but what can I do, what can I
+say to convince you that I am not speaking from one of them now?"
+
+"Say nothing, dearest," he murmured deeply, soothingly; "say no more. I
+shall always remember the sweetness of this moment."
+
+"But I will not have it so," she cried. "You must, you must listen to
+me. You think that I love Eugene, that I have always loved Eugene. And I
+did not know, I did not know what love was. Eugene is charming and
+famous, and there was a sympathy between us, on one side of our natures.
+We have the same love of color. It is a passion with us. It spells music
+and poetry and all sorts of untranslatable things. It is something
+instinctive with us, something we were born with and we see shades and
+harmonies and values that other people do not. But this absolute
+understanding between us was only on one side of our natures, and yet
+sometimes it was so--so encompassing that I thought it embraced them
+all. So I did not know my own mind. I was puzzled, confused, always in
+doubt. And then, when I began really to--to flirt with Eugene, or so
+people construed it, it was when I was beginning to be bored with my
+marble court and my lacquered vase. I got so bored with being amused,
+just amused all the time."
+
+"Ah, that was where I made my great, my unforgivable mistake," he
+interrupted.
+
+"Yes, you made a mistake, in not letting me know you as you really are,"
+she conceded, "but then, with all the boredom, I had that sense of
+futility, of failure behind me. Failure behind and nothing to look
+forward to but an endless succession of marble courts. No beautiful,
+dazzling unexpected. Just the same thing over and over and over. And
+then you went away and for a time I was frightened and forlorn, so Maud
+and I started our venture. Ah!" she clasped her hands together, the
+amulet dangling on its chain, "I have told you what work and success
+meant to me. You understand that; but gradually, as I got used to it, I
+began to see that it wasn't enough. No," she shook her head sadly, "it
+wasn't enough--there must be love. But I had got the idea into my head
+that it was Eugene who would speak the magic word, that magic word that
+I believed in and waited for. Yet all, all the time, from the moment you
+left me, you were in my thoughts. You see," with a faint smile, "I
+understood Eugene, but you were the unsolvable problem. I was always
+thinking about you, trying to understand you, and last night," her face
+glowed with a lovely light, "when you talked to me of the big, wonderful
+things, when you made me feel that I was an intelligent human being and
+not merely a pretty woman, why, my whole heart went out to you and I
+knew it was you, you alone that I loved. It is not the man who can
+conquer a city, many cities, with his grace and charm and genius. Not he
+who can win my poor heart, but the man who can conquer his own spirit.
+Ah, Cresswell," she held out the amulet again to him, "will you not take
+this now?" "Perdita!" he cried deeply and held her close.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beauty, by Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
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