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diff --git a/old/7batd10.txt b/old/7batd10.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 89a6366..0000000 --- a/old/7batd10.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,16345 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Beautiful and Damned -by F. Scott Fitzgerald - -Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the -copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing -this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. - -This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project -Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the -header without written permission. - -Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the -eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is -important information about your specific rights and restrictions in -how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a -donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** - - -Title: The Beautiful and Damned - -Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald - -Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9830] -[This file was first posted on October 22, 2003] - -Edition: 10 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED *** - - - - -E-text prepared by Stan Goodman, Audrey Longhurst, and Project Gutenberg -Distributed Proofreaders - - - - - - - -THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED - -BY F. SCOTT FITZGERALD - -1922 - - - - - - - -_Novels_ - -THE LAST TYCOON -(Unfinished) -_With a foreword by Edmund Wilson -and notes by the author_ - -TENDER IS THE NIGHT - -THE GREAT GATSBY - -THE BEAUTIFUL AND DAMNED - -THIS SIDE OF PARADISE - - -_Stories_ - -THE PAT HOBBY STORIES -_With an introduction by Arnold Gingrich_ - -TAPS AT REVEILLE - -SIX TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE AND OTHER STORIES -_With an introduction by Frances Fitzgerald Lanahan_ - -FLAPPERS AND PHILOSOPHERS -_With an introduction by Arthur Mizener_ - -THE STORIES OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD -_A selection of 28 stories, with -an introduction by Malcolm Cowley_ - - -_Stories and Essays_ - -AFTERNOON OF AN AUTHOR -_With an introduction and notes -by Arthur Mizener_ - -THE FITZGERALD READER: A Selection -_Edited and with an introduction -by Arthur Mizener_ - - - - - - -The victor belongs to the spoils. ---ANTHONY PATCH - - - -TO -SHANE LESLIE, GEORGE JEAN NATHAN -AND MAXWELL PERKINS - -IN APPRECIATION OF MUCH LITERARY HELP -AND ENCOURAGEMENT - - - - - -CONTENTS - - -BOOK ONE - - I. ANTHONY PATCH - - II. PORTRAIT OF A SIREN - -III. THE CONNOISSEUR OF KISSES - - -BOOK TWO - - I. THE RADIANT HOUR - - II. SYMPOSIUM - -III. THE BROKEN LUTE - - -BOOK THREE - - I. A MATTER OF CIVILIZATION - - II. A MATTER OF AESTHETICS - -III. NO MATTER! - - - - -BOOK ONE - - - -CHAPTER I - - -ANTHONY PATCH - -In 1913, when Anthony Patch was twenty-five, two years were already gone -since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at -least, descended upon him. Irony was the final polish of the shoe, the -ultimate dab of the clothes-brush, a sort of intellectual "There!"--yet -at the brink of this story he has as yet gone no further than the -conscious stage. As you first see him he wonders frequently whether he -is not without honor and slightly mad, a shameful and obscene thinness -glistening on the surface of the world like oil on a clean pond, these -occasions being varied, of course, with those in which he thinks himself -rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted -to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one else -he knows. - -This was his healthy state and it made him cheerful, pleasant, and very -attractive to intelligent men and to all women. In this state he -considered that he would one day accomplish some quiet subtle thing that -the elect would deem worthy and, passing on, would join the dimmer stars -in a nebulous, indeterminate heaven half-way between death and -immortality. Until the time came for this effort he would be Anthony -Patch--not a portrait of a man but a distinct and dynamic personality, -opinionated, contemptuous, functioning from within outward--a man who -was aware that there could be no honor and yet had honor, who knew the -sophistry of courage and yet was brave. - - -A WORTHY MAN AND HIS GIFTED SON - -Anthony drew as much consciousness of social security from being the -grandson of Adam J. Patch as he would have had from tracing his line -over the sea to the crusaders. This is inevitable; Virginians and -Bostonians to the contrary notwithstanding, an aristocracy founded -sheerly on money postulates wealth in the particular. - -Now Adam J. Patch, more familiarly known as "Cross Patch," left his -father's farm in Tarrytown early in sixty-one to join a New York cavalry -regiment. He came home from the war a major, charged into Wall Street, -and amid much fuss, fume, applause, and ill will he gathered to himself -some seventy-five million dollars. - -This occupied his energies until he was fifty-seven years old. It was -then that he determined, after a severe attack of sclerosis, to -consecrate the remainder of his life to the moral regeneration of the -world. He became a reformer among reformers. Emulating the magnificent -efforts of Anthony Comstock, after whom his grandson was named, he -levelled a varied assortment of uppercuts and body-blows at liquor, -literature, vice, art, patent medicines, and Sunday theatres. His mind, -under the influence of that insidious mildew which eventually forms on -all but the few, gave itself up furiously to every indignation of the -age. From an armchair in the office of his Tarrytown estate he directed -against the enormous hypothetical enemy, unrighteousness, a campaign -which went on through fifteen years, during which he displayed himself a -rabid monomaniac, an unqualified nuisance, and an intolerable bore. The -year in which this story opens found him wearying; his campaign had -grown desultory; 1861 was creeping up slowly on 1895; his thoughts ran a -great deal on the Civil War, somewhat on his dead wife and son, almost -infinitesimally on his grandson Anthony. - -Early in his career Adam Patch had married an anemic lady of thirty, -Alicia Withers, who brought him one hundred thousand dollars and an -impeccable entre into the banking circles of New York. Immediately and -rather spunkily she had borne him a son and, as if completely -devitalized by the magnificence of this performance, she had thenceforth -effaced herself within the shadowy dimensions of the nursery. The boy, -Adam Ulysses Patch, became an inveterate joiner of clubs, connoisseur of -good form, and driver of tandems--at the astonishing age of twenty-six -he began his memoirs under the title "New York Society as I Have Seen -It." On the rumor of its conception this work was eagerly bid for among -publishers, but as it proved after his death to be immoderately verbose -and overpoweringly dull, it never obtained even a private printing. - -This Fifth Avenue Chesterfield married at twenty-two. His wife was -Henrietta Lebrune, the Boston "Society Contralto," and the single child -of the union was, at the request of his grandfather, christened Anthony -Comstock Patch. When he went to Harvard, the Comstock dropped out of his -name to a nether hell of oblivion and was never heard of thereafter. - -Young Anthony had one picture of his father and mother together--so -often had it faced his eyes in childhood that it had acquired the -impersonality of furniture, but every one who came into his bedroom -regarded it with interest. It showed a dandy of the nineties, spare and -handsome, standing beside a tall dark lady with a muff and the -suggestion of a bustle. Between them was a little boy with long brown -curls, dressed in a velvet Lord Fauntleroy suit. This was Anthony at -five, the year of his mother's death. - -His memories of the Boston Society Contralto were nebulous and musical. -She was a lady who sang, sang, sang, in the music room of their house on -Washington Square--sometimes with guests scattered all about her, the -men with their arms folded, balanced breathlessly on the edges of sofas, -the women with their hands in their laps, occasionally making little -whispers to the men and always clapping very briskly and uttering cooing -cries after each song--and often she sang to Anthony alone, in Italian -or French or in a strange and terrible dialect which she imagined to be -the speech of the Southern negro. - -His recollections of the gallant Ulysses, the first man in America to -roll the lapels of his coat, were much more vivid. After Henrietta -Lebrune Patch had "joined another choir," as her widower huskily -remarked from time to time, father and son lived up at grampa's in -Tarrytown, and Ulysses came daily to Anthony's nursery and expelled -pleasant, thick-smelling words for sometimes as much as an hour. He was -continually promising Anthony hunting trips and fishing trips and -excursions to Atlantic City, "oh, some time soon now"; but none of them -ever materialized. One trip they did take; when Anthony was eleven they -went abroad, to England and Switzerland, and there in the best hotel in -Lucerne his father died with much sweating and grunting and crying aloud -for air. In a panic of despair and terror Anthony was brought back to -America, wedded to a vague melancholy that was to stay beside him -through the rest of his life. - - -PAST AND PERSON OF THE HERO - -At eleven he had a horror of death. Within six impressionable years his -parents had died and his grandmother had faded off almost imperceptibly, -until, for the first time since her marriage, her person held for one -day an unquestioned supremacy over her own drawing room. So to Anthony -life was a struggle against death, that waited at every corner. It was -as a concession to his hypochondriacal imagination that he formed the -habit of reading in bed--it soothed him. He read until he was tired and -often fell asleep with the lights still on. - -His favorite diversion until he was fourteen was his stamp collection; -enormous, as nearly exhaustive as a boy's could be--his grandfather -considered fatuously that it was teaching him geography. So Anthony kept -up a correspondence with a half dozen "Stamp and Coin" companies and it -was rare that the mail failed to bring him new stamp-books or packages -of glittering approval sheets--there was a mysterious fascination in -transferring his acquisitions interminably from one book to another. His -stamps were his greatest happiness and he bestowed impatient frowns on -any one who interrupted him at play with them; they devoured his -allowance every month, and he lay awake at night musing untiringly on -their variety and many-colored splendor. - -At sixteen he had lived almost entirely within himself, an inarticulate -boy, thoroughly un-American, and politely bewildered by his -contemporaries. The two preceding years had been spent in Europe with a -private tutor, who persuaded him that Harvard was the thing; it would -"open doors," it would be a tremendous tonic, it would give him -innumerable self-sacrificing and devoted friends. So he went to -Harvard--there was no other logical thing to be done with him. - -Oblivious to the social system, he lived for a while alone and unsought -in a high room in Beck Hall--a slim dark boy of medium height with a shy -sensitive mouth. His allowance was more than liberal. He laid the -foundations for a library by purchasing from a wandering bibliophile -first editions of Swinburne, Meredith, and Hardy, and a yellowed -illegible autograph letter of Keats's, finding later that he had been -amazingly overcharged. He became an exquisite dandy, amassed a rather -pathetic collection of silk pajamas, brocaded dressing-gowns, and -neckties too flamboyant to wear; in this secret finery he would parade -before a mirror in his room or lie stretched in satin along his -window-seat looking down on the yard and realizing dimly this clamor, -breathless and immediate, in which it seemed he was never to have -a part. - -Curiously enough he found in senior year that he had acquired a position -in his class. He learned that he was looked upon as a rather romantic -figure, a scholar, a recluse, a tower of erudition. This amused him but -secretly pleased him--he began going out, at first a little and then a -great deal. He made the Pudding. He drank--quietly and in the proper -tradition. It was said of him that had he not come to college so young -he might have "done extremely well." In 1909, when he graduated, he was -only twenty years old. - -Then abroad again--to Rome this time, where he dallied with architecture -and painting in turn, took up the violin, and wrote some ghastly Italian -sonnets, supposedly the ruminations of a thirteenth-century monk on the -joys of the contemplative life. It became established among his Harvard -intimates that he was in Rome, and those of them who were abroad that -year looked him up and discovered with him, on many moonlight -excursions, much in the city that was older than the Renaissance or -indeed than the republic. Maury Noble, from Philadelphia, for instance, -remained two months, and together they realized the peculiar charm of -Latin women and had a delightful sense of being very young and free in a -civilization that was very old and free. Not a few acquaintances of his -grandfather's called on him, and had he so desired he might have been -_persona grata_ with the diplomatic set--indeed, he found that his -inclinations tended more and more toward conviviality, but that long -adolescent aloofness and consequent shyness still dictated to -his conduct. - -He returned to America in 1912 because of one of his grandfather's -sudden illnesses, and after an excessively tiresome talk with the -perpetually convalescent old man he decided to put off until his -grandfather's death the idea of living permanently abroad. After a -prolonged search he took an apartment on Fifty-second Street and to all -appearances settled down. - -In 1913 Anthony Patch's adjustment of himself to the universe was in -process of consummation. Physically, he had improved since his -undergraduate days--he was still too thin but his shoulders had widened -and his brunette face had lost the frightened look of his freshman year. -He was secretly orderly and in person spick and span--his friends -declared that they had never seen his hair rumpled. His nose was too -sharp; his mouth was one of those unfortunate mirrors of mood inclined -to droop perceptibly in moments of unhappiness, but his blue eyes were -charming, whether alert with intelligence or half closed in an -expression of melancholy humor. - -One of those men devoid of the symmetry of feature essential to the -Aryan ideal, he was yet, here and there, considered handsome--moreover, -he was very clean, in appearance and in reality, with that especial -cleanness borrowed from beauty. - - -THE REPROACHLESS APARTMENT - -Fifth and Sixth Avenues, it seemed to Anthony, were the uprights of a -gigantic ladder stretching from Washington Square to Central Park. -Coming up-town on top of a bus toward Fifty-second Street invariably -gave him the sensation of hoisting himself hand by hand on a series of -treacherous rungs, and when the bus jolted to a stop at his own rung he -found something akin to relief as he descended the reckless metal steps -to the sidewalk. - -After that, he had but to walk down Fifty-second Street half a block, -pass a stodgy family of brownstone houses--and then in a jiffy he was -under the high ceilings of his great front room. This was entirely -satisfactory. Here, after all, life began. Here he slept, breakfasted, -read, and entertained. - -The house itself was of murky material, built in the late nineties; in -response to the steadily growing need of small apartments each floor had -been thoroughly remodelled and rented individually. Of the four -apartments Anthony's, on the second floor, was the most desirable. - -The front room had fine high ceilings and three large windows that -loomed down pleasantly upon Fifty-second Street. In its appointments it -escaped by a safe margin being of any particular period; it escaped -stiffness, stuffiness, bareness, and decadence. It smelt neither of -smoke nor of incense--it was tall and faintly blue. There was a deep -lounge of the softest brown leather with somnolence drifting about it -like a haze. There was a high screen of Chinese lacquer chiefly -concerned with geometrical fishermen and huntsmen in black and gold; -this made a corner alcove for a voluminous chair guarded by an -orange-colored standing lamp. Deep in the fireplace a quartered shield -was burned to a murky black. - -Passing through the dining-room, which, as Anthony took only breakfast -at home, was merely a magnificent potentiality, and down a comparatively -long hall, one came to the heart and core of the apartment--Anthony's -bedroom and bath. - -Both of them were immense. Under the ceilings of the former even the -great canopied bed seemed of only average size. On the floor an exotic -rug of crimson velvet was soft as fleece on his bare feet. His bathroom, -in contrast to the rather portentous character of his bedroom, was gay, -bright, extremely habitable and even faintly facetious. Framed around -the walls were photographs of four celebrated thespian beauties of the -day: Julia Sanderson as "The Sunshine Girl," Ina Claire as "The Quaker -Girl," Billie Burke as "The Mind-the-Paint Girl," and Hazel Dawn as "The -Pink Lady." Between Billie Burke and Hazel Dawn hung a print -representing a great stretch of snow presided over by a cold and -formidable sun--this, claimed Anthony, symbolized the cold shower. - -The bathtub, equipped with an ingenious bookholder, was low and large. -Beside it a wall wardrobe bulged with sufficient linen for three men and -with a generation of neckties. There was no skimpy glorified towel of a -carpet--instead, a rich rug, like the one in his bedroom a miracle of -softness, that seemed almost to massage the wet foot emerging from -the tub.... - -All in all a room to conjure with--it was easy to see that Anthony -dressed there, arranged his immaculate hair there, in fact did -everything but sleep and eat there. It was his pride, this bathroom. He -felt that if he had a love he would have hung her picture just facing -the tub so that, lost in the soothing steamings of the hot water, he -might lie and look up at her and muse warmly and sensuously on -her beauty. - - -NOR DOES HE SPIN - -The apartment was kept clean by an English servant with the singularly, -almost theatrically, appropriate name of Bounds, whose technic was -marred only by the fact that he wore a soft collar. Had he been entirely -Anthony's Bounds this defect would have been summarily remedied, but he -was also the Bounds of two other gentlemen in the neighborhood. From -eight until eleven in the morning he was entirely Anthony's. He arrived -with the mail and cooked breakfast. At nine-thirty he pulled the edge of -Anthony's blanket and spoke a few terse words--Anthony never remembered -clearly what they were and rather suspected they were deprecative; then -he served breakfast on a card-table in the front room, made the bed and, -after asking with some hostility if there was anything else, withdrew. - -In the mornings, at least once a week, Anthony went to see his broker. -His income was slightly under seven thousand a year, the interest on -money inherited from his mother. His grandfather, who had never allowed -his own son to graduate from a very liberal allowance, judged that this -sum was sufficient for young Anthony's needs. Every Christmas he sent -him a five-hundred-dollar bond, which Anthony usually sold, if possible, -as he was always a little, not very, hard up. - -The visits to his broker varied from semi-social chats to discussions of -the safety of eight per cent investments, and Anthony always enjoyed -them. The big trust company building seemed to link him definitely to -the great fortunes whose solidarity he respected and to assure him that -he was adequately chaperoned by the hierarchy of finance. From these -hurried men he derived the same sense of safety that he had in -contemplating his grandfather's money--even more, for the latter -appeared, vaguely, a demand loan made by the world to Adam Patch's own -moral righteousness, while this money down-town seemed rather to have -been grasped and held by sheer indomitable strengths and tremendous -feats of will; in addition, it seemed more definitely and -explicitly--money. - -Closely as Anthony trod on the heels of his income, he considered it to -be enough. Some golden day, of course, he would have many millions; -meanwhile he possessed a _raison d'etre_ in the theoretical creation of -essays on the popes of the Renaissance. This flashes back to the -conversation with his grandfather immediately upon his return from Rome. - -He had hoped to find his grandfather dead, but had learned by -telephoning from the pier that Adam Patch was comparatively well -again--the next day he had concealed his disappointment and gone out to -Tarrytown. Five miles from the station his taxicab entered an -elaborately groomed drive that threaded a veritable maze of walls and -wire fences guarding the estate--this, said the public, was because it -was definitely known that if the Socialists had their way, one of the -first men they'd assassinate would be old Cross Patch. - -Anthony was late and the venerable philanthropist was awaiting him in a -glass-walled sun parlor, where he was glancing through the morning -papers for the second time. His secretary, Edward Shuttleworth--who -before his regeneration had been gambler, saloon-keeper, and general -reprobate--ushered Anthony into the room, exhibiting his redeemer and -benefactor as though he were displaying a treasure of immense value. - -They shook hands gravely. "I'm awfully glad to hear you're better," -Anthony said. - -The senior Patch, with an air of having seen his grandson only last -week, pulled out his watch. - -"Train late?" he asked mildly. - -It had irritated him to wait for Anthony. He was under the delusion not -only that in his youth he had handled his practical affairs with the -utmost scrupulousness, even to keeping every engagement on the dot, but -also that this was the direct and primary cause of his success. - -"It's been late a good deal this month," he remarked with a shade of -meek accusation in his voice--and then after a long sigh, "Sit down." - -Anthony surveyed his grandfather with that tacit amazement which always -attended the sight. That this feeble, unintelligent old man was -possessed of such power that, yellow journals to the contrary, the men -in the republic whose souls he could not have bought directly or -indirectly would scarcely have populated White Plains, seemed as -impossible to believe as that he had once been a pink-and-white baby. - -The span of his seventy-five years had acted as a magic bellows--the -first quarter-century had blown him full with life, and the last had -sucked it all back. It had sucked in the cheeks and the chest and the -girth of arm and leg. It had tyrannously demanded his teeth, one by one, -suspended his small eyes in dark-bluish sacks, tweeked out his hairs, -changed him from gray to white in some places, from pink to yellow in -others--callously transposing his colors like a child trying over a -paintbox. Then through his body and his soul it had attacked his brain. -It had sent him night-sweats and tears and unfounded dreads. It had -split his intense normality into credulity and suspicion. Out of the -coarse material of his enthusiasm it had cut dozens of meek but petulant -obsessions; his energy was shrunk to the bad temper of a spoiled child, -and for his will to power was substituted a fatuous puerile desire for a -land of harps and canticles on earth. - -The amenities having been gingerly touched upon, Anthony felt that he -was expected to outline his intentions--and simultaneously a glimmer in -the old man's eye warned him against broaching, for the present, his -desire to live abroad. He wished that Shuttleworth would have tact -enough to leave the room--he detested Shuttleworth--but the secretary -had settled blandly in a rocker and was dividing between the two Patches -the glances of his faded eyes. - -"Now that you're here you ought to _do_ something," said his grandfather -softly, "accomplish something." - -Anthony waited for him to speak of "leaving something done when you pass -on." Then he made a suggestion: - -"I thought--it seemed to me that perhaps I'm best qualified to write--" - -Adam Patch winced, visualizing a family poet with a long hair and three -mistresses. - -"--history," finished Anthony. - -"History? History of what? The Civil War? The Revolution?" - -"Why--no, sir. A history of the Middle Ages." Simultaneously an idea was -born for a history of the Renaissance popes, written from some novel -angle. Still, he was glad he had said "Middle Ages." - -"Middle Ages? Why not your own country? Something you know about?" - -"Well, you see I've lived so much abroad--" - -"Why you should write about the Middle Ages, I don't know. Dark Ages, we -used to call 'em. Nobody knows what happened, and nobody cares, except -that they're over now." He continued for some minutes on the uselessness -of such information, touching, naturally, on the Spanish Inquisition and -the "corruption of the monasteries." Then: - -"Do you think you'll be able to do any work in New York--or do you -really intend to work at all?" This last with soft, almost -imperceptible, cynicism. - -"Why, yes, I do, sir." - -"When'll you be done?" - -"Well, there'll be an outline, you see--and a lot of preliminary -reading." - -"I should think you'd have done enough of that already." - -The conversation worked itself jerkily toward a rather abrupt -conclusion, when Anthony rose, looked at his watch, and remarked that he -had an engagement with his broker that afternoon. He had intended to -stay a few days with his grandfather, but he was tired and irritated -from a rough crossing, and quite unwilling to stand a subtle and -sanctimonious browbeating. He would come out again in a few days, -he said. - -Nevertheless, it was due to this encounter that work had come into his -life as a permanent idea. During the year that had passed since then, he -had made several lists of authorities, he had even experimented with -chapter titles and the division of his work into periods, but not one -line of actual writing existed at present, or seemed likely ever to -exist. He did nothing--and contrary to the most accredited copy-book -logic, he managed to divert himself with more than average content. - - -AFTERNOON - -It was October in 1913, midway in a week of pleasant days, with the -sunshine loitering in the cross-streets and the atmosphere so languid as -to seem weighted with ghostly falling leaves. It was pleasant to sit -lazily by the open window finishing a chapter of "Erewhon." It was -pleasant to yawn about five, toss the book on a table, and saunter -humming along the hall to his bath. - -"To ... you ... beaut-if-ul lady," - -he was singing as he turned on the tap. - -"I raise ... my ... eyes; -To ... you ... beaut-if-ul la-a-dy -My ... heart ... cries--" - -He raised his voice to compete with the flood of water pouring into the -tub, and as he looked at the picture of Hazel Dawn upon the wall he put -an imaginary violin to his shoulder and softly caressed it with a -phantom bow. Through his closed lips he made a humming noise, which he -vaguely imagined resembled the sound of a violin. After a moment his -hands ceased their gyrations and wandered to his shirt, which he began -to unfasten. Stripped, and adopting an athletic posture like the -tiger-skin man in the advertisement, he regarded himself with some -satisfaction in the mirror, breaking off to dabble a tentative foot in -the tub. Readjusting a faucet and indulging in a few preliminary grunts, -he slid in. - -Once accustomed to the temperature of the water he relaxed into a state -of drowsy content. When he finished his bath he would dress leisurely -and walk down Fifth Avenue to the Ritz, where he had an appointment for -dinner with his two most frequent companions, Dick Caramel and Maury -Noble. Afterward he and Maury were going to the theatre--Caramel would -probably trot home and work on his book, which ought to be finished -pretty soon. - -Anthony was glad _he_ wasn't going to work on _his_ book. The notion of -sitting down and conjuring up, not only words in which to clothe -thoughts but thoughts worthy of being clothed--the whole thing was -absurdly beyond his desires. - -Emerging from his bath he polished himself with the meticulous attention -of a bootblack. Then he wandered into the bedroom, and whistling the -while a weird, uncertain melody, strolled here and there buttoning, -adjusting, and enjoying the warmth of the thick carpet on his feet. - -He lit a cigarette, tossed the match out the open top of the window, -then paused in his tracks with the cigarette two inches from his -mouth--which fell faintly ajar. His eyes were focussed upon a spot of -brilliant color on the roof of a house farther down the alley. - -It was a girl in a red neglige, silk surely, drying her hair by the -still hot sun of late afternoon. His whistle died upon the stiff air of -the room; he walked cautiously another step nearer the window with a -sudden impression that she was beautiful. Sitting on the stone parapet -beside her was a cushion the same color as her garment and she was -leaning both arms upon it as she looked down into the sunny areaway, -where Anthony could hear children playing. - -He watched her for several minutes. Something was stirred in him, -something not accounted for by the warm smell of the afternoon or the -triumphant vividness of red. He felt persistently that the girl was -beautiful--then of a sudden he understood: it was her distance, not a -rare and precious distance of soul but still distance, if only in -terrestrial yards. The autumn air was between them, and the roofs and -the blurred voices. Yet for a not altogether explained second, posing -perversely in time, his emotion had been nearer to adoration than in the -deepest kiss he had ever known. - -He finished his dressing, found a black bow tie and adjusted it -carefully by the three-sided mirror in the bathroom. Then yielding to an -impulse he walked quickly into the bedroom and again looked out the -window. The woman was standing up now; she had tossed her hair back and -he had a full view of her. She was fat, full thirty-five, utterly -undistinguished. Making a clicking noise with his mouth he returned to -the bathroom and reparted his hair. - -"To ... you ... beaut-if-ul lady," - -he sang lightly, - -"I raise ... my ... eyes--" - -Then with a last soothing brush that left an iridescent surface of sheer -gloss he left his bathroom and his apartment and walked down Fifth -Avenue to the Ritz-Carlton. - - -THREE MEN - -At seven Anthony and his friend Maury Noble are sitting at a corner -table on the cool roof. Maury Noble is like nothing so much as a large -slender and imposing cat. His eyes are narrow and full of incessant, -protracted blinks. His hair is smooth and flat, as though it has been -licked by a possible--and, if so, Herculean--mother-cat. During -Anthony's time at Harvard he had been considered the most unique figure -in his class, the most brilliant, the most original--smart, quiet and -among the saved. - -This is the man whom Anthony considers his best friend. This is the only -man of all his acquaintance whom he admires and, to a bigger extent than -he likes to admit to himself, envies. - -They are glad to see each other now--their eyes are full of kindness as -each feels the full effect of novelty after a short separation. They are -drawing a relaxation from each other's presence, a new serenity; Maury -Noble behind that fine and absurdly catlike face is all but purring. And -Anthony, nervous as a will-o'-the-wisp, restless--he is at rest now. - -They are engaged in one of those easy short-speech conversations that -only men under thirty or men under great stress indulge in. - -ANTHONY: Seven o'clock. Where's the Caramel? _(Impatiently.)_ I wish -he'd finish that interminable novel. I've spent more time hungry---- - -MAURY: He's got a new name for it. "The Demon Lover "--not bad, eh? - -ANTHONY: _(interested)_ "The Demon Lover"? Oh "woman wailing"--No--not a -bit bad! Not bad at all--d'you think? - -MAURY: Rather good. What time did you say? - -ANTHONY: Seven. - -MAURY:_(His eyes narrowing--not unpleasantly, but to express a faint -disapproval)_ Drove me crazy the other day. - -ANTHONY: How? - -MAURY: That habit of taking notes. - -ANTHONY: Me, too. Seems I'd said something night before that he -considered material but he'd forgotten it--so he had at me. He'd say -"Can't you try to concentrate?" And I'd say "You bore me to tears. How -do I remember?" - -_(MAURY laughs noiselessly, by a sort of bland and appreciative widening -of his features.)_ - -MAURY: Dick doesn't necessarily see more than any one else. He merely -can put down a larger proportion of what he sees. - -ANTHONY: That rather impressive talent---- - -MAURY: Oh, yes. Impressive! - -ANTHONY: And energy--ambitious, well-directed energy. He's so -entertaining--he's so tremendously stimulating and exciting. Often -there's something breathless in being with him. - -MAURY: Oh, yes. _(Silence, and then:)_ - -ANTHONY: _(With his thin, somewhat uncertain face at its most convinced) -_But not indomitable energy. Some day, bit by bit, it'll blow away, and -his rather impressive talent with it, and leave only a wisp of a man, -fretful and egotistic and garrulous. - -MAURY: _(With laughter)_ Here we sit vowing to each other that little -Dick sees less deeply into things than we do. And I'll bet he feels a -measure of superiority on his side--creative mind over merely critical -mind and all that. - -ANTHONY: Oh, yes. But he's wrong. He's inclined to fall for a million -silly enthusiasms. If it wasn't that he's absorbed in realism and -therefore has to adopt the garments of the cynic he'd be--he'd be -credulous as a college religious leader. He's an idealist. Oh, yes. He -thinks he's not, because he's rejected Christianity. Remember him in -college? just swallow every writer whole, one after another, ideas, -technic, and characters, Chesterton, Shaw, Wells, each one as easily -as the last. - -MAURY:_(Still considering his own last observation)_ I remember. - -ANTHONY: It's true. Natural born fetich-worshipper. Take art-- - -MAURY: Let's order. He'll be-- - -ANTHONY: Sure. Let's order. I told him-- - -MAURY: Here he comes. Look--he's going to bump that waiter. _(He lifts -his finger as a signal--lifts it as though it were a soft and friendly -claw.)_ Here y'are, Caramel. - -A NEW VOICE: _(Fiercely)_ Hello, Maury. Hello, Anthony Comstock Patch. -How is old Adam's grandson? Debutantes still after you, eh? - -_In person_ RICHARD CARAMEL _is short and fair--he is to be bald at -thirty-five. He has yellowish eyes--one of them startlingly clear, the -other opaque as a muddy pool--and a bulging brow like a funny-paper -baby. He bulges in other places--his paunch bulges, prophetically, his -words have an air of bulging from his mouth, even his dinner coat -pockets bulge, as though from contamination, with a dog-eared collection -of time-tables, programmes, and miscellaneous scraps--on these he takes -his notes with great screwings up of his unmatched yellow eyes and -motions of silence with his disengaged left hand._ - -_When he reaches the table he shakes hands with ANTHONY and MAURY. He is -one of those men who invariably shake hands, even with people whom they -have seen an hour before._ - -ANTHONY: Hello, Caramel. Glad you're here. We needed a comic relief. - -MAURY: You're late. Been racing the postman down the block? We've been -clawing over your character. - -DICK: (_Fixing_ ANTHONY _eagerly with the bright eye_) What'd you say? -Tell me and I'll write it down. Cut three thousand words out of Part One -this afternoon. - -MAURY: Noble aesthete. And I poured alcohol into my stomach. - -DICK: I don't doubt it. I bet you two have been sitting here for an hour -talking about liquor. - -ANTHONY: We never pass out, my beardless boy. - -MAURY: We never go home with ladies we meet when we're lit. - -ANTHONY: All in our parties are characterized by a certain haughty -distinction. - -DICK: The particularly silly sort who boast about being "tanks"! Trouble -is you're both in the eighteenth century. School of the Old English -Squire. Drink quietly until you roll under the table. Never have a good -time. Oh, no, that isn't done at all. - -ANTHONY: This from Chapter Six, I'll bet. - -DICK: Going to the theatre? - -MAURY: Yes. We intend to spend the evening doing some deep thinking over -of life's problems. The thing is tersely called "The Woman." I presume -that she will "pay." - -ANTHONY: My God! Is that what it is? Let's go to the Follies again. - -MAURY: I'm tired of it. I've seen it three times. (_To DICK:_) The first -time, we went out after Act One and found a most amazing bar. When we -came back we entered the wrong theatre. - -ANTHONY: Had a protracted dispute with a scared young couple we thought -were in our seats. - -DICK: (_As though talking to himself_) I think--that when I've done -another novel and a play, and maybe a book of short stories, I'll do a -musical comedy. - -MAURY: I know--with intellectual lyrics that no one will listen to. And -all the critics will groan and grunt about "Dear old Pinafore." And I -shall go on shining as a brilliantly meaningless figure in a -meaningless world. - -DICK: (_Pompously_) Art isn't meaningless. - -MAURY: It is in itself. It isn't in that it tries to make life less so. - -ANTHONY: In other words, Dick, you're playing before a grand stand -peopled with ghosts. - -MAURY: Give a good show anyhow. - -ANTHONY:(To MAURY) On the contrary, I'd feel that it being a meaningless -world, why write? The very attempt to give it purpose is purposeless. - -DICK: Well, even admitting all that, be a decent pragmatist and grant a -poor man the instinct to live. Would you want every one to accept that -sophistic rot? - -ANTHONY: Yeah, I suppose so. - -MAURY: No, sir! I believe that every one in America but a selected -thousand should be compelled to accept a very rigid system of -morals--Roman Catholicism, for instance. I don't complain of -conventional morality. I complain rather of the mediocre heretics who -seize upon the findings of sophistication and adopt the pose of a moral -freedom to which they are by no means entitled by their intelligences. - -(_Here the soup arrives and what MAURY might have gone on to say is lost -for all time._) - - -NIGHT - -Afterward they visited a ticket speculator and, at a price, obtained -seats for a new musical comedy called "High Jinks." In the foyer of the -theatre they waited a few moments to see the first-night crowd come in. -There were opera cloaks stitched of myriad, many-colored silks and furs; -there were jewels dripping from arms and throats and ear-tips of white -and rose; there were innumerable broad shimmers down the middles of -innumerable silk hats; there were shoes of gold and bronze and red and -shining black; there were the high-piled, tight-packed coiffures of many -women and the slick, watered hair of well-kept men--most of all there -was the ebbing, flowing, chattering, chuckling, foaming, slow-rolling -wave effect of this cheerful sea of people as to-night it poured its -glittering torrent into the artificial lake of laughter.... - -After the play they parted--Maury was going to a dance at Sherry's, -Anthony homeward and to bed. - -He found his way slowly over the jostled evening mass of Times Square, -which the chariot race and its thousand satellites made rarely beautiful -and bright and intimate with carnival. Faces swirled about him, a -kaleidoscope of girls, ugly, ugly as sin--too fat, too lean, yet -floating upon this autumn air as upon their own warm and passionate -breaths poured out into the night. Here, for all their vulgarity, he -thought, they were faintly and subtly mysterious. He inhaled carefully, -swallowing into his lungs perfume and the not unpleasant scent of many -cigarettes. He caught the glance of a dark young beauty sitting alone in -a closed taxicab. Her eyes in the half-light suggested night and -violets, and for a moment he stirred again to that half-forgotten -remoteness of the afternoon. - -Two young Jewish men passed him, talking in loud voices and craning -their necks here and there in fatuous supercilious glances. They were -dressed in suits of the exaggerated tightness then semi-fashionable; -their turned over collars were notched at the Adam's apple; they wore -gray spats and carried gray gloves on their cane handles. - -Passed a bewildered old lady borne along like a basket of eggs between -two men who exclaimed to her of the wonders of Times Square--explained -them so quickly that the old lady, trying to be impartially interested, -waved her head here and there like a piece of wind-worried old -orange-peel. Anthony heard a snatch of their conversation: - -"There's the Astor, mama!" - -"Look! See the chariot race sign----" - -"There's where we were to-day. No, _there!_" - -"Good gracious! ..." - -"You should worry and grow thin like a dime." He recognized the current -witticism of the year as it issued stridently from one of the pairs at -his elbow. - -"And I says to him, I says----" - -The soft rush of taxis by him, and laughter, laughter hoarse as a -crow's, incessant and loud, with the rumble of the subways -underneath--and over all, the revolutions of light, the growings and -recedings of light--light dividing like pearls--forming and reforming in -glittering bars and circles and monstrous grotesque figures cut -amazingly on the sky. - -He turned thankfully down the hush that blew like a dark wind out of a -cross-street, passed a bakery-restaurant in whose windows a dozen roast -chickens turned over and over on an automatic spit. From the door came a -smell that was hot, doughy, and pink. A drug-store next, exhaling -medicines, spilt soda water and a pleasant undertone from the cosmetic -counter; then a Chinese laundry, still open, steamy and stifling, -smelling folded and vaguely yellow. All these depressed him; reaching -Sixth Avenue he stopped at a corner cigar store and emerged feeling -better--the cigar store was cheerful, humanity in a navy blue mist, -buying a luxury .... - -Once in his apartment he smoked a last cigarette, sitting in the dark by -his open front window. For the first time in over a year he found -himself thoroughly enjoying New York. There was a rare pungency in it -certainly, a quality almost Southern. A lonesome town, though. He who -had grown up alone had lately learned to avoid solitude. During the past -several months he had been careful, when he had no engagement for the -evening, to hurry to one of his clubs and find some one. Oh, there was a -loneliness here---- - -His cigarette, its smoke bordering the thin folds of curtain with rims -of faint white spray, glowed on until the clock in St. Anne's down the -street struck one with a querulous fashionable beauty. The elevated, -half a quiet block away, sounded a rumble of drums--and should he lean -from his window he would see the train, like an angry eagle, breasting -the dark curve at the corner. He was reminded of a fantastic romance he -had lately read in which cities had been bombed from aerial trains, and -for a moment he fancied that Washington Square had declared war on -Central Park and that this was a north-bound menace loaded with battle -and sudden death. But as it passed the illusion faded; it diminished to -the faintest of drums--then to a far-away droning eagle. - -There were the bells and the continued low blur of auto horns from Fifth -Avenue, but his own street was silent and he was safe in here from all -the threat of life, for there was his door and the long hall and his -guardian bedroom--safe, safe! The arc-light shining into his window -seemed for this hour like the moon, only brighter and more beautiful -than the moon. - - -A FLASH-BACK IN PARADISE - -_Beauty, who was born anew every hundred years, sat in a sort of outdoor -waiting room through which blew gusts of white wind and occasionally a -breathless hurried star. The stars winked at her intimately as they went -by and the winds made a soft incessant flurry in her hair. She was -incomprehensible, for, in her, soul and spirit were one--the beauty of -her body was the essence of her soul. She was that unity sought for by -philosophers through many centuries. In this outdoor waiting room of -winds and stars she had been sitting for a hundred years, at peace in -the contemplation of herself._ - -_It became known to her, at length, that she was to be born again. -Sighing, she began a long conversation with a voice that was in the -white wind, a conversation that took many hours and of which I can give -only a fragment here._ - -BEAUTY: (_Her lips scarcely stirring, her eyes turned, as always, inward -upon herself_) Whither shall I journey now? - -THE VOICE: To a new country--a land you have never seen before. - -BEAUTY: (_Petulantly_) I loathe breaking into these new civilizations. -How long a stay this time? - -THE VOICE: Fifteen years. - -BEAUTY: And what's the name of the place? - -THE VOICE: It is the most opulent, most gorgeous land on earth--a land -whose wisest are but little wiser than its dullest; a land where the -rulers have minds like little children and the law-givers believe in -Santa Claus; where ugly women control strong men---- - -BEAUTY: (_In astonishment_) What? - -THE VOICE: (_Very much depressed_) Yes, it is truly a melancholy -spectacle. Women with receding chins and shapeless noses go about in -broad daylight saying "Do this!" and "Do that!" and all the men, even -those of great wealth, obey implicitly their women to whom they refer -sonorously either as "Mrs. So-and-so" or as "the wife." - -BEAUTY: But this can't be true! I can understand, of course, their -obedience to women of charm--but to fat women? to bony women? to women -with scrawny cheeks? - -THE VOICE: Even so. - -BEAUTY: What of me? What chance shall I have? - -THE VOICE: It will be "harder going," if I may borrow a phrase. - -BEAUTY: (_After a dissatisfied pause_) Why not the old lands, the land -of grapes and soft-tongued men or the land of ships and seas? - -THE VOICE: It's expected that they'll be very busy shortly. - -BEAUTY: Oh! - -THE VOICE: Your life on earth will be, as always, the interval between -two significant glances in a mundane mirror. - -BEAUTY: What will I be? Tell me? - -THE VOICE: At first it was thought that you would go this time as an -actress in the motion pictures but, after all, it's not advisable. You -will be disguised during your fifteen years as what is called a -"susciety gurl." - -BEAUTY: What's that? - -(_There is a new sound in the wind which must for our purposes be -interpreted as_ THE VOICE _scratching its head._) - -THE VOICE: (_At length_) It's a sort of bogus aristocrat. - -BEAUTY: Bogus? What is bogus? - -THE VOICE: That, too, you will discover in this land. You will find much -that is bogus. Also, you will do much that is bogus. - -BEAUTY: (_Placidly_) It all sounds so vulgar. - -THE VOICE: Not half as vulgar as it is. You will be known during your -fifteen years as a ragtime kid, a flapper, a jazz-baby, and a baby vamp. -You will dance new dances neither more nor less gracefully than you -danced the old ones. - -BEAUTY: (_In a whisper_) Will I be paid? - -THE VOICE: Yes, as usual--in love. - -BEAUTY: (_With a faint laugh which disturbs only momentarily the -immobility of her lips_) And will I like being called a jazz-baby? - -THE VOICE: (_Soberly_) You will love it.... - -(_The dialogue ends here, with_ BEAUTY _still sitting quietly, the stars -pausing in an ecstasy of appreciation, the wind, white and gusty, -blowing through her hair._ - -_All this took place seven years before_ ANTHONY _sat by the front -windows of his apartment and listened to the chimes of St. Anne's_.) - - - -CHAPTER II - - -PORTRAIT OF A SIREN - -Crispness folded down upon New York a month later, bringing November and -the three big football games and a great fluttering of furs along Fifth -Avenue. It brought, also, a sense of tension to the city, and suppressed -excitement. Every morning now there were invitations in Anthony's mail. -Three dozen virtuous females of the first layer were proclaiming their -fitness, if not their specific willingness, to bear children unto three -dozen millionaires. Five dozen virtuous females of the second layer were -proclaiming not only this fitness, but in addition a tremendous -undaunted ambition toward the first three dozen young men, who were of -course invited to each of the ninety-six parties--as were the young -lady's group of family friends, acquaintances, college boys, and eager -young outsiders. To continue, there was a third layer from the skirts of -the city, from Newark and the Jersey suburbs up to bitter Connecticut -and the ineligible sections of Long Island--and doubtless contiguous -layers down to the city's shoes: Jewesses were coming out into a society -of Jewish men and women, from Riverside to the Bronx, and looking -forward to a rising young broker or jeweller and a kosher wedding; Irish -girls were casting their eyes, with license at last to do so, upon a -society of young Tammany politicians, pious undertakers, and grown-up -choirboys. - -And, naturally, the city caught the contagious air of entre--the working -girls, poor ugly souls, wrapping soap in the factories and showing -finery in the big stores, dreamed that perhaps in the spectacular -excitement of this winter they might obtain for themselves the coveted -male--as in a muddled carnival crowd an inefficient pickpocket may -consider his chances increased. And the chimneys commenced to smoke and -the subway's foulness was freshened. And the actresses came out in new -plays and the publishers came out with new books and the Castles came -out with new dances. And the railroads came out with new schedules -containing new mistakes instead of the old ones that the commuters had -grown used to.... - -The City was coming out! - -Anthony, walking along Forty-second Street one afternoon under a -steel-gray sky, ran unexpectedly into Richard Caramel emerging from the -Manhattan Hotel barber shop. It was a cold day, the first definitely -cold day, and Caramel had on one of those knee-length, sheep-lined coats -long worn by the working men of the Middle West, that were just coming -into fashionable approval. His soft hat was of a discreet dark brown, -and from under it his clear eye flamed like a topaz. He stopped Anthony -enthusiastically, slapping him on the arms more from a desire to keep -himself warm than from playfulness, and, after his inevitable hand -shake, exploded into sound. - -"Cold as the devil--Good Lord, I've been working like the deuce all day -till my room got so cold I thought I'd get pneumonia. Darn landlady -economizing on coal came up when I yelled over the stairs for her for -half an hour. Began explaining why and all. God! First she drove me -crazy, then I began to think she was sort of a character, and took notes -while she talked--so she couldn't see me, you know, just as though I -were writing casually--" - -He had seized Anthony's arm and walking him briskly up Madison Avenue. - -"Where to?" - -"Nowhere in particular." - -"Well, then what's the use?" demanded Anthony. - -They stopped and stared at each other, and Anthony wondered if the cold -made his own face as repellent as Dick Caramel's, whose nose was -crimson, whose bulging brow was blue, whose yellow unmatched eyes were -red and watery at the rims. After a moment they began walking again. - -"Done some good work on my novel." Dick was looking and talking -emphatically at the sidewalk. "But I have to get out once in a while." -He glanced at Anthony apologetically, as though craving encouragement. - -"I have to talk. I guess very few people ever really _think_, I mean sit -down and ponder and have ideas in sequence. I do my thinking in writing -or conversation. You've got to have a start, sort of--something to -defend or contradict--don't you think?" - -Anthony grunted and withdrew his arm gently. - -"I don't mind carrying you, Dick, but with that coat--" - -"I mean," continued Richard Caramel gravely, "that on paper your first -paragraph contains the idea you're going to damn or enlarge on. In -conversation you've got your vis-a-vis's last statement--but when you -simply _ponder_, why, your ideas just succeed each other like -magic-lantern pictures and each one forces out the last." - -They passed Forty-fifth Street and slowed down slightly. Both of them -lit cigarettes and blew tremendous clouds of smoke and frosted breath -into the air. - -"Let's walk up to the Plaza and have an egg-nog," suggested Anthony. "Do -you good. Air'll get the rotten nicotine out of your lungs. Come -on--I'll let you talk about your book all the way." - -"I don't want to if it bores you. I mean you needn't do it as a favor." -The words tumbled out in haste, and though he tried to keep his face -casual it screwed up uncertainly. Anthony was compelled to protest: -"Bore me? I should say not!" - -"Got a cousin--" began Dick, but Anthony interrupted by stretching out -his arms and breathing forth a low cry of exultation. - -"Good weather!" he exclaimed, "isn't it? Makes me feel about ten. I mean -it makes me feel as I should have felt when I was ten. Murderous! Oh, -God! one minute it's my world, and the next I'm the world's fool. To-day -it's my world and everything's easy, easy. Even Nothing is easy!" - -"Got a cousin up at the Plaza. Famous girl. We can go up and meet her. -She lives there in the winter--has lately anyway--with her mother -and father." - -"Didn't know you had cousins in New York." - -"Her name's Gloria. She's from home--Kansas City. Her mother's a -practising Bilphist, and her father's quite dull but a perfect -gentleman." - -"What are they? Literary material?" - -"They try to be. All the old man does is tell me he just met the most -wonderful character for a novel. Then he tells me about some idiotic -friend of his and then he says: '_There_'s a character for you! Why -don't you write him up? Everybody'd be interested in _him_.' Or else he -tells me about Japan or Paris, or some other very obvious place, and -says: 'Why don't you write a story about that place? That'd be a -wonderful setting for a story!'" - -"How about the girl?" inquired Anthony casually, "Gloria--Gloria what?" - -"Gilbert. Oh, you've heard of her--Gloria Gilbert. Goes to dances at -colleges--all that sort of thing." - -"I've heard her name." - -"Good-looking--in fact damned attractive." - -They reached Fiftieth Street and turned over toward the Avenue. - -"I don't care for young girls as a rule," said Anthony, frowning. - -This was not strictly true. While it seemed to him that the average -debutante spent every hour of her day thinking and talking about what -the great world had mapped out for her to do during the next hour, any -girl who made a living directly on her prettiness interested him -enormously. - -"Gloria's darn nice--not a brain in her head." - -Anthony laughed in a one-syllabled snort. - -"By that you mean that she hasn't a line of literary patter." - -"No, I don't." - -"Dick, you know what passes as brains in a girl for you. Earnest young -women who sit with you in a corner and talk earnestly about life. The -kind who when they were sixteen argued with grave faces as to whether -kissing was right or wrong--and whether it was immoral for freshmen to -drink beer." - -Richard Caramel was offended. His scowl crinkled like crushed paper. - -"No--" he began, but Anthony interrupted ruthlessly. - -"Oh, yes; kind who just at present sit in corners and confer on the -latest Scandinavian Dante available in English translation." - -Dick turned to him, a curious falling in his whole countenance. His -question was almost an appeal. - -"What's the matter with you and Maury? You talk sometimes as though I -were a sort of inferior." - -Anthony was confused, but he was also cold and a little uncomfortable, -so he took refuge in attack. - -"I don't think your brains matter, Dick." - -"Of course they matter!" exclaimed Dick angrily. "What do you mean? Why -don't they matter?" - -"You might know too much for your pen." - -"I couldn't possibly." - -"I can imagine," insisted Anthony, "a man knowing too much for his -talent to express. Like me. Suppose, for instance, I have more wisdom -than you, and less talent. It would tend to make me inarticulate. You, -on the contrary, have enough water to fill the pail and a big enough -pail to hold the water." - -"I don't follow you at all," complained Dick in a crestfallen tone. -Infinitely dismayed, he seemed to bulge in protest. He was staring -intently at Anthony and caroming off a succession of passers-by, who -reproached him with fierce, resentful glances. - -"I simply mean that a talent like Wells's could carry the intelligence -of a Spencer. But an inferior talent can only be graceful when it's -carrying inferior ideas. And the more narrowly you can look at a thing -the more entertaining you can be about it." - -Dick considered, unable to decide the exact degree of criticism intended -by Anthony's remarks. But Anthony, with that facility which seemed so -frequently to flow from him, continued, his dark eyes gleaming in his -thin face, his chin raised, his voice raised, his whole physical -being raised: - -"Say I am proud and sane and wise--an Athenian among Greeks. Well, I -might fail where a lesser man would succeed. He could imitate, he could -adorn, he could be enthusiastic, he could be hopefully constructive. But -this hypothetical me would be too proud to imitate, too sane to be -enthusiastic, too sophisticated to be Utopian, too Grecian to adorn." - -"Then you don't think the artist works from his intelligence?" - -"No. He goes on improving, if he can, what he imitates in the way of -style, and choosing from his own interpretation of the things around him -what constitutes material. But after all every writer writes because -it's his mode of living. Don't tell me you like this 'Divine Function of -the Artist' business?" - -"I'm not accustomed even to refer to myself as an artist." - -"Dick," said Anthony, changing his tone, "I want to beg your pardon." - -"Why?" - -"For that outburst. I'm honestly sorry. I was talking for effect." - -Somewhat mollified, Dick rejoined: - -"I've often said you were a Philistine at heart." - -It was a crackling dusk when they turned in under the white facade of -the Plaza and tasted slowly the foam and yellow thickness of an egg-nog. -Anthony looked at his companion. Richard Caramel's nose and brow were -slowly approaching a like pigmentation; the red was leaving the one, the -blue deserting the other. Glancing in a mirror, Anthony was glad to find -that his own skin had not discolored. On the contrary, a faint glow had -kindled in his cheeks--he fancied that he had never looked so well. - -"Enough for me," said Dick, his tone that of an athlete in training. "I -want to go up and see the Gilberts. Won't you come?" - -"Why--yes. If you don't dedicate me to the parents and dash off in the -corner with Dora." - -"Not Dora--Gloria." - -A clerk announced them over the phone, and ascending to the tenth floor -they followed a winding corridor and knocked at 1088. The door was -answered by a middle-aged lady--Mrs. Gilbert herself. - -"How do you do?" She spoke in the conventional American lady-lady -language. "Well, I'm _aw_fully glad to see you--" - -Hasty interjections by Dick, and then: - -"Mr. Pats? Well, do come in, and leave your coat there." She pointed to -a chair and changed her inflection to a deprecatory laugh full of minute -gasps. "This is really lovely--lovely. Why, Richard, you haven't been -here for _so_ long--no!--no!" The latter monosyllables served half as -responses, half as periods, to some vague starts from Dick. "Well, do -sit down and tell me what you've been doing." - -One crossed and recrossed; one stood and bowed ever so gently; one -smiled again and again with helpless stupidity; one wondered if she -would ever sit down at length one slid thankfully into a chair and -settled for a pleasant call. - -"I suppose it's because you've been busy--as much as anything else," -smiled Mrs. Gilbert somewhat ambiguously. The "as much as anything else" -she used to balance all her more rickety sentences. She had two other -ones: "at least that's the way I look at it" and "pure and -simple"--these three, alternated, gave each of her remarks an air of -being a general reflection on life, as though she had calculated all -causes and, at length, put her finger on the ultimate one. - -Richard Caramel's face, Anthony saw, was now quite normal. The brow and -cheeks were of a flesh color, the nose politely inconspicuous. He had -fixed his aunt with the bright-yellow eye, giving her that acute and -exaggerated attention that young males are accustomed to render to all -females who are of no further value. - -"Are you a writer too, Mr. Pats? ... Well, perhaps we can all bask in -Richard's fame."--Gentle laughter led by Mrs. Gilbert. - -"Gloria's out," she said, with an air of laying down an axiom from which -she would proceed to derive results. "She's dancing somewhere. Gloria -goes, goes, goes. I tell her I don't see how she stands it. She dances -all afternoon and all night, until I think she's going to wear herself -to a shadow. Her father is very worried about her." - -She smiled from one to the other. They both smiled. - -She was composed, Anthony perceived, of a succession of semicircles and -parabolas, like those figures that gifted folk make on the typewriter: -head, arms, bust, hips, thighs, and ankles were in a bewildering tier of -roundnesses. Well ordered and clean she was, with hair of an -artificially rich gray; her large face sheltered weather-beaten blue -eyes and was adorned with just the faintest white mustache. - -"I always say," she remarked to Anthony, "that Richard is an ancient -soul." - -In the tense pause that followed, Anthony considered a pun--something -about Dick having been much walked upon. - -"We all have souls of different ages," continued Mrs. Gilbert radiantly; -"at least that's what I say." - -"Perhaps so," agreed Anthony with an air of quickening to a hopeful -idea. The voice bubbled on: - -"Gloria has a very young soul--irresponsible, as much as anything else. -She has no sense of responsibility." - -"She's sparkling, Aunt Catherine," said Richard pleasantly. "A sense of -responsibility would spoil her. She's too pretty." - -"Well," confessed Mrs. Gilbert, "all I know is that she goes and goes -and goes--" - -The number of goings to Gloria's discredit was lost in the rattle of the -door-knob as it turned to admit Mr. Gilbert. - -He was a short man with a mustache resting like a small white cloud -beneath his undistinguished nose. He had reached the stage where his -value as a social creature was a black and imponderable negative. His -ideas were the popular delusions of twenty years before; his mind -steered a wabbly and anaemic course in the wake of the daily newspaper -editorials. After graduating from a small but terrifying Western -university, he had entered the celluloid business, and as this required -only the minute measure of intelligence he brought to it, he did well -for several years--in fact until about 1911, when he began exchanging -contracts for vague agreements with the moving picture industry. The -moving picture industry had decided about 1912 to gobble him up, and at -this time he was, so to speak, delicately balanced on its tongue. -Meanwhile he was supervising manager of the Associated Mid-western Film -Materials Company, spending six months of each year in New York and the -remainder in Kansas City and St. Louis. He felt credulously that there -was a good thing coming to him--and his wife thought so, and his -daughter thought so too. - -He disapproved of Gloria: she stayed out late, she never ate her meals, -she was always in a mix-up--he had irritated her once and she had used -toward him words that he had not thought were part of her vocabulary. -His wife was easier. After fifteen years of incessant guerilla warfare -he had conquered her--it was a war of muddled optimism against organized -dulness, and something in the number of "yes's" with which he could -poison a conversation had won him the victory. - -"Yes-yes-yes-yes," he would say, "yes-yes-yes-yes. Let me see. That was -the summer of--let me see--ninety-one or ninety-two--Yes-yes-yes-yes----" - -Fifteen years of yes's had beaten Mrs. Gilbert. Fifteen further years of -that incessant unaffirmative affirmative, accompanied by the perpetual -flicking of ash-mushrooms from thirty-two thousand cigars, had broken -her. To this husband of hers she made the last concession of married -life, which is more complete, more irrevocable, than the first--she -listened to him. She told herself that the years had brought her -tolerance--actually they had slain what measure she had ever possessed -of moral courage. - -She introduced him to Anthony. - -"This is Mr. Pats," she said. - -The young man and the old touched flesh; Mr. Gilbert's hand was soft, -worn away to the pulpy semblance of a squeezed grapefruit. Then husband -and wife exchanged greetings--he told her it had grown colder out; he -said he had walked down to a news-stand on Forty-fourth Street for a -Kansas City paper. He had intended to ride back in the bus but he had -found it too cold, yes, yes, yes, yes, too cold. - -Mrs. Gilbert added flavor to his adventure by being impressed with his -courage in braving the harsh air. - -"Well, you _are_ spunky!" she exclaimed admiringly. "You _are_ spunky. I -wouldn't have gone out for anything." - -Mr. Gilbert with true masculine impassivity disregarded the awe he had -excited in his wife. He turned to the two young men and triumphantly -routed them on the subject of the weather. Richard Caramel was called on -to remember the month of November in Kansas. No sooner had the theme -been pushed toward him, however, than it was violently fished back to be -lingered over, pawed over, elongated, and generally devitalized by -its sponsor. - -The immemorial thesis that the days somewhere were warm but the nights -very pleasant was successfully propounded and they decided the exact -distance on an obscure railroad between two points that Dick had -inadvertently mentioned. Anthony fixed Mr. Gilbert with a steady stare -and went into a trance through which, after a moment, Mrs. Gilbert's -smiling voice penetrated: - -"It seems as though the cold were damper here--it seems to eat into my -bones." - -As this remark, adequately yessed, had been on the tip of Mr. Gilbert's -tongue, he could not be blamed for rather abruptly changing the subject. - -"Where's Gloria?" - -"She ought to be here any minute." - -"Have you met my daughter, Mr.----?" - -"Haven't had the pleasure. I've heard Dick speak of her often." - -"She and Richard are cousins." - -"Yes?" Anthony smiled with some effort. He was not used to the society -of his seniors, and his mouth was stiff from superfluous cheerfulness. -It was such a pleasant thought about Gloria and Dick being cousins. He -managed within the next minute to throw an agonized glance at -his friend. - -Richard Caramel was afraid they'd have to toddle off. - -Mrs. Gilbert was tremendously sorry. - -Mr. Gilbert thought it was too bad. - -Mrs. Gilbert had a further idea--something about being glad they'd come, -anyhow, even if they'd only seen an old lady 'way too old to flirt with -them. Anthony and Dick evidently considered this a sly sally, for they -laughed one bar in three-four time. - -Would they come again soon? - -"Oh, yes." - -Gloria would be _aw_fully sorry! - -"Good-by----" - -"Good-by----" - -Smiles! - -Smiles! - -Bang! - -Two disconsolate young men walking down the tenth-floor corridor of the -Plaza in the direction of the elevator. - - -A LADY'S LEGS - -Behind Maury Noble's attractive indolence, his irrelevance and his easy -mockery, lay a surprising and relentless maturity of purpose. His -intention, as he stated it in college, had been to use three years in -travel, three years in utter leisure--and then to become immensely rich -as quickly as possible. - -His three years of travel were over. He had accomplished the globe with -an intensity and curiosity that in any one else would have seemed -pedantic, without redeeming spontaneity, almost the self-editing of a -human Baedeker; but, in this case, it assumed an air of mysterious -purpose and significant design--as though Maury Noble were some -predestined anti-Christ, urged by a preordination to go everywhere there -was to go along the earth and to see all the billions of humans who bred -and wept and slew each other here and there upon it. - -Back in America, he was sallying into the search for amusement with the -same consistent absorption. He who had never taken more than a few -cocktails or a pint of wine at a sitting, taught himself to drink as he -would have taught himself Greek--like Greek it would be the gateway to a -wealth of new sensations, new psychic states, new reactions in joy -or misery. - -His habits were a matter for esoteric speculation. He had three rooms in -a bachelor apartment on Forty-forth street, but he was seldom to be -found there. The telephone girl had received the most positive -instructions that no one should even have his ear without first giving a -name to be passed upon. She had a list of half a dozen people to whom he -was never at home, and of the same number to whom he was always at home. -Foremost on the latter list were Anthony Patch and Richard Caramel. - -Maury's mother lived with her married son in Philadelphia, and there -Maury went usually for the week-ends, so one Saturday night when -Anthony, prowling the chilly streets in a fit of utter boredom, dropped -in at the Molton Arms he was overjoyed to find that Mr. Noble was -at home. - -His spirits soared faster than the flying elevator. This was so good, so -extremely good, to be about to talk to Maury--who would be equally happy -at seeing him. They would look at each other with a deep affection just -behind their eyes which both would conceal beneath some attenuated -raillery. Had it been summer they would have gone out together and -indolently sipped two long Tom Collinses, as they wilted their collars -and watched the faintly diverting round of some lazy August cabaret. But -it was cold outside, with wind around the edges of the tall buildings -and December just up the street, so better far an evening together under -the soft lamplight and a drink or two of Bushmill's, or a thimbleful of -Maury's Grand Marnier, with the books gleaming like ornaments against -the walls, and Maury radiating a divine inertia as he rested, large and -catlike, in his favorite chair. - -There he was! The room closed about Anthony, warmed him. The glow of -that strong persuasive mind, that temperament almost Oriental in its -outward impassivity, warmed Anthony's restless soul and brought him a -peace that could be likened only to the peace a stupid woman gives. One -must understand all--else one must take all for granted. Maury filled -the room, tigerlike, godlike. The winds outside were stilled; the brass -candlesticks on the mantel glowed like tapers before an altar. - -"What keeps you here to-day?" Anthony spread himself over a yielding -sofa and made an elbow-rest among the pillows. - -"Just been here an hour. Tea dance--and I stayed so late I missed my -train to Philadelphia." - -"Strange to stay so long," commented Anthony curiously. - -"Rather. What'd you do?" - -"Geraldine. Little usher at Keith's. I told you about her." - -"Oh!" - -"Paid me a call about three and stayed till five. Peculiar little -soul--she gets me. She's so utterly stupid." - -Maury was silent. - -"Strange as it may seem," continued Anthony, "so far as I'm concerned, -and even so far as I know, Geraldine is a paragon of virtue." - -He had known her a month, a girl of nondescript and nomadic habits. -Someone had casually passed her on to Anthony, who considered her -amusing and rather liked the chaste and fairylike kisses she had given -him on the third night of their acquaintance, when they had driven in a -taxi through the Park. She had a vague family--a shadowy aunt and uncle -who shared with her an apartment in the labyrinthine hundreds. She was -company, familiar and faintly intimate and restful. Further than that he -did not care to experiment--not from any moral compunction, but from a -dread of allowing any entanglement to disturb what he felt was the -growing serenity of his life. - -"She has two stunts," he informed Maury; "one of them is to get her hair -over her eyes some way and then blow it out, and the other is to say -'You cra-a-azy!' when some one makes a remark that's over her head. It -fascinates me. I sit there hour after hour, completely intrigued by the -maniacal symptoms she finds in my imagination." - -Maury stirred in his chair and spoke. - -"Remarkable that a person can comprehend so little and yet live in such -a complex civilization. A woman like that actually takes the whole -universe in the most matter-of-fact way. From the influence of Rousseau -to the bearing of the tariff rates on her dinner, the whole phenomenon -is utterly strange to her. She's just been carried along from an age of -spearheads and plunked down here with the equipment of an archer for -going into a pistol duel. You could sweep away the entire crust of -history and she'd never know the difference." - -"I wish our Richard would write about her." - -"Anthony, surely you don't think she's worth writing about." - -"As much as anybody," he answered, yawning. "You know I was thinking -to-day that I have a great confidence in Dick. So long as he sticks to -people and not to ideas, and as long as his inspirations come from life -and not from art, and always granting a normal growth, I believe he'll -be a big man." - -"I should think the appearance of the black note-book would prove that -he's going to life." - -Anthony raised himself on his elbow and answered eagerly: - -"He tries to go to life. So does every author except the very worst, but -after all most of them live on predigested food. The incident or -character may be from life, but the writer usually interprets it in -terms of the last book he read. For instance, suppose he meets a sea -captain and thinks he's an original character. The truth is that he sees -the resemblance between the sea captain and the last sea captain Dana -created, or who-ever creates sea captains, and therefore he knows how -to set this sea captain on paper. Dick, of course, can set down any -consciously picturesque, character-like character, but could he -accurately transcribe his own sister?" - -Then they were off for half an hour on literature. - -"A classic," suggested Anthony, "is a successful book that has survived -the reaction of the next period or generation. Then it's safe, like a -style in architecture or furniture. It's acquired a picturesque dignity -to take the place of its fashion...." - -After a time the subject temporarily lost its tang. The interest of the -two young men was not particularly technical. They were in love with -generalities. Anthony had recently discovered Samuel Butler and the -brisk aphorisms in the note-book seemed to him the quintessence of -criticism. Maury, his whole mind so thoroughly mellowed by the very -hardness of his scheme of life, seemed inevitably the wiser of the two, -yet in the actual stuff of their intelligences they were not, it seemed, -fundamentally different. - -They drifted from letters to the curiosities of each other's day. - -"Whose tea was it?" - -"People named Abercrombie." - -"Why'd you stay late? Meet a luscious debutante?" - -"Yes." - -"Did you really?" Anthony's voice lifted in surprise. - -"Not a debutante exactly. Said she came out two winters ago in Kansas -City." - -"Sort of left-over?" - -"No," answered Maury with some amusement, "I think that's the last thing -I'd say about her. She seemed--well, somehow the youngest person there." - -"Not too young to make you miss a train." - -"Young enough. Beautiful child." - -Anthony chuckled in his one-syllable snort. - -"Oh, Maury, you're in your second childhood. What do you mean by -beautiful?" - -Maury gazed helplessly into space. - -"Well, I can't describe her exactly--except to say that she was -beautiful. She was--tremendously alive. She was eating gum-drops." - -"What!" - -"It was a sort of attenuated vice. She's a nervous kind--said she always -ate gum-drops at teas because she had to stand around so long in -one place." - -"What'd you talk about--Bergson? Bilphism? Whether the one-step is -immoral?" - -Maury was unruffled; his fur seemed to run all ways. - -"As a matter of fact we did talk on Bilphism. Seems her mother's a -Bilphist. Mostly, though, we talked about legs." - -Anthony rocked in glee. - -"My God! Whose legs?" - -"Hers. She talked a lot about hers. As though they were a sort of choice -bric-a-brac. She aroused a great desire to see them." - -"What is she--a dancer?" - -"No, I found she was a cousin of Dick's." - -Anthony sat upright so suddenly that the pillow he released stood on end -like a live thing and dove to the floor. - -"Name's Gloria Gilbert?" he cried. - -"Yes. Isn't she remarkable?" - -"I'm sure I don't know--but for sheer dulness her father--" - -"Well," interrupted Maury with implacable conviction, "her family may be -as sad as professional mourners but I'm inclined to think that she's a -quite authentic and original character. The outer signs of the -cut-and-dried Yale prom girl and all that--but different, very -emphatically different." - -"Go on, go on!" urged Anthony. "Soon as Dick told me she didn't have a -brain in her head I knew she must be pretty good." - -"Did he say that?" - -"Swore to it," said Anthony with another snorting laugh. - -"Well, what he means by brains in a woman is--" - -"I know," interrupted Anthony eagerly, "he means a smattering of -literary misinformation." - -"That's it. The kind who believes that the annual moral let-down of the -country is a very good thing or the kind who believes it's a very -ominous thing. Either pince-nez or postures. Well, this girl talked -about legs. She talked about skin too--her own skin. Always her own. She -told me the sort of tan she'd like to get in the summer and how closely -she usually approximated it." - -"You sat enraptured by her low alto?" - -"By her low alto! No, by tan! I began thinking about tan. I began to -think what color I turned when I made my last exposure about two years -ago. I did use to get a pretty good tan. I used to get a sort of bronze, -if I remember rightly." - -Anthony retired into the cushions, shaken with laughter. - -"She's got you going--oh, Maury! Maury the Connecticut life-saver. The -human nutmeg. Extra! Heiress elopes with coast-guard because of his -luscious pigmentation! Afterward found to be Tasmanian strain in -his family!" - -Maury sighed; rising he walked to the window and raised the shade. - -"Snowing hard." - -Anthony, still laughing quietly to himself, made no answer. - -"Another winter." Maury's voice from the window was almost a whisper. -"We're growing old, Anthony. I'm twenty-seven, by God! Three years to -thirty, and then I'm what an undergraduate calls a middle-aged man." - -Anthony was silent for a moment. - -"You _are_ old, Maury," he agreed at length. "The first signs of a very -dissolute and wabbly senescence--you have spent the afternoon talking -about tan and a lady's legs." - -Maury pulled down the shade with a sudden harsh snap. - -"Idiot!" he cried, "that from you! Here I sit, young Anthony, as I'll -sit for a generation or more and watch such gay souls as you and Dick -and Gloria Gilbert go past me, dancing and singing and loving and hating -one another and being moved, being eternally moved. And I am moved only -by my lack of emotion. I shall sit and the snow will come--oh, for a -Caramel to take notes--and another winter and I shall be thirty and you -and Dick and Gloria will go on being eternally moved and dancing by me -and singing. But after you've all gone I'll be saying things for new -Dicks to write down, and listening to the disillusions and cynicisms and -emotions of new Anthonys--yes, and talking to new Glorias about the tans -of summers yet to come." - -The firelight flurried up on the hearth. Maury left the window, stirred -the blaze with a poker, and dropped a log upon the andirons. Then he sat -back in his chair and the remnants of his voice faded in the new fire -that spit red and yellow along the bark. - -"After all, Anthony, it's you who are very romantic and young. It's you -who are infinitely more susceptible and afraid of your calm being -broken. It's me who tries again and again to be moved--let myself go a -thousand times and I'm always me. Nothing--quite--stirs me. - -"Yet," he murmured after another long pause, "there was something about -that little girl with her absurd tan that was eternally old--like me." - - -TURBULENCE - -Anthony turned over sleepily in his bed, greeting a patch of cold sun on -his counterpane, crisscrossed with the shadows of the leaded window. The -room was full of morning. The carved chest in the corner, the ancient -and inscrutable wardrobe, stood about the room like dark symbols of the -obliviousness of matter; only the rug was beckoning and perishable to -his perishable feet, and Bounds, horribly inappropriate in his soft -collar, was of stuff as fading as the gauze of frozen breath he uttered. -He was close to the bed, his hand still lowered where he had been -jerking at the upper blanket, his dark-brown eyes fixed imperturbably -upon his master. - -"Bows!" muttered the drowsy god. "Thachew, Bows?" - -"It's I, sir." - -Anthony moved his head, forced his eyes wide, and blinked triumphantly. - -"Bounds." - -"Yes, sir?" - -"Can you get off--yeow-ow-oh-oh-oh God!--" Anthony yawned insufferably -and the contents of his brain seemed to fall together in a dense hash. -He made a fresh start. - -"Can you come around about four and serve some tea and sandwiches or -something?" - -"Yes, sir." - -Anthony considered with chilling lack of inspiration. "Some sandwiches," -he repeated helplessly, "oh, some cheese sandwiches and jelly ones and -chicken and olive, I guess. Never mind breakfast." - -The strain of invention was too much. He shut his eyes wearily, let his -head roll to rest inertly, and quickly relaxed what he had regained of -muscular control. Out of a crevice of his mind crept the vague but -inevitable spectre of the night before--but it proved in this case to be -nothing but a seemingly interminable conversation with Richard Caramel, -who had called on him at midnight; they had drunk four bottles of beer -and munched dry crusts of bread while Anthony listened to a reading of -the first part of "The Demon Lover." - ---Came a voice now after many hours. Anthony disregarded it, as sleep -closed over him, folded down upon him, crept up into the byways of -his mind. - -Suddenly he was awake, saying: "What?" - -"For how many, sir?" It was still Bounds, standing patient and -motionless at the foot of the bed--Bounds who divided his manner among -three gentlemen. - -"How many what?" - -"I think, sir, I'd better know how many are coming. I'll have to plan -for the sandwiches, sir." - -"Two," muttered Anthony huskily; "lady and a gentleman." - -Bounds said, "Thank you, sir," and moved away, bearing with him his -humiliating reproachful soft collar, reproachful to each of the three -gentlemen, who only demanded of him a third. - -After a long time Anthony arose and drew an opalescent dressing grown of -brown and blue over his slim pleasant figure. With a last yawn he went -into the bathroom, and turning on the dresser light (the bathroom had no -outside exposure) he contemplated himself in the mirror with some -interest. A wretched apparition, he thought; he usually thought so in -the morning--sleep made his face unnaturally pale. He lit a cigarette -and glanced through several letters and the morning Tribune. - -An hour later, shaven and dressed, he was sitting at his desk looking at -a small piece of paper he had taken out of his wallet. It was scrawled -with semi-legible memoranda: "See Mr. Howland at five. Get hair-cut. See -about Rivers' bill. Go book-store." - ---And under the last: "Cash in bank, $690 (crossed out), $612 (crossed -out), $607." - -Finally, down at the bottom and in a hurried scrawl: "Dick and Gloria -Gilbert for tea." - -This last item brought him obvious satisfaction. His day, usually a -jelly-like creature, a shapeless, spineless thing, had attained Mesozoic -structure. It was marching along surely, even jauntily, toward a climax, -as a play should, as a day should. He dreaded the moment when the -backbone of the day should be broken, when he should have met the girl -at last, talked to her, and then bowed her laughter out the door, -returning only to the melancholy dregs in the teacups and the gathering -staleness of the uneaten sandwiches. - -There was a growing lack of color in Anthony's days. He felt it -constantly and sometimes traced it to a talk he had had with Maury Noble -a month before. That anything so ingenuous, so priggish, as a sense of -waste should oppress him was absurd, but there was no denying the fact -that some unwelcome survival of a fetish had drawn him three weeks -before down to the public library, where, by the token of Richard -Caramel's card, he had drawn out half a dozen books on the Italian -Renaissance. That these books were still piled on his desk in the -original order of carriage, that they were daily increasing his -liabilities by twelve cents, was no mitigation of their testimony. They -were cloth and morocco witnesses to the fact of his defection. Anthony -had had several hours of acute and startling panic. - -In justification of his manner of living there was first, of course, The -Meaninglessness of Life. As aides and ministers, pages and squires, -butlers and lackeys to this great Khan there were a thousand books -glowing on his shelves, there was his apartment and all the money that -was to be his when the old man up the river should choke on his last -morality. From a world fraught with the menace of debutantes and the -stupidity of many Geraldines he was thankfully delivered--rather should -he emulate the feline immobility of Maury and wear proudly the -culminative wisdom of the numbered generations. - -Over and against these things was something which his brain persistently -analyzed and dealt with as a tiresome complex but which, though -logically disposed of and bravely trampled under foot, had sent him out -through the soft slush of late November to a library which had none of -the books he most wanted. It is fair to analyze Anthony as far as he -could analyze himself; further than that it is, of course, presumption. -He found in himself a growing horror and loneliness. The idea of eating -alone frightened him; in preference he dined often with men he detested. -Travel, which had once charmed him, seemed at length, unendurable, a -business of color without substance, a phantom chase after his own -dream's shadow. - ---If I am essentially weak, he thought, I need work to do, work to do. -It worried him to think that he was, after all, a facile mediocrity, -with neither the poise of Maury nor the enthusiasm of Dick. It seemed a -tragedy to want nothing--and yet he wanted something, something. He knew -in flashes what it was--some path of hope to lead him toward what he -thought was an imminent and ominous old age. - -After cocktails and luncheon at the University Club Anthony felt better. -He had run into two men from his class at Harvard, and in contrast to -the gray heaviness of their conversation his life assumed color. Both of -them were married: one spent his coffee time in sketching an -extra-nuptial adventure to the bland and appreciative smiles of the -other. Both of them, he thought, were Mr. Gilberts in embryo; the number -of their "yes's" would have to be quadrupled, their natures crabbed by -twenty years--then they would be no more than obsolete and broken -machines, pseudo-wise and valueless, nursed to an utter senility by the -women they had broken. - -Ah, he was more than that, as he paced the long carpet in the lounge -after dinner, pausing at the window to look into the harried street. He -was Anthony Patch, brilliant, magnetic, the heir of many years and many -men. This was his world now--and that last strong irony he craved lay in -the offing. - -With a stray boyishness he saw himself a power upon the earth; with his -grandfather's money he might build his own pedestal and be a Talleyrand, -a Lord Verulam. The clarity of his mind, its sophistication, its -versatile intelligence, all at their maturity and dominated by some -purpose yet to be born would find him work to do. On this minor his -dream faded--work to do: he tried to imagine himself in Congress rooting -around in the litter of that incredible pigsty with the narrow and -porcine brows he saw pictured sometimes in the rotogravure sections of -the Sunday newspapers, those glorified proletarians babbling blandly to -the nation the ideas of high school seniors! Little men with copy-book -ambitions who by mediocrity had thought to emerge from mediocrity into -the lustreless and unromantic heaven of a government by the people--and -the best, the dozen shrewd men at the top, egotistic and cynical, were -content to lead this choir of white ties and wire collar-buttons in a -discordant and amazing hymn, compounded of a vague confusion between -wealth as a reward of virtue and wealth as a proof of vice, and -continued cheers for God, the Constitution, and the Rocky Mountains! - -Lord Verulam! Talleyrand! - -Back in his apartment the grayness returned. His cocktails had died, -making him sleepy, somewhat befogged and inclined to be surly. Lord -Verulam--he? The very thought was bitter. Anthony Patch with no record -of achievement, without courage, without strength to be satisfied with -truth when it was given him. Oh, he was a pretentious fool, making -careers out of cocktails and meanwhile regretting, weakly and secretly, -the collapse of an insufficient and wretched idealism. He had garnished -his soul in the subtlest taste and now he longed for the old rubbish. He -was empty, it seemed, empty as an old bottle-- - -The buzzer rang at the door. Anthony sprang up and lifted the tube to -his ear. It was Richard Caramel's voice, stilted and facetious: - -"Announcing Miss Gloria Gilbert." - -"How do you do?" he said, smiling and holding the door ajar. - -Dick bowed. - -"Gloria, this is Anthony." - -"Well!" she cried, holding out a little gloved hand. Under her fur coat -her dress was Alice-blue, with white lace crinkled stiffly about -her throat. - -"Let me take your things." - -Anthony stretched out his arms and the brown mass of fur tumbled into -them. - -"Thanks." - -"What do you think of her, Anthony?" Richard Caramel demanded -barbarously. "Isn't she beautiful?" - -"Well!" cried the girl defiantly--withal unmoved. - -She was dazzling--alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a -glance. Her hair, full of a heavenly glamour, was gay against the winter -color of the room. - -Anthony moved about, magician-like, turning the mushroom lamp into an -orange glory. The stirred fire burnished the copper andirons on -the hearth-- - -"I'm a solid block of ice," murmured Gloria casually, glancing around -with eyes whose irises were of the most delicate and transparent bluish -white. "What a slick fire! We found a place where you could stand on an -iron-bar grating, sort of, and it blew warm air up at you--but Dick -wouldn't wait there with me. I told him to go on alone and let me -be happy." - -Conventional enough this. She seemed talking for her own pleasure, -without effort. Anthony, sitting at one end of the sofa, examined her -profile against the foreground of the lamp: the exquisite regularity of -nose and upper lip, the chin, faintly decided, balanced beautifully on a -rather short neck. On a photograph she must have been completely -classical, almost cold--but the glow of her hair and cheeks, at once -flushed and fragile, made her the most living person he had ever seen. - -"... Think you've got the best name I've heard," she was saying, still -apparently to herself; her glance rested on him a moment and then -flitted past him--to the Italian bracket-lamps clinging like luminous -yellow turtles at intervals along the walls, to the books row upon row, -then to her cousin on the other side. "Anthony Patch. Only you ought to -look sort of like a horse, with a long narrow face--and you ought to be -in tatters." - -"That's all the Patch part, though. How should Anthony look?" - -"You look like Anthony," she assured him seriously--he thought she had -scarcely seen him--"rather majestic," she continued, "and solemn." - -Anthony indulged in a disconcerted smile. - -"Only I like alliterative names," she went on, "all except mine. Mine's -too flamboyant. I used to know two girls named Jinks, though, and just -think if they'd been named anything except what they were named--Judy -Jinks and Jerry Jinks. Cute, what? Don't you think?" Her childish mouth -was parted, awaiting a rejoinder. - -"Everybody in the next generation," suggested Dick, "will be named Peter -or Barbara--because at present all the piquant literary characters are -named Peter or Barbara." - -Anthony continued the prophecy: - -"Of course Gladys and Eleanor, having graced the last generation of -heroines and being at present in their social prime, will be passed on -to the next generation of shop-girls--" - -"Displacing Ella and Stella," interrupted Dick. - -"And Pearl and Jewel," Gloria added cordially, "and Earl and Elmer and -Minnie." - -"And then I'll come along," remarked Dick, "and picking up the obsolete -name, Jewel, I'll attach it to some quaint and attractive character and -it'll start its career all over again." - -Her voice took up the thread of subject and wove along with faintly -upturning, half-humorous intonations for sentence ends--as though -defying interruption--and intervals of shadowy laughter. Dick had told -her that Anthony's man was named Bounds--she thought that was wonderful! -Dick had made some sad pun about Bounds doing patchwork, but if there -was one thing worse than a pun, she said, it was a person who, as the -inevitable come-back to a pun, gave the perpetrator a mock-reproachful -look. - -"Where are you from?" inquired Anthony. He knew, but beauty had rendered -him thoughtless. - -"Kansas City, Missouri." - -"They put her out the same time they barred cigarettes." - -"Did they bar cigarettes? I see the hand of my holy grandfather." - -"He's a reformer or something, isn't he?" - -"I blush for him." - -"So do I," she confessed. "I detest reformers, especially the sort who -try to reform me." - -"Are there many of those?" - -"Dozens. It's 'Oh, Gloria, if you smoke so many cigarettes you'll lose -your pretty complexion!' and 'Oh, Gloria, why don't you marry and -settle down?'" - -Anthony agreed emphatically while he wondered who had had the temerity -to speak thus to such a personage. - -"And then," she continued, "there are all the subtle reformers who tell -you the wild stories they've heard about you and how they've been -sticking up for you." - -He saw, at length, that her eyes were gray, very level and cool, and -when they rested on him he understood what Maury had meant by saying she -was very young and very old. She talked always about herself as a very -charming child might talk, and her comments on her tastes and distastes -were unaffected and spontaneous. - -"I must confess," said Anthony gravely, "that even _I_'ve heard one -thing about you." - -Alert at once, she sat up straight. Those eyes, with the grayness and -eternity of a cliff of soft granite, caught his. - -"Tell me. I'll believe it. I always believe anything any one tells me -about myself--don't you?" - -"Invariably!" agreed the two men in unison. - -"Well, tell me." - -"I'm not sure that I ought to," teased Anthony, smiling unwillingly. She -was so obviously interested, in a state of almost laughable -self-absorption. - -"He means your nickname," said her cousin. - -"What name?" inquired Anthony, politely puzzled. - -Instantly she was shy--then she laughed, rolled back against the -cushions, and turned her eyes up as she spoke: - -"Coast-to-Coast Gloria." Her voice was full of laughter, laughter -undefined as the varying shadows playing between fire and lamp upon her -hair. "O Lord!" - -Still Anthony was puzzled. - -"What do you mean?" - -"_Me_, I mean. That's what some silly boys coined for _me_." - -"Don't you see, Anthony," explained Dick, "traveller of a nation-wide -notoriety and all that. Isn't that what you've heard? She's been called -that for years--since she was seventeen." - -Anthony's eyes became sad and humorous. - -"Who's this female Methuselah you've brought in here, Caramel?" - -She disregarded this, possibly rather resented it, for she switched back -to the main topic. - -"What _have_ you heard of me?" - -"Something about your physique." - -"Oh," she said, coolly disappointed, "that all?" - -"Your tan." - -"My tan?" She was puzzled. Her hand rose to her throat, rested there an -instant as though the fingers were feeling variants of color. - -"Do you remember Maury Noble? Man you met about a month ago. You made a -great impression." - -She thought a moment. - -"I remember--but he didn't call me up." - -"He was afraid to, I don't doubt." - -It was black dark without now and Anthony wondered that his apartment -had ever seemed gray--so warm and friendly were the books and pictures -on the walls and the good Bounds offering tea from a respectful shadow -and the three nice people giving out waves of interest and laughter back -and forth across the happy fire. - - -DISSATISFACTION - -On Thursday afternoon Gloria and Anthony had tea together in the grill -room at the Plaza. Her fur-trimmed suit was gray--"because with gray you -_have_ to wear a lot of paint," she explained--and a small toque sat -rakishly on her head, allowing yellow ripples of hair to wave out in -jaunty glory. In the higher light it seemed to Anthony that her -personality was infinitely softer--she seemed so young, scarcely -eighteen; her form under the tight sheath, known then as a hobble-skirt, -was amazingly supple and slender, and her hands, neither "artistic" nor -stubby, were small as a child's hands should be. - -As they entered, the orchestra were sounding the preliminary whimpers to -a maxixe, a tune full of castanets and facile faintly languorous violin -harmonies, appropriate to the crowded winter grill teeming with an -excited college crowd, high-spirited at the approach of the holidays. -Carefully, Gloria considered several locations, and rather to Anthony's -annoyance paraded him circuitously to a table for two at the far side of -the room. Reaching it she again considered. Would she sit on the right -or on the left? Her beautiful eyes and lips were very grave as she made -her choice, and Anthony thought again how naive was her every gesture; -she took all the things of life for hers to choose from and apportion, -as though she were continually picking out presents for herself from an -inexhaustible counter. - -Abstractedly she watched the dancers for a few moments, commenting -murmurously as a couple eddied near. - -"There's a pretty girl in blue"--and as Anthony looked obediently--" -there! No. behind you--there!" - -"Yes," he agreed helplessly. - -"You didn't see her." - -"I'd rather look at you." - -"I know, but she was pretty. Except that she had big ankles." - -"Was she?--I mean, did she?" he said indifferently. - -A girl's salutation came from a couple dancing close to them. - -"Hello, Gloria! O Gloria!" - -"Hello there." - -"Who's that?" he demanded. - -"I don't know. Somebody." She caught sight of another face. "Hello, -Muriel!" Then to Anthony: "There's Muriel Kane. Now I think she's -attractive, 'cept not very." - -Anthony chuckled appreciatively. - -"Attractive, 'cept not very," he repeated. - -She smiled--was interested immediately. - -"Why is that funny?" Her tone was pathetically intent. - -"It just was." - -"Do you want to dance?" - -"Do you?" - -"Sort of. But let's sit," she decided. - -"And talk about you? You love to talk about you, don't you?" - -"Yes." Caught in a vanity, she laughed. - -"I imagine your autobiography would be a classic." - -"Dick says I haven't got one." - -"Dick!" he exclaimed. "What does he know about you?" - -"Nothing. But he says the biography of every woman begins with the first -kiss that counts, and ends when her last child is laid in her arms." - -"He's talking from his book." - -"He says unloved women have no biographies--they have histories." - -Anthony laughed again. - -"Surely you don't claim to be unloved!" - -"Well, I suppose not." - -"Then why haven't you a biography? Haven't you ever had a kiss that -counted?" As the words left his lips he drew in his breath sharply as -though to suck them back. This _baby_! - -"I don't know what you mean 'counts,'" she objected. - -"I wish you'd tell me how old you are." - -"Twenty-two," she said, meeting his eyes gravely. "How old did you -think?" - -"About eighteen." - -"I'm going to start being that. I don't like being twenty-two. I hate it -more than anything in the world." - -"Being twenty-two?" - -"No. Getting old and everything. Getting married." - -"Don't you ever want to marry?" - -"I don't want to have responsibility and a lot of children to take care -of." - -Evidently she did not doubt that on her lips all things were good. He -waited rather breathlessly for her next remark, expecting it to follow -up her last. She was smiling, without amusement but pleasantly, and -after an interval half a dozen words fell into the space between them: - -"I wish I had some gum-drops." - -"You shall!" He beckoned to a waiter and sent him to the cigar counter. - -"D'you mind? I love gum-drops. Everybody kids me about it because I'm -always whacking away at one--whenever my daddy's not around." - -"Not at all.--Who are all these children?" he asked suddenly. "Do you -know them all?" - -"Why--no, but they're from--oh, from everywhere, I suppose. Don't you -ever come here?" - -"Very seldom. I don't care particularly for 'nice girls.'" - -Immediately he had her attention. She turned a definite shoulder to the -dancers, relaxed in her chair, and demanded: - -"What _do_ you do with yourself?" - -Thanks to a cocktail Anthony welcomed the question. In a mood to talk, -he wanted, moreover, to impress this girl whose interest seemed so -tantalizingly elusive--she stopped to browse in unexpected pastures, -hurried quickly over the inobviously obvious. He wanted to pose. He -wanted to appear suddenly to her in novel and heroic colors. He wanted -to stir her from that casualness she showed toward everything -except herself. - -"I do nothing," he began, realizing simultaneously that his words were -to lack the debonair grace he craved for them. "I do nothing, for -there's nothing I can do that's worth doing." - -"Well?" He had neither surprised her nor even held her, yet she had -certainly understood him, if indeed he had said aught worth -understanding. - -"Don't you approve of lazy men?" - -She nodded. - -"I suppose so, if they're gracefully lazy. Is that possible for an -American?" - -"Why not?" he demanded, discomfited. - -But her mind had left the subject and wandered up ten floors. - -"My daddy's mad at me," she observed dispassionately. - -"Why? But I want to know just why it's impossible for an American to be -gracefully idle"--his words gathered conviction--"it astonishes me. -It--it--I don't understand why people think that every young man ought -to go down-town and work ten hours a day for the best twenty years of -his life at dull, unimaginative work, certainly not altruistic work." - -He broke off. She watched him inscrutably. He waited for her to agree or -disagree, but she did neither. - -"Don't you ever form judgments on things?" he asked with some -exasperation. - -She shook her head and her eyes wandered back to the dancers as she -answered: - -"I don't know. I don't know anything about--what you should do, or what -anybody should do." - -She confused him and hindered the flow of his ideas. Self-expression had -never seemed at once so desirable and so impossible. - -"Well," he admitted apologetically, "neither do I, of course, but--" - -"I just think of people," she continued, "whether they seem right where -they are and fit into the picture. I don't mind if they don't do -anything. I don't see why they should; in fact it always astonishes me -when anybody does anything." - -"You don't want to do anything?" - -"I want to sleep." - -For a second he was startled, almost as though she had meant this -literally. - -"Sleep?" - -"Sort of. I want to just be lazy and I want some of the people around me -to be doing things, because that makes me feel comfortable and safe--and -I want some of them to be doing nothing at all, because they can be -graceful and companionable for me. But I never want to change people or -get excited over them." - -"You're a quaint little determinist," laughed Anthony. "It's your world, -isn't it?" - -"Well--" she said with a quick upward glance, "isn't it? As long as -I'm--young." - -She had paused slightly before the last word and Anthony suspected that -she had started to say "beautiful." It was undeniably what she -had intended. - -Her eyes brightened and he waited for her to enlarge on the theme. He -had drawn her out, at any rate--he bent forward slightly to catch -the words. - -But "Let's dance!" was all she said. - -That winter afternoon at the Plaza was the first of a succession of -"dates" Anthony made with her in the blurred and stimulating days before -Christmas. Invariably she was busy. What particular strata of the city's -social life claimed her he was a long time finding out. It seemed to -matter very little. She attended the semi-public charity dances at the -big hotels; he saw her several times at dinner parties in Sherry's, and -once as he waited for her to dress, Mrs. Gilbert, apropos of her -daughter's habit of "going," rattled off an amazing holiday programme -that included half a dozen dances to which Anthony had received cards. - -He made engagements with her several times for lunch and tea--the former -were hurried and, to him at least, rather unsatisfactory occasions, for -she was sleepy-eyed and casual, incapable of concentrating upon anything -or of giving consecutive attention to his remarks. When after two of -these sallow meals he accused her of tendering him the skin and bones of -the day she laughed and gave him a tea-time three days off. This was -infinitely more satisfactory. - -One Sunday afternoon just before Christmas he called up and found her in -the lull directly after some important but mysterious quarrel: she -informed him in a tone of mingled wrath and amusement that she had sent -a man out of her apartment--here Anthony speculated violently--and that -the man had been giving a little dinner for her that very night and that -of course she wasn't going. So Anthony took her to supper. - -"Let's go to something!" she proposed as they went down in the elevator. -"I want to see a show, don't you?" - -Inquiry at the hotel ticket desk disclosed only two Sunday night -"concerts." - -"They're always the same," she complained unhappily, "same old Yiddish -comedians. Oh, let's go somewhere!" - -To conceal a guilty suspicion that he should have arranged a performance -of some kind for her approval Anthony affected a knowing cheerfulness. - -"We'll go to a good cabaret." - -"I've seen every one in town." - -"Well, we'll find a new one." - -She was in wretched humor; that was evident. Her gray eyes were granite -now indeed. When she wasn't speaking she stared straight in front of her -as if at some distasteful abstraction in the lobby. - -"Well, come on, then." - -He followed her, a graceful girl even in her enveloping fur, out to a -taxicab, and, with an air of having a definite place in mind, instructed -the driver to go over to Broadway and then turn south. He made several -casual attempts at conversation but as she adopted an impenetrable armor -of silence and answered him in sentences as morose as the cold darkness -of the taxicab he gave up, and assuming a like mood fell into a -dim gloom. - -A dozen blocks down Broadway Anthony's eyes were caught by a large and -unfamiliar electric sign spelling "Marathon" in glorious yellow script, -adorned with electrical leaves and flowers that alternately vanished and -beamed upon the wet and glistening street. He leaned and rapped on the -taxi-window and in a moment was receiving information from a colored -doorman: Yes, this was a cabaret. Fine cabaret. Bes' showina city! - -"Shall we try it?" - -With a sigh Gloria tossed her cigarette out the open door and prepared -to follow it; then they had passed under the screaming sign, under the -wide portal, and up by a stuffy elevator into this unsung palace -of pleasure. - -The gay habitats of the very rich and the very poor, the very dashing -and the very criminal, not to mention the lately exploited very -Bohemian, are made known to the awed high school girls of Augusta, -Georgia, and Redwing, Minnesota, not only through the bepictured and -entrancing spreads of the Sunday theatrical supplements but through the -shocked and alarmful eyes of Mr. Rupert Hughes and other chroniclers of -the mad pace of America. But the excursions of Harlem onto Broadway, the -deviltries of the dull and the revelries of the respectable are a matter -of esoteric knowledge only to the participants themselves. - -A tip circulates--and in the place knowingly mentioned, gather the lower -moral-classes on Saturday and Sunday nights--the little troubled men who -are pictured in the comics as "the Consumer" or "the Public." They have -made sure that the place has three qualifications: it is cheap; it -imitates with a sort of shoddy and mechanical wistfulness the glittering -antics of the great cafes in the theatre district; and--this, above all, -important--it is a place where they can "take a nice girl," which means, -of course, that every one has become equally harmless, timid, and -uninteresting through lack of money and imagination. - -There on Sunday nights gather the credulous, sentimental, underpaid, -overworked people with hyphenated occupations: book-keepers, -ticket-sellers, office-managers, salesmen, and, most of all, -clerks--clerks of the express, of the mail, of the grocery, of the -brokerage, of the bank. With them are their giggling, over-gestured, -pathetically pretentious women, who grow fat with them, bear them too -many babies, and float helpless and uncontent in a colorless sea of -drudgery and broken hopes. - -They name these brummagem cabarets after Pullman cars. The "Marathon"! -Not for them the salacious similes borrowed from the cafes of Paris! -This is where their docile patrons bring their "nice women," whose -starved fancies are only too willing to believe that the scene is -comparatively gay and joyous, and even faintly immoral. This is life! -Who cares for the morrow? - -Abandoned people! - -Anthony and Gloria, seated, looked about them. At the next table a party -of four were in process of being joined by a party of three, two men and -a girl, who were evidently late--and the manner of the girl was a study -in national sociology. She was meeting some new men--and she was -pretending desperately. By gesture she was pretending and by words and -by the scarcely perceptible motionings of her eyelids that she belonged -to a class a little superior to the class with which she now had to do, -that a while ago she had been, and presently would again be, in a -higher, rarer air. She was almost painfully refined--she wore a last -year's hat covered with violets no more yearningly pretentious and -palpably artificial than herself. - -Fascinated, Anthony and Gloria watched the girl sit down and radiate the -impression that she was only condescendingly present. For _me_, her eyes -said, this is practically a slumming expedition, to be cloaked with -belittling laughter and semi-apologetics. - ---And the other women passionately poured out the impression that though -they were in the crowd they were not of it. This was not the sort of -place to which they were accustomed; they had dropped in because it was -near by and convenient--every party in the restaurant poured out that -impression ... who knew? They were forever changing class, all of -them--the women often marrying above their opportunities, the men -striking suddenly a magnificent opulence: a sufficiently preposterous -advertising scheme, a celestialized ice cream cone. Meanwhile, they met -here to eat, closing their eyes to the economy displayed in infrequent -changings of table-cloths, in the casualness of the cabaret performers, -most of all in the colloquial carelessness and familiarity of the -waiters. One was sure that these waiters were not impressed by their -patrons. One expected that presently they would sit at the tables ... - -"Do you object to this?" inquired Anthony. - -Gloria's face warmed and for the first time that evening she smiled. - -"I love it," she said frankly. It was impossible to doubt her. Her gray -eyes roved here and there, drowsing, idle or alert, on each group, -passing to the next with unconcealed enjoyment, and to Anthony were made -plain the different values of her profile, the wonderfully alive -expressions of her mouth, and the authentic distinction of face and form -and manner that made her like a single flower amidst a collection of -cheap bric-a-brac. At her happiness, a gorgeous sentiment welled into -his eyes, choked him up, set his nerves a-tingle, and filled his throat -with husky and vibrant emotion. There was a hush upon the room. The -careless violins and saxophones, the shrill rasping complaint of a child -near by, the voice of the violet-hatted girl at the next table, all -moved slowly out, receded, and fell away like shadowy reflections on the -shining floor--and they two, it seemed to him, were alone and infinitely -remote, quiet. Surely the freshness of her cheeks was a gossamer -projection from a land of delicate and undiscovered shades; her hand -gleaming on the stained table-cloth was a shell from some far and wildly -virginal sea.... - -Then the illusion snapped like a nest of threads; the room grouped -itself around him, voices, faces, movement; the garish shimmer of the -lights overhead became real, became portentous; breath began, the slow -respiration that she and he took in time with this docile hundred, the -rise and fall of bosoms, the eternal meaningless play and interplay and -tossing and reiterating of word and phrase--all these wrenched his -senses open to the suffocating pressure of life--and then her voice came -at him, cool as the suspended dream he had left behind. - -"I belong here," she murmured, "I'm like these people." - -For an instant this seemed a sardonic and unnecessary paradox hurled at -him across the impassable distances she created about herself. Her -entrancement had increased--her eyes rested upon a Semitic violinist who -swayed his shoulders to the rhythm of the year's mellowest fox-trot: - -"Something--goes -Ring-a-ting-a-ling-a-ling -Right in-your ear--" - -Again she spoke, from the centre of this pervasive illusion of her own. -It amazed him. It was like blasphemy from the mouth of a child. - -"I'm like they are--like Japanese lanterns and crape paper, and the -music of that orchestra." - -"You're a young idiot!" he insisted wildly. She shook her blond head. - -"No, I'm not. I _am_ like them.... You ought to see.... You don't know -me." She hesitated and her eyes came back to him, rested abruptly on -his, as though surprised at the last to see him there. "I've got a -streak of what you'd call cheapness. I don't know where I get it but -it's--oh, things like this and bright colors and gaudy vulgarity. I seem -to belong here. These people could appreciate me and take me for -granted, and these men would fall in love with me and admire me, whereas -the clever men I meet would just analyze me and tell me I'm this because -of this or that because of that." - ---Anthony for the moment wanted fiercely to paint her, to set her down -_now_, as she was, as, as with each relentless second she could never -be again. - -"What were you thinking?" she asked. - -"Just that I'm not a realist," he said, and then: "No, only the -romanticist preserves the things worth preserving." - -Out of the deep sophistication of Anthony an understanding formed, -nothing atavistic or obscure, indeed scarcely physical at all, an -understanding remembered from the romancings of many generations of -minds that as she talked and caught his eyes and turned her lovely head, -she moved him as he had never been moved before. The sheath that held -her soul had assumed significance--that was all. She was a sun, radiant, -growing, gathering light and storing it--then after an eternity pouring -it forth in a glance, the fragment of a sentence, to that part of him -that cherished all beauty and all illusion. - - - -CHAPTER III - - -THE CONNOISSEUR OF KISSES - -From his undergraduate days as editor of The Harvard Crimson Richard -Caramel had desired to write. But as a senior he had picked up the -glorified illusion that certain men were set aside for "service" and, -going into the world, were to accomplish a vague yearnful something -which would react either in eternal reward or, at the least, in the -personal satisfaction of having striven for the greatest good of the -greatest number. - -This spirit has long rocked the colleges in America. It begins, as a -rule, during the immaturities and facile impressions of freshman -year--sometimes back in preparatory school. Prosperous apostles known -for their emotional acting go the rounds of the universities and, by -frightening the amiable sheep and dulling the quickening of interest and -intellectual curiosity which is the purpose of all education, distil a -mysterious conviction of sin, harking back to childhood crimes and to -the ever-present menace of "women." To these lectures go the wicked -youths to cheer and joke and the timid to swallow the tasty pills, which -would be harmless if administered to farmers' wives and pious -drug-clerks but are rather dangerous medicine for these "future -leaders of men." - -This octopus was strong enough to wind a sinuous tentacle about Richard -Caramel. The year after his graduation it called him into the slums of -New York to muck about with bewildered Italians as secretary to an -"Alien Young Men's Rescue Association." He labored at it over a year -before the monotony began to weary him. The aliens kept coming -inexhaustibly--Italians, Poles, Scandinavians, Czechs, Armenians--with -the same wrongs, the same exceptionally ugly faces and very much the -same smells, though he fancied that these grew more profuse and diverse -as the months passed. His eventual conclusions about the expediency of -service were vague, but concerning his own relation to it they were -abrupt and decisive. Any amiable young man, his head ringing with the -latest crusade, could accomplish as much as he could with the debris of -Europe--and it was time for him to write. - -He had been living in a down-town Y.M.C.A., but when he quit the task of -making sow-ear purses out of sows' ears, he moved up-town and went to -work immediately as a reporter for The Sun. He kept at this for a year, -doing desultory writing on the side, with little success, and then one -day an infelicitous incident peremptorily closed his newspaper career. -On a February afternoon he was assigned to report a parade of Squadron -A. Snow threatening, he went to sleep instead before a hot fire, and -when he woke up did a smooth column about the muffled beats of the -horses' hoofs in the snow... This he handed in. Next morning a marked -copy of the paper was sent down to the City Editor with a scrawled note: -"Fire the man who wrote this." It seemed that Squadron A had also seen -the snow threatening--had postponed the parade until another day. - -A week later he had begun "The Demon Lover."... - -In January, the Monday of the months, Richard Caramel's nose was blue -constantly, a sardonic blue, vaguely suggestive of the flames licking -around a sinner. His book was nearly ready, and as it grew in -completeness it seemed to grow also in its demands, sapping him, -overpowering him, until he walked haggard and conquered in its shadow. -Not only to Anthony and Maury did he pour out his hopes and boasts and -indecisions, but to any one who could be prevailed upon to listen. He -called on polite but bewildered publishers, he discussed it with his -casual vis-a-vis at the Harvard Club; it was even claimed by Anthony -that he had been discovered, one Sunday night, debating the -transposition of Chapter Two with a literary ticket-collector in the -chill and dismal recesses of a Harlem subway station. And latest among -his confidantes was Mrs. Gilbert, who sat with him by the hour and -alternated between Bilphism and literature in an intense cross-fire. - -"Shakespeare was a Bilphist," she assured him through a fixed smile. -"Oh, yes! He was a Bilphist. It's been proved." - -At this Dick would look a bit blank. - -"If you've read 'Hamlet' you can't help but see." - -"Well, he--he lived in a more credulous age--a more religious age." - -But she demanded the whole loaf: - -"Oh, yes, but you see Bilphism isn't a religion. It's the science of all -religions." She smiled defiantly at him. This was the _bon mot_ of her -belief. There was something in the arrangement of words which grasped -her mind so definitely that the statement became superior to any -obligation to define itself. It is not unlikely that she would have -accepted any idea encased in this radiant formula--which was perhaps not -a formula; it was the _reductio ad absurdum_ of all formulas. - -Then eventually, but gorgeously, would come Dick's turn. - -"You've heard of the new poetry movement. You haven't? Well, it's a lot -of young poets that are breaking away from the old forms and doing a lot -of good. Well, what I was going to say was that my book is going to -start a new prose movement, a sort of renaissance." - -"I'm sure it will," beamed Mrs. Gilbert. "I'm _sure_ it will. I went to -Jenny Martin last Tuesday, the palmist, you know, that every one's _mad_ -about. I told her my nephew was engaged upon a work and she said she -knew I'd be glad to hear that his success would be _extraordinary_. But -she'd never seen you or known anything about you--not even your _name_." - -Having made the proper noises to express his amazement at this -astounding phenomenon, Dick waved her theme by him as though he were an -arbitrary traffic policeman, and, so to speak, beckoned forward his -own traffic. - -"I'm absorbed, Aunt Catherine," he assured her, "I really am. All my -friends are joshing me--oh, I see the humor in it and I don't care. I -think a person ought to be able to take joshing. But I've got a sort of -conviction," he concluded gloomily. - -"You're an ancient soul, I always say." - -"Maybe I am." Dick had reached the stage where he no longer fought, but -submitted. He _must_ be an ancient soul, he fancied grotesquely; so old -as to be absolutely rotten. However, the reiteration of the phrase still -somewhat embarrassed him and sent uncomfortable shivers up his back. He -changed the subject. - -"Where is my distinguished cousin Gloria?" - -"She's on the go somewhere, with some one." - -Dick paused, considered, and then, screwing up his face into what was -evidently begun as a smile but ended as a terrifying frown, delivered -a comment. - -"I think my friend Anthony Patch is in love with her." - -Mrs. Gilbert started, beamed half a second too late, and breathed her -"Really?" in the tone of a detective play-whisper. - -"I _think_ so," corrected Dick gravely. "She's the first girl I've ever -seen him with, so much." - -"Well, of course," said Mrs. Gilbert with meticulous carelessness, -"Gloria never makes me her confidante. She's very secretive. Between you -and me"--she bent forward cautiously, obviously determined that only -Heaven and her nephew should share her confession--"between you and me, -I'd like to see her settle down." - -Dick arose and paced the floor earnestly, a small, active, already -rotund young man, his hands thrust unnaturally into his bulging pockets. - -"I'm not claiming I'm right, mind you," he assured the -infinitely-of-the-hotel steel-engraving which smirked respectably back -at him. "I'm saying nothing that I'd want Gloria to know. But I think -Mad Anthony is interested--tremendously so. He talks about her -constantly. In any one else that'd be a bad sign." - -"Gloria is a very young soul--" began Mrs. Gilbert eagerly, but her -nephew interrupted with a hurried sentence: - -"Gloria'd be a very young nut not to marry him." He stopped and faced -her, his expression a battle map of lines and dimples, squeezed and -strained to its ultimate show of intensity--this as if to make up by his -sincerity for any indiscretion in his words. "Gloria's a wild one, Aunt -Catherine. She's uncontrollable. How she's done it I don't know, but -lately she's picked up a lot of the funniest friends. She doesn't seem -to care. And the men she used to go with around New York were--" He -paused for breath. - -"Yes-yes-yes," interjected Mrs. Gilbert, with an anaemic attempt to hide -the immense interest with which she listened. - -"Well," continued Richard Caramel gravely, "there it is. I mean that the -men she went with and the people she went with used to be first rate. -Now they aren't." - -Mrs. Gilbert blinked very fast--her bosom trembled, inflated, remained -so for an instant, and with the exhalation her words flowed out in -a torrent. - -She knew, she cried in a whisper; oh, yes, mothers see these things. But -what could she do? He knew Gloria. He'd seen enough of Gloria to know -how hopeless it was to try to deal with her. Gloria had been so -spoiled--in a rather complete and unusual way. She had been suckled -until she was three, for instance, when she could probably have chewed -sticks. Perhaps--one never knew--it was this that had given that health -and _hardiness_ to her whole personality. And then ever since she was -twelve years old she'd had boys about her so thick--oh, so thick one -couldn't _move_. At sixteen she began going to dances at preparatory -schools, and then came the colleges; and everywhere she went, boys, -boys, boys. At first, oh, until she was eighteen there had been so many -that it never seemed one any more than the others, but then she began to -single them out. - -She knew there had been a string of affairs spread over about three -years, perhaps a dozen of them altogether. Sometimes the men were -undergraduates, sometimes just out of college--they lasted on an average -of several months each, with short attractions in between. Once or twice -they had endured longer and her mother had hoped she would be engaged, -but always a new one came--a new one-- - -The men? Oh, she made them miserable, literally! There was only one who -had kept any sort of dignity, and he had been a mere child, young Carter -Kirby, of Kansas City, who was so conceited anyway that he just sailed -out on his vanity one afternoon and left for Europe next day with his -father. The others had been--wretched. They never seemed to know when -she was tired of them, and Gloria had seldom been deliberately unkind. -They would keep phoning, writing letters to her, trying to see her, -making long trips after her around the country. Some of them had -confided in Mrs. Gilbert, told her with tears in their eyes that they -would never get over Gloria ... at least two of them had since married, -though.... But Gloria, it seemed, struck to kill--to this day Mr. -Carstairs called up once a week, and sent her flowers which she no -longer bothered to refuse. - -Several times, twice, at least, Mrs. Gilbert knew it had gone as far as -a private engagement--with Tudor Baird and that Holcome boy at Pasadena. -She was sure it had, because--this must go no further--she had come in -unexpectedly and found Gloria acting, well, very much engaged indeed. -She had not spoken to her daughter, of course. She had had a certain -sense of delicacy and, besides, each time she had expected an -announcement in a few weeks. But the announcement never came; instead, a -new man came. - -Scenes! Young men walking up and down the library like caged tigers! -Young men glaring at each other in the hall as one came and the other -left! Young men calling up on the telephone and being hung up upon in -desperation! Young men threatening South America! ... Young men writing -the most pathetic letters! (She said nothing to this effect, but Dick -fancied that Mrs. Gilbert's eyes had seen some of these letters.) - -... And Gloria, between tears and laughter, sorry, glad, out of love and -in love, miserable, nervous, cool, amidst a great returning of presents, -substitution of pictures in immemorial frames, and taking of hot baths -and beginning again--with the next. - -That state of things continued, assumed an air of permanency. Nothing -harmed Gloria or changed her or moved her. And then out of a clear sky -one day she informed her mother that undergraduates wearied her. She was -absolutely going to no more college dances. - -This had begun the change--not so much in her actual habits, for she -danced, and had as many "dates" as ever--but they were dates in a -different spirit. Previously it had been a sort of pride, a matter of -her own vainglory. She had been, probably, the most celebrated and -sought-after young beauty in the country. Gloria Gilbert of Kansas City! -She had fed on it ruthlessly--enjoying the crowds around her, the manner -in which the most desirable men singled her out; enjoying the fierce -jealousy of other girls; enjoying the fabulous, not to say scandalous, -and, her mother was glad to say, entirely unfounded rumors about -her--for instance, that she had gone in the Yale swimming-pool one night -in a chiffon evening dress. - -And from loving it with a vanity that was almost masculine--it had been -in the nature of a triumphant and dazzling career--she became suddenly -anaesthetic to it. She retired. She who had dominated countless parties, -who had blown fragrantly through many ballrooms to the tender tribute of -many eyes, seemed to care no longer. He who fell in love with her now -was dismissed utterly, almost angrily. She went listlessly with the most -indifferent men. She continually broke engagements, not as in the past -from a cool assurance that she was irreproachable, that the man she -insulted would return like a domestic animal--but indifferently, without -contempt or pride. She rarely stormed at men any more--she yawned at -them. She seemed--and it was so strange--she seemed to her mother to be -growing cold. - -Richard Caramel listened. At first he had remained standing, but as his -aunt's discourse waxed in content--it stands here pruned by half, of all -side references to the youth of Gloria's soul and to Mrs. Gilbert's own -mental distresses--he drew a chair up and attended rigorously as she -floated, between tears and plaintive helplessness, down the long story -of Gloria's life. When she came to the tale of this last year, a tale of -the ends of cigarettes left all over New York in little trays marked -"Midnight Frolic" and "Justine Johnson's Little Club," he began nodding -his head slowly, then faster and faster, until, as she finished on a -staccato note, it was bobbing briskly up and down, absurdly like a -doll's wired head, expressing--almost anything. - -In a sense Gloria's past was an old story to him. He had followed it -with the eyes of a journalist, for he was going to write a book about -her some day. But his interests, just at present, were family interests. -He wanted to know, in particular, who was this Joseph Bloeckman that he -had seen her with several times; and those two girls she was with -constantly, "this" Rachael Jerryl and "this" Miss Kane--surely Miss Kane -wasn't exactly the sort one would associate with Gloria! - -But the moment had passed. Mrs. Gilbert having climbed the hill of -exposition was about to glide swiftly down the ski-jump of collapse. Her -eyes were like a blue sky seen through two round, red window-casements. -The flesh about her mouth was trembling. - -And at the moment the door opened, admitting into the room Gloria and -the two young ladies lately mentioned. - - -TWO YOUNG WOMEN - -"Well!" - -"How do you do, Mrs. Gilbert!" - -Miss Kane and Miss Jerryl are presented to Mr. Richard Caramel. "This is -Dick" (laughter). - -"I've heard so much about you," says Miss Kane between a giggle and a -shout. - -"How do you do," says Miss Jerryl shyly. - -Richard Caramel tries to move about as if his figure were better. He is -torn between his innate cordiality and the fact that he considers these -girls rather common--not at all the Farmover type. - -Gloria has disappeared into the bedroom. - -"Do sit down," beams Mrs. Gilbert, who is by now quite herself. "Take -off your things." Dick is afraid she will make some remark about the age -of his soul, but he forgets his qualms in completing a conscientious, -novelist's examination of the two young women. - -Muriel Kane had originated in a rising family of East Orange. She was -short rather than small, and hovered audaciously between plumpness and -width. Her hair was black and elaborately arranged. This, in conjunction -with her handsome, rather bovine eyes, and her over-red lips, combined -to make her resemble Theda Bara, the prominent motion picture actress. -People told her constantly that she was a "vampire," and she believed -them. She suspected hopefully that they were afraid of her, and she did -her utmost under all circumstances to give the impression of danger. An -imaginative man could see the red flag that she constantly carried, -waving it wildly, beseechingly--and, alas, to little spectacular avail. -She was also tremendously timely: she knew the latest songs, all the -latest songs--when one of them was played on the phonograph she would -rise to her feet and rock her shoulders back and forth and snap her -fingers, and if there was no music she would accompany herself -by humming. - -Her conversation was also timely: "I don't care," she would say, "I -should worry and lose my figure"--and again: "I can't make my feet -behave when I hear that tune. Oh, baby!" - -Her finger-nails were too long and ornate, polished to a pink and -unnatural fever. Her clothes were too tight, too stylish, too vivid, her -eyes too roguish, her smile too coy. She was almost pitifully -overemphasized from head to foot. - -The other girl was obviously a more subtle personality. She was an -exquisitely dressed Jewess with dark hair and a lovely milky pallor. She -seemed shy and vague, and these two qualities accentuated a rather -delicate charm that floated about her. Her family were "Episcopalians," -owned three smart women's shops along Fifth Avenue, and lived in a -magnificent apartment on Riverside Drive. It seemed to Dick, after a few -moments, that she was attempting to imitate Gloria--he wondered that -people invariably chose inimitable people to imitate. - -"We had the most _hectic_ time!" Muriel was exclaiming enthusiastically. -"There was a crazy woman behind us on the bus. She was absitively, -posolutely _nutty_! She kept talking to herself about something she'd -like to do to somebody or something. I was _pet_rified, but Gloria -simply _wouldn't_ get off." - -Mrs. Gilbert opened her mouth, properly awed. - -"Really?" - -"Oh, she was crazy. But we should worry, she didn't hurt us. Ugly! -Gracious! The man across from us said her face ought to be on a -night-nurse in a home for the blind, and we all _howled_, naturally, so -the man tried to pick us up." - -Presently Gloria emerged from her bedroom and in unison every eye turned -on her. The two girls receded into a shadowy background, -unperceived, unmissed. - -"We've been talking about you," said Dick quickly, "--your mother and -I." - -"Well," said Gloria. - -A pause--Muriel turned to Dick. - -"You're a great writer, aren't you?" - -"I'm a writer," he confessed sheepishly. - -"I always say," said Muriel earnestly, "that if I ever had time to write -down all my experiences it'd make a wonderful book." - -Rachael giggled sympathetically; Richard Caramel's bow was almost -stately. Muriel continued: - -"But I don't see how you can sit down and do it. And poetry! Lordy, I -can't make two lines rhyme. Well, I should worry!" - -Richard Caramel with difficulty restrained a shout of laughter. Gloria -was chewing an amazing gum-drop and staring moodily out the window. Mrs. -Gilbert cleared her throat and beamed. - -"But you see," she said in a sort of universal exposition, "you're not -an ancient soul--like Richard." - -The Ancient Soul breathed a gasp of relief--it was out at last. - -Then as if she had been considering it for five minutes, Gloria made a -sudden announcement: - -"I'm going to give a party." - -"Oh, can I come?" cried Muriel with facetious daring. - -"A dinner. Seven people: Muriel and Rachael and I, and you, Dick, and -Anthony, and that man named Noble--I liked him--and Bloeckman." - -Muriel and Rachael went into soft and purring ecstasies of enthusiasm. -Mrs. Gilbert blinked and beamed. With an air of casualness Dick broke in -with a question: - -"Who is this fellow Bloeckman, Gloria?" - -Scenting a faint hostility, Gloria turned to him. - -"Joseph Bloeckman? He's the moving picture man. Vice-president of 'Films -Par Excellence.' He and father do a lot of business." - -"Oh!" - -"Well, will you all come?" - -They would all come. A date was arranged within the week. Dick rose, -adjusted hat, coat, and muffler, and gave out a general smile. - -"By-by," said Muriel, waving her hand gaily, "call me up some time." - -Richard Caramel blushed for her. - - -DEPLORABLE END OF THE CHEVALIER O'KEEFE - -It was Monday and Anthony took Geraldine Burke to luncheon at the Beaux -Arts--afterward they went up to his apartment and he wheeled out the -little rolling-table that held his supply of liquor, selecting vermouth, -gin, and absinthe for a proper stimulant. - -Geraldine Burke, usher at Keith's, had been an amusement of several -months. She demanded so little that he liked her, for since a lamentable -affair with a debutante the preceding summer, when he had discovered -that after half a dozen kisses a proposal was expected, he had been wary -of girls of his own class. It was only too easy to turn a critical eye -on their imperfections: some physical harshness or a general lack of -personal delicacy--but a girl who was usher at Keith's was approached -with a different attitude. One could tolerate qualities in an intimate -valet that would be unforgivable in a mere acquaintance on one's -social level. - -Geraldine, curled up at the foot of the lounge, considered him with -narrow slanting eyes. - -"You drink all the time, don't you?" she said suddenly. - -"Why, I suppose so," replied Anthony in some surprise. "Don't you?" - -"Nope. I go on parties sometimes--you know, about once a week, but I -only take two or three drinks. You and your friends keep on drinking all -the time. I should think you'd ruin your health." - -Anthony was somewhat touched. - -"Why, aren't you sweet to worry about me!" - -"Well, I do." - -"I don't drink so very much," he declared. "Last month I didn't touch a -drop for three weeks. And I only get really tight about once a week." - -"But you have something to drink every day and you're only twenty-five. -Haven't you any ambition? Think what you'll be at forty?" - -"I sincerely trust that I won't live that long." - -She clicked her tongue with her teeth. - -"You cra-azy!" she said as he mixed another cocktail--and then: "Are you -any relation to Adam Patch?" - -"Yes, he's my grandfather." - -"Really?" She was obviously thrilled. - -"Absolutely." - -"That's funny. My daddy used to work for him." - -"He's a queer old man." - -"Is he nice?" she demanded. - -"Well, in private life he's seldom unnecessarily disagreeable." - -"Tell us about him." - -"Why," Anthony considered "--he's all shrunken up and he's got the -remains of some gray hair that always looks as though the wind were in -it. He's very moral." - -"He's done a lot of good," said Geraldine with intense gravity. - -"Rot!" scoffed Anthony. "He's a pious ass--a chickenbrain." - -Her mind left the subject and flitted on. - -"Why don't you live with him?" - -"Why don't I board in a Methodist parsonage?" - -"You cra-azy!" - -Again she made a little clicking sound to express disapproval. Anthony -thought how moral was this little waif at heart--how completely moral -she would still be after the inevitable wave came that would wash her -off the sands of respectability. - -"Do you hate him?" - -"I wonder. I never liked him. You never like people who do things for -you." - -"Does he hate you?" - -"My dear Geraldine," protested Anthony, frowning humorously, "do have -another cocktail. I annoy him. If I smoke a cigarette he comes into the -room sniffing. He's a prig, a bore, and something of a hypocrite. I -probably wouldn't be telling you this if I hadn't had a few drinks, but -I don't suppose it matters." - -Geraldine was persistently interested. She held her glass, untasted, -between finger and thumb and regarded him with eyes in which there was a -touch of awe. - -"How do you mean a hypocrite?" - -"Well," said Anthony impatiently, "maybe he's not. But he doesn't like -the things that I like, and so, as far as I'm concerned, he's -uninteresting." - -"Hm." Her curiosity seemed, at length, satisfied. She sank back into the -sofa and sipped her cocktail. - -"You're a funny one," she commented thoughtfully. "Does everybody want -to marry you because your grandfather is rich?" - -"They don't--but I shouldn't blame them if they did. Still, you see, I -never intend to marry." - -She scorned this. - -"You'll fall in love someday. Oh, you will--I know." She nodded wisely. - -"It'd be idiotic to be overconfident. That's what ruined the Chevalier -O'Keefe." - -"Who was he?" - -"A creature of my splendid mind. He's my one creation, the Chevalier." - -"Cra-a-azy!" she murmured pleasantly, using the clumsy rope ladder with -which she bridged all gaps and climbed after her mental superiors. -Subconsciously she felt that it eliminated distances and brought the -person whose imagination had eluded her back within range. - -"Oh, no!" objected Anthony, "oh, no, Geraldine. You mustn't play the -alienist upon the Chevalier. If you feel yourself unable to understand -him I won't bring him in. Besides, I should feel a certain uneasiness -because of his regrettable reputation." - -"I guess I can understand anything that's got any sense to it," answered -Geraldine a bit testily. - -"In that case there are various episodes in the life of the Chevalier -which might prove diverting." - -"Well?" - -"It was his untimely end that caused me to think of him and made him -apropos in the conversation. I hate to introduce him end foremost, but -it seems inevitable that the Chevalier must back into your life." - -"Well, what about him? Did he die?" - -"He did! In this manner. He was an Irishman, Geraldine, a semi-fictional -Irishman--the wild sort with a genteel brogue and 'reddish hair.' He was -exiled from Erin in the late days of chivalry and, of course, crossed -over to France. Now the Chevalier O'Keefe, Geraldine, had, like me, one -weakness. He was enormously susceptible to all sorts and conditions of -women. Besides being a sentimentalist he was a romantic, a vain fellow, -a man of wild passions, a little blind in one eye and almost stone-blind -in the other. Now a male roaming the world in this condition is as -helpless as a lion without teeth, and in consequence the Chevalier was -made utterly miserable for twenty years by a series of women who hated -him, used him, bored him, aggravated him, sickened him, spent his money, -made a fool of him--in brief, as the world has it, loved him. - -"This was bad, Geraldine, and as the Chevalier, save for this one -weakness, this exceeding susceptibility, was a man of penetration, he -decided that he would rescue himself once and for all from these drains -upon him. With this purpose he went to a very famous monastery in -Champagne called--well, anachronistically known as St. Voltaire's. It -was the rule at St. Voltaire's that no monk could descend to the ground -story of the monastery so long as he lived, but should exist engaged in -prayer and contemplation in one of the four towers, which were called -after the four commandments of the monastery rule: Poverty, Chastity, -Obedience, and Silence. - -"When the day came that was to witness the Chevalier's farewell to the -world he was utterly happy. He gave all his Greek books to his landlady, -and his sword he sent in a golden sheath to the King of France, and all -his mementos of Ireland he gave to the young Huguenot who sold fish in -the street where he lived. - -"Then he rode out to St. Voltaire's, slew his horse at the door, and -presented the carcass to the monastery cook. - -"At five o'clock that night he felt, for the first time, free--forever -free from sex. No woman could enter the monastery; no monk could descend -below the second story. So as he climbed the winding stair that led to -his cell at the very top of the Tower of Chastity he paused for a moment -by an open window which looked down fifty feet on to a road below. It -was all so beautiful, he thought, this world that he was leaving, the -golden shower of sun beating down upon the long fields, the spray of -trees in the distance, the vineyards, quiet and green, freshening wide -miles before him. He leaned his elbows on the window casement and gazed -at the winding road. - -"Now, as it happened, Therese, a peasant girl of sixteen from a -neighboring village, was at that moment passing along this same road -that ran in front of the monastery. Five minutes before, the little -piece of ribbon which held up the stocking on her pretty left leg had -worn through and broken. Being a girl of rare modesty she had thought to -wait until she arrived home before repairing it, but it had bothered her -to such an extent that she felt she could endure it no longer. So, as -she passed the Tower of Chastity, she stopped and with a pretty gesture -lifted her skirt--as little as possible, be it said to her credit--to -adjust her garter. - -"Up in the tower the newest arrival in the ancient monastery of St. -Voltaire, as though pulled forward by a gigantic and irresistible hand, -leaned from the window. Further he leaned and further until suddenly one -of the stones loosened under his weight, broke from its cement with a -soft powdery sound--and, first headlong, then head over heels, finally -in a vast and impressive revolution tumbled the Chevalier O'Keefe, bound -for the hard earth and eternal damnation. - -"Therese was so much upset by the occurrence that she ran all the way -home and for ten years spent an hour a day in secret prayer for the soul -of the monk whose neck and vows were simultaneously broken on that -unfortunate Sunday afternoon. - -"And the Chevalier O'Keefe, being suspected of suicide, was not buried -in consecrated ground, but tumbled into a field near by, where he -doubtless improved the quality of the soil for many years afterward. -Such was the untimely end of a very brave and gallant gentleman. What do -you think, Geraldine?" - -But Geraldine, lost long before, could only smile roguishly, wave her -first finger at him, and repeat her bridge-all, her explain-all: - -"Crazy!" she said, "you cra-a-azy!" - -His thin face was kindly, she thought, and his eyes quite gentle. She -liked him because he was arrogant without being conceited, and because, -unlike the men she met about the theatre, he had a horror of being -conspicuous. What an odd, pointless story! But she had enjoyed the part -about the stocking! - -After the fifth cocktail he kissed her, and between laughter and -bantering caresses and a half-stifled flare of passion they passed an -hour. At four-thirty she claimed an engagement, and going into the -bathroom she rearranged her hair. Refusing to let him order her a taxi -she stood for a moment in the doorway. - -"You _will_ get married," she was insisting, "you wait and see." - -Anthony was playing with an ancient tennis ball, and he bounced it -carefully on the floor several times before he answered with a soupcon -of acidity: - -"You're a little idiot, Geraldine." - -She smiled provokingly. - -"Oh, I am, am I? Want to bet?" - -"That'd be silly too." - -"Oh, it would, would it? Well, I'll just bet you'll marry somebody -inside of a year." - -Anthony bounced the tennis ball very hard. This was one of his handsome -days, she thought; a sort of intensity had displaced the melancholy in -his dark eyes. - -"Geraldine," he said, at length, "in the first place I have no one I -want to marry; in the second place I haven't enough money to support two -people; in the third place I am entirely opposed to marriage for people -of my type; in the fourth place I have a strong distaste for even the -abstract consideration of it." - -But Geraldine only narrowed her eyes knowingly, made her clicking sound, -and said she must be going. It was late. - -"Call me up soon," she reminded him as he kissed her goodbye, "you -haven't for three weeks, you know." - -"I will," he promised fervently. - -He shut the door and coming back into the room stood for a moment lost -in thought with the tennis ball still clasped in his hand. There was one -of his lonelinesses coming, one of those times when he walked the -streets or sat, aimless and depressed, biting a pencil at his desk. It -was a self-absorption with no comfort, a demand for expression with no -outlet, a sense of time rushing by, ceaselessly and wastefully--assuaged -only by that conviction that there was nothing to waste, because all -efforts and attainments were equally valueless. - -He thought with emotion--aloud, ejaculative, for he was hurt and -confused. - -"No _idea_ of getting married, by _God_!" - -Of a sudden he hurled the tennis ball violently across the room, where -it barely missed the lamp, and, rebounding here and there for a moment, -lay still upon the floor. - - -SIGNLIGHT AND MOONLIGHT - -For her dinner Gloria had taken a table in the Cascades at the Biltmore, -and when the men met in the hall outside a little after eight, "that -person Bloeckman" was the target of six masculine eyes. He was a -stoutening, ruddy Jew of about thirty-five, with an expressive face -under smooth sandy hair--and, no doubt, in most business gatherings his -personality would have been considered ingratiating. He sauntered up to -the three younger men, who stood in a group smoking as they waited for -their hostess, and introduced himself with a little too evident -assurance--nevertheless it is to be doubted whether he received the -intended impression of faint and ironic chill: there was no hint of -understanding in his manner. - -"You related to Adam J. Patch?" he inquired of Anthony, emitting two -slender strings of smoke from nostrils overwide. - -Anthony admitted it with the ghost of a smile. - -"He's a fine man," pronounced Bloeckman profoundly. "He's a fine example -of an American." - -"Yes," agreed Anthony, "he certainly is." - ---I detest these underdone men, he thought coldly. Boiled looking! Ought -to be shoved back in the oven; just one more minute would do it. - -Bloeckman squinted at his watch. - -"Time these girls were showing up ..." - ---Anthony waited breathlessly; it came-- - -"... but then," with a widening smile, "you know how women are." - -The three young men nodded; Bloeckman looked casually about him, his -eyes resting critically on the ceiling and then passing lower. His -expression combined that of a Middle Western farmer appraising his wheat -crop and that of an actor wondering whether he is observed--the public -manner of all good Americans. As he finished his survey he turned back -quickly to the reticent trio, determined to strike to their very -heart and core. - -"You college men? ... Harvard, eh. I see the Princeton boys beat you -fellows in hockey." - -Unfortunate man. He had drawn another blank. They had been three years -out and heeded only the big football games. Whether, after the failure -of this sally, Mr. Bloeckman would have perceived himself to be in a -cynical atmosphere is problematical, for-- - -Gloria arrived. Muriel arrived. Rachael arrived. After a hurried "Hello, -people!" uttered by Gloria and echoed by the other two, the three swept -by into the dressing room. - -A moment later Muriel appeared in a state of elaborate undress and -_crept_ toward them. She was in her element: her ebony hair was slicked -straight back on her head; her eyes were artificially darkened; she -reeked of insistent perfume. She was got up to the best of her ability -as a siren, more popularly a "vamp"--a picker up and thrower away of -men, an unscrupulous and fundamentally unmoved toyer with affections. -Something in the exhaustiveness of her attempt fascinated Maury at first -sight--a woman with wide hips affecting a panther-like litheness! As -they waited the extra three minutes for Gloria, and, by polite -assumption, for Rachael, he was unable to take his eyes from her. She -would turn her head away, lowering her eyelashes and biting her nether -lip in an amazing exhibition of coyness. She would rest her hands on her -hips and sway from side to side in tune to the music, saying: - -"Did you ever hear such perfect ragtime? I just can't make my shoulders -behave when I hear that." - -Mr. Bloeckman clapped his hands gallantly. - -"You ought to be on the stage." - -"I'd like to be!" cried Muriel; "will you back me?" - -"I sure will." - -With becoming modesty Muriel ceased her motions and turned to Maury, -asking what he had "seen" this year. He interpreted this as referring to -the dramatic world, and they had a gay and exhilarating exchange of -titles, after this manner: - -MURIEL: Have you seen "Peg o' My Heart"? - -MAURY: No, I haven't. - -MURIEL: (_Eagerly_) It's wonderful! You want to see it. - -MAURY: Have you seen "Omar, the Tentmaker"? - -MURIEL: No, but I hear it's wonderful. I'm very anxious to see it. Have -you seen "Fair and Warmer"? - -MAURY: (_Hopefully_) Yes. - -MURIEL: I don't think it's very good. It's trashy. - -MAURY: (_Faintly_) Yes, that's true. - -MURIEL: But I went to "Within the Law" last night and I thought it was -fine. Have you seen "The Little Cafe"?... - -This continued until they ran out of plays. Dick, meanwhile, turned to -Mr. Bloeckman, determined to extract what gold he could from this -unpromising load. - -"I hear all the new novels are sold to the moving pictures as soon as -they come out." - -"That's true. Of course the main thing in a moving picture is a strong -story." - -"Yes, I suppose so." - -"So many novels are all full of talk and psychology. Of course those -aren't as valuable to us. It's impossible to make much of that -interesting on the screen." - -"You want plots first," said Richard brilliantly. - -"Of course. Plots first--" He paused, shifted his gaze. His pause -spread, included the others with all the authority of a warning finger. -Gloria followed by Rachael was coming out of the dressing room. - -Among other things it developed during dinner that Joseph Bloeckman -never danced, but spent the music time watching the others with the -bored tolerance of an elder among children. He was a dignified man and a -proud one. Born in Munich he had begun his American career as a peanut -vender with a travelling circus. At eighteen he was a side show -ballyhoo; later, the manager of the side show, and, soon after, the -proprietor of a second-class vaudeville house. Just when the moving -picture had passed out of the stage of a curiosity and become a -promising industry he was an ambitious young man of twenty-six with some -money to invest, nagging financial ambitions and a good working -knowledge of the popular show business. That had been nine years before. -The moving picture industry had borne him up with it where it threw off -dozens of men with more financial ability, more imagination, and more -practical ideas...and now he sat here and contemplated the immortal -Gloria for whom young Stuart Holcome had gone from New York to -Pasadena--watched her, and knew that presently she would cease dancing -and come back to sit on his left hand. - -He hoped she would hurry. The oysters had been standing some minutes. - -Meanwhile Anthony, who had been placed on Gloria's left hand, was -dancing with her, always in a certain fourth of the floor. This, had -there been stags, would have been a delicate tribute to the girl, -meaning "Damn you, don't cut in!" It was very consciously intimate. - -"Well," he began, looking down at her, "you look mighty sweet to-night." - -She met his eyes over the horizontal half foot that separated them. - -"Thank you--Anthony." - -"In fact you're uncomfortably beautiful," he added. There was no smile -this time. - -"And you're very charming." - -"Isn't this nice?" he laughed. "We actually approve of each other." - -"Don't you, usually?" She had caught quickly at his remark, as she -always did at any unexplained allusion to herself, however faint. - -He lowered his voice, and when he spoke there was in it no more than a -wisp of badinage. - -"Does a priest approve the Pope?" - -"I don't know--but that's probably the vaguest compliment I ever -received." - -"Perhaps I can muster a few bromides." - -"Well, I wouldn't have you strain yourself. Look at Muriel! Right here -next to us." - -He glanced over his shoulder. Muriel was resting her brilliant cheek -against the lapel of Maury Noble's dinner coat and her powdered left arm -was apparently twisted around his head. One was impelled to wonder why -she failed to seize the nape of his neck with her hand. Her eyes, turned -ceiling-ward, rolled largely back and forth; her hips swayed, and as she -danced she kept up a constant low singing. This at first seemed to be a -translation of the song into some foreign tongue but became eventually -apparent as an attempt to fill out the metre of the song with the only -words she knew--the words of the title-- - -"He's a rag-picker, -A rag-picker; -A rag-time picking man, -Rag-picking, picking, pick, pick, -Rag-pick, pick, pick." - ---and so on, into phrases still more strange and barbaric. When she -caught the amused glances of Anthony and Gloria she acknowledged them -only with a faint smile and a half-closing of her eyes, to indicate that -the music entering into her soul had put her into an ecstatic and -exceedingly seductive trance. - -The music ended and they returned to their table, whose solitary but -dignified occupant arose and tendered each of them a smile so -ingratiating that it was as if he were shaking their hands and -congratulating them on a brilliant performance. - -"Blockhead never will dance! I think he has a wooden leg," remarked -Gloria to the table at large. The three young men started and the -gentleman referred to winced perceptibly. - -This was the one rough spot in the course of Bloeckman's acquaintance -with Gloria. She relentlessly punned on his name. First it had been -"Block-house." lately, the more invidious "Blockhead." He had requested -with a strong undertone of irony that she use his first name, and this -she had done obediently several times--then slipping, helpless, -repentant but dissolved in laughter, back into "Blockhead." - -It was a very sad and thoughtless thing. - -"I'm afraid Mr. Bloeckman thinks we're a frivolous crowd," sighed -Muriel, waving a balanced oyster in his direction. - -"He has that air," murmured Rachael. Anthony tried to remember whether -she had said anything before. He thought not. It was her initial remark. - -Mr. Bloeckman suddenly cleared his throat and said in a loud, distinct -voice: - -"On the contrary. When a man speaks he's merely tradition. He has at -best a few thousand years back of him. But woman, why, she is the -miraculous mouthpiece of posterity." - -In the stunned pause that followed this astounding remark, Anthony -choked suddenly on an oyster and hurried his napkin to his face. Rachael -and Muriel raised a mild if somewhat surprised laugh, in which Dick and -Maury joined, both of them red in the face and restraining -uproariousness with the most apparent difficulty. - -"--My God!" thought Anthony. "It's a subtitle from one of his movies. -The man's memorized it!" - -Gloria alone made no sound. She fixed Mr. Bloeckman with a glance of -silent reproach. - -"Well, for the love of Heaven! Where on earth did you dig that up?" - -Bloeckman looked at her uncertainly, not sure of her intention. But in a -moment he recovered his poise and assumed the bland and consciously -tolerant smile of an intellectual among spoiled and callow youth. - -The soup came up from the kitchen--but simultaneously the orchestra -leader came up from the bar, where he had absorbed the tone color -inherent in a seidel of beer. So the soup was left to cool during the -delivery of a ballad entitled "Everything's at Home Except Your Wife." - -Then the champagne--and the party assumed more amusing proportions. The -men, except Richard Caramel, drank freely; Gloria and Muriel sipped a -glass apiece; Rachael Jerryl took none. They sat out the waltzes but -danced to everything else--all except Gloria, who seemed to tire after a -while and preferred to sit smoking at the table, her eyes now lazy, now -eager, according to whether she listened to Bloeckman or watched a -pretty woman among the dancers. Several times Anthony wondered what -Bloeckman was telling her. He was chewing a cigar back and forth in his -mouth, and had expanded after dinner to the extent of violent gestures. - -Ten o'clock found Gloria and Anthony beginning a dance. Just as they -were out of ear-shot of the table she said in a low voice: - -"Dance over by the door. I want to go down to the drug-store." - -Obediently Anthony guided her through the crowd in the designated -direction; in the hall she left him for a moment, to reappear with a -cloak over her arm. - -"I want some gum-drops," she said, humorously apologetic; "you can't -guess what for this time. It's just that I want to bite my finger-nails, -and I will if I don't get some gum-drops." She sighed, and resumed as -they stepped into the empty elevator: "I've been biting 'em all day. A -bit nervous, you see. Excuse the pun. It was unintentional--the words -just arranged themselves. Gloria Gilbert, the female wag." - -Reaching the ground floor they naively avoided the hotel candy counter, -descended the wide front staircase, and walking through several -corridors found a drug-store in the Grand Central Station. After an -intense examination of the perfume counter she made her purchase. Then -on some mutual unmentioned impulse they strolled, arm in arm, not in the -direction from which they had come, but out into Forty-third Street. - -The night was alive with thaw; it was so nearly warm that a breeze -drifting low along the sidewalk brought to Anthony a vision of an -unhoped-for hyacinthine spring. Above in the blue oblong of sky, around -them in the caress of the drifting air, the illusion of a new season -carried relief from the stiff and breathed-over atmosphere they had -left, and for a hushed moment the traffic sounds and the murmur of water -flowing in the gutters seemed an illusive and rarefied prolongation of -that music to which they had lately danced. When Anthony spoke it was -with surety that his words came from something breathless and desirous -that the night had conceived in their two hearts. - -"Let's take a taxi and ride around a bit!" he suggested, without looking -at her. - -Oh, Gloria, Gloria! - -A cab yawned at the curb. As it moved off like a boat on a labyrinthine -ocean and lost itself among the inchoate night masses of the great -buildings, among the now stilled, now strident, cries and clangings, -Anthony put his arm around the girl, drew her over to him and kissed her -damp, childish mouth. - -She was silent. She turned her face up to him, pale under the wisps and -patches of light that trailed in like moonshine through a foliage. Her -eyes were gleaming ripples in the white lake of her face; the shadows of -her hair bordered the brow with a persuasive unintimate dusk. No love -was there, surely; nor the imprint of any love. Her beauty was cool as -this damp breeze, as the moist softness of her own lips. - -"You're such a swan in this light," he whispered after a moment. There -were silences as murmurous as sound. There were pauses that seemed about -to shatter and were only to be snatched back to oblivion by the -tightening of his arms about her and the sense that she was resting -there as a caught, gossamer feather, drifted in out of the dark. Anthony -laughed, noiselessly and exultantly, turning his face up and away from -her, half in an overpowering rush of triumph, half lest her sight of him -should spoil the splendid immobility of her expression. Such a kiss--it -was a flower held against the face, never to be described, scarcely to -be remembered; as though her beauty were giving off emanations of itself -which settled transiently and already dissolving upon his heart. - -... The buildings fell away in melted shadows; this was the Park now, -and after a long while the great white ghost of the Metropolitan Museum -moved majestically past, echoing sonorously to the rush of the cab. - -"Why, Gloria! Why, Gloria!" - -Her eyes appeared to regard him out of many thousand years: all emotion -she might have felt, all words she might have uttered, would have seemed -inadequate beside the adequacy of her silence, ineloquent against the -eloquence of her beauty--and of her body, close to him, slender -and cool. - -"Tell him to turn around," she murmured, "and drive pretty fast going -back...." - -Up in the supper room the air was hot. The table, littered with napkins -and ash-trays, was old and stale. It was between dances as they entered, -and Muriel Kane looked up with roguishness extraordinary. - -"Well, where have _you_ been?" - -"To call up mother," answered Gloria coolly. "I promised her I would. -Did we miss a dance?" - -Then followed an incident that though slight in itself Anthony had cause -to reflect on many years afterward. Joseph Bloeckman, leaning well back -in his chair, fixed him with a peculiar glance, in which several -emotions were curiously and inextricably mingled. He did not greet -Gloria except by rising, and he immediately resumed a conversation with -Richard Caramel about the influence of literature on the -moving pictures. - - -MAGIC - -The stark and unexpected miracle of a night fades out with the lingering -death of the last stars and the premature birth of the first newsboys. -The flame retreats to some remote and platonic fire; the white heat has -gone from the iron and the glow from the coal. - -Along the shelves of Anthony's library, filling a wall amply, crept a -chill and insolent pencil of sunlight touching with frigid disapproval -Therese of France and Ann the Superwoman, Jenny of the Orient Ballet and -Zuleika the Conjurer--and Hoosier Cora--then down a shelf and into the -years, resting pityingly on the over-invoked shades of Helen, Thais, -Salome, and Cleopatra. - -Anthony, shaved and bathed, sat in his most deeply cushioned chair and -watched it until at the steady rising of the sun it lay glinting for a -moment on the silk ends of the rug--and went out. - -It was ten o'clock. The Sunday Times, scattered about his feet, -proclaimed by rotogravure and editorial, by social revelation and -sporting sheet, that the world had been tremendously engrossed during -the past week in the business of moving toward some splendid if somewhat -indeterminate goal. For his part Anthony had been once to his -grandfather's, twice to his broker's, and three times to his -tailor's--and in the last hour of the week's last day he had kissed a -very beautiful and charming girl. - -When he reached home his imagination had been teeming with high pitched, -unfamiliar dreams. There was suddenly no question on his mind, no -eternal problem for a solution and resolution. He had experienced an -emotion that was neither mental nor physical, nor merely a mixture of -the two, and the love of life absorbed him for the present to the -exclusion of all else. He was content to let the experiment remain -isolated and unique. Almost impersonally he was convinced that no woman -he had ever met compared in any way with Gloria. She was deeply herself; -she was immeasurably sincere--of these things he was certain. Beside her -the two dozen schoolgirls and debutantes, young married women and waifs -and strays whom he had known were so many females, in the word's most -contemptuous sense, breeders and bearers, exuding still that faintly -odorous atmosphere of the cave and the nursery. - -So far as he could see, she had neither submitted to any will of his nor -caressed his vanity--except as her pleasure in his company was a caress. -Indeed he had no reason for thinking she had given him aught that she -did not give to others. This was as it should be. The idea of an -entanglement growing out of the evening was as remote as it would have -been repugnant. And she had disclaimed and buried the incident with a -decisive untruth. Here were two young people with fancy enough to -distinguish a game from its reality--who by the very casualness with -which they met and passed on would proclaim themselves unharmed. - -Having decided this he went to the phone and called up the Plaza Hotel. - -Gloria was out. Her mother knew neither where she had gone nor when she -would return. - -It was somehow at this point that the first wrongness in the case -asserted itself. There was an element of callousness, almost of -indecency, in Gloria's absence from home. He suspected that by going out -she had intrigued him into a disadvantage. Returning she would find his -name, and smile. Most discreetly! He should have waited a few hours in -order to drive home the utter inconsequence with which he regarded the -incident. What an asinine blunder! She would think he considered himself -particularly favored. She would think he was reacting with the most -inept intimacy to a quite trivial episode. - -He remembered that during the previous month his janitor, to whom he had -delivered a rather muddled lecture on the "brother-hoove man," had come -up next day and, on the basis of what had happened the night before, -seated himself in the window seat for a cordial and chatty half-hour. -Anthony wondered in horror if Gloria would regard him as he had regarded -that man. Him--Anthony Patch! Horror! - -It never occurred to him that he was a passive thing, acted upon by an -influence above and beyond Gloria, that he was merely the sensitive -plate on which the photograph was made. Some gargantuan photographer had -focussed the camera on Gloria and _snap_!--the poor plate could but -develop, confined like all things to its nature. - -But Anthony, lying upon his couch and staring at the orange lamp, passed -his thin fingers incessantly through his dark hair and made new symbols -for the hours. She was in a shop now, it seemed, moving lithely among -the velvets and the furs, her own dress making, as she walked, a -debonair rustle in that world of silken rustles and cool soprano -laughter and scents of many slain but living flowers. The Minnies and -Pearls and jewels and jennies would gather round her like courtiers, -bearing wispy frailties of Georgette crepe, delicate chiffon to echo her -cheeks in faint pastel, milky lace to rest in pale disarray against her -neck--damask was used but to cover priests and divans in these days, and -cloth of Samarand was remembered only by the romantic poets. - -She would go elsewhere after a while, tilting her head a hundred ways -under a hundred bonnets, seeking in vain for mock cherries to match her -lips or plumes that were graceful as her own supple body. - -Noon would come--she would hurry along Fifth Avenue, a Nordic Ganymede, -her fur coat swinging fashionably with her steps, her cheeks redder by a -stroke of the wind's brush, her breath a delightful mist upon the -bracing air--and the doors of the Ritz would revolve, the crowd would -divide, fifty masculine eyes would start, stare, as she gave back -forgotten dreams to the husbands of many obese and comic women. - -One o'clock. With her fork she would tantalize the heart of an adoring -artichoke, while her escort served himself up in the thick, dripping -sentences of an enraptured man. - -Four o'clock: her little feet moving to melody, her face distinct in the -crowd, her partner happy as a petted puppy and mad as the immemorial -hatter.... Then--then night would come drifting down and perhaps another -damp. The signs would spill their light into the street. Who knew? No -wiser than he, they haply sought to recapture that picture done in cream -and shadow they had seen on the hushed Avenue the night before. And they -might, ah, they might! A thousand taxis would yawn at a thousand -corners, and only to him was that kiss forever lost and done. In a -thousand guises Thais would hail a cab and turn up her face for loving. -And her pallor would be virginal and lovely, and her kiss chaste as -the moon.... - -He sprang excitedly to his feet. How inappropriate that she should be -out! He had realized at last what he wanted--to kiss her again, to find -rest in her great immobility. She was the end of all restlessness, all -malcontent. - -Anthony dressed and went out, as he should have done long before, and -down to Richard Caramel's room to hear the last revision of the last -chapter of "The Demon Lover." He did not call Gloria again until six. He -did not find her in until eight and--oh, climax of anticlimaxes!--she -could give him no engagement until Tuesday afternoon. A broken piece of -gutta-percha clattered to the floor as he banged up the phone. - - -BLACK MAGIC - -Tuesday was freezing cold. He called at a bleak two o'clock and as they -shook hands he wondered confusedly whether he had ever kissed her; it -was almost unbelievable--he seriously doubted if she remembered it. - -"I called you four times on Sunday," he told her. - -"Did you?" - -There was surprise in her voice and interest in her expression. Silently -he cursed himself for having told her. He might have known her pride did -not deal in such petty triumphs. Even then he had not guessed at the -truth--that never having had to worry about men she had seldom used the -wary subterfuges, the playings out and haulings in, that were the stock -in trade of her sisterhood. When she liked a man, that was trick enough. -Did she think she loved him--there was an ultimate and fatal thrust. Her -charm endlessly preserved itself. - -"I was anxious to see you," he said simply. "I want to talk to you--I -mean really talk, somewhere where we can be alone. May I?" - -"What do you mean?" - -He swallowed a sudden lump of panic. He felt that she knew what he -wanted. - -"I mean, not at a tea table," he said. - -"Well, all right, but not to-day. I want to get some exercise. Let's -walk!" - -It was bitter and raw. All the evil hate in the mad heart of February -was wrought into the forlorn and icy wind that cut its way cruelly -across Central Park and down along Fifth Avenue. It was almost -impossible to talk, and discomfort made him distracted, so much so that -he turned at Sixty-first Street to find that she was no longer beside -him. He looked around. She was forty feet in the rear standing -motionless, her face half hidden in her fur coat collar, moved either by -anger or laughter--he could not determine which. He started back. - -"Don't let me interrupt your walk!" she called. - -"I'm mighty sorry," he answered in confusion. "Did I go too fast?" - -"I'm cold," she announced. "I want to go home. And you walk too fast." - -"I'm very sorry." - -Side by side they started for the Plaza. He wished he could see her -face. - -"Men don't usually get so absorbed in themselves when they're with me." - -"I'm sorry." - -"That's very interesting." - -"It _is_ rather too cold to walk," he said, briskly, to hide his -annoyance. - -She made no answer and he wondered if she would dismiss him at the hotel -entrance. She walked in without speaking, however, and to the elevator, -throwing him a single remark as she entered it: - -"You'd better come up." - -He hesitated for the fraction of a moment. - -"Perhaps I'd better call some other time." - -"Just as you say." Her words were murmured as an aside. The main concern -of life was the adjusting of some stray wisps of hair in the elevator -mirror. Her cheeks were brilliant, her eyes sparkled--she had never -seemed so lovely, so exquisitely to be desired. - -Despising himself, he found that he was walking down the tenth-floor -corridor a subservient foot behind her; was in the sitting room while -she disappeared to shed her furs. Something had gone wrong--in his own -eyes he had lost a shred of dignity; in an unpremeditated yet -significant encounter he had been completely defeated. - -However, by the time she reappeared in the sitting-room he had explained -himself to himself with sophistic satisfaction. After all he had done -the strongest thing, he thought. He had wanted to come up, he had come. -Yet what happened later on that afternoon must be traced to the -indignity he had experienced in the elevator; the girl was worrying him -intolerably, so much so that when she came out he involuntarily drifted -into criticism. - -"Who's this Bloeckman, Gloria?" - -"A business friend of father's." - -"Odd sort of fellow!" - -"He doesn't like you either," she said with a sudden smile. - -Anthony laughed. - -"I'm flattered at his notice. He evidently considers me a--" He broke -off with "Is he in love with you?" - -"I don't know." - -"The deuce you don't," he insisted. "Of course he is. I remember the -look he gave me when we got back to the table. He'd probably have had me -quietly assaulted by a delegation of movie supes if you hadn't invented -that phone call." - -"He didn't mind. I told him afterward what really happened." - -"You told him!" - -"He asked me." - -"I don't like that very well," he remonstrated. - -She laughed again. - -"Oh, you don't?" - -"What business is it of his?" - -"None. That's why I told him." - -Anthony in a turmoil bit savagely at his mouth. - -"Why should I lie?" she demanded directly. "I'm not ashamed of anything -I do. It happened to interest him to know that I kissed you, and I -happened to be in a good humor, so I satisfied his curiosity by a simple -and precise 'yes.' Being rather a sensible man, after his fashion, he -dropped the subject." - -"Except to say that he hated me." - -"Oh, it worries you? Well, if you must probe this stupendous matter to -its depths he didn't say he hated you. I simply know he does." - -"It doesn't wor----" - -"Oh, let's drop it!" she cried spiritedly. "It's a most uninteresting -matter to me." - -With a tremendous effort Anthony made his acquiescence a twist of -subject, and they drifted into an ancient question-and-answer game -concerned with each other's pasts, gradually warming as they discovered -the age-old, immemorial resemblances in tastes and ideas. They said -things that were more revealing than they intended--but each pretended -to accept the other at face, or rather word, value. - -The growth of intimacy is like that. First one gives off his best -picture, the bright and finished product mended with bluff and falsehood -and humor. Then more details are required and one paints a second -portrait, and a third--before long the best lines cancel out--and the -secret is exposed at last; the planes of the pictures have intermingled -and given us away, and though we paint and paint we can no longer sell a -picture. We must be satisfied with hoping that such fatuous accounts of -ourselves as we make to our wives and children and business associates -are accepted as true. - -"It seems to me," Anthony was saying earnestly, "that the position of a -man with neither necessity nor ambition is unfortunate. Heaven knows -it'd be pathetic of me to be sorry for myself--yet, sometimes I -envy Dick." - -Her silence was encouragement. It was as near as she ever came to an -intentional lure. - -"--And there used to be dignified occupations for a gentleman who had -leisure, things a little more constructive than filling up the landscape -with smoke or juggling some one else's money. There's science, of -course: sometimes I wish I'd taken a good foundation, say at Boston -Tech. But now, by golly, I'd have to sit down for two years and struggle -through the fundamentals of physics and chemistry." - -She yawned. - -"I've told you I don't know what anybody ought to do," she said -ungraciously, and at her indifference his rancor was born again. - -"Aren't you interested in anything except yourself?" - -"Not much." - -He glared; his growing enjoyment in the conversation was ripped to -shreds. She had been irritable and vindictive all day, and it seemed to -him that for this moment he hated her hard selfishness. He stared -morosely at the fire. - -Then a strange thing happened. She turned to him and smiled, and as he -saw her smile every rag of anger and hurt vanity dropped from him--as -though his very moods were but the outer ripples of her own, as though -emotion rose no longer in his breast unless she saw fit to pull an -omnipotent controlling thread. - -He moved closer and taking her hand pulled her ever so gently toward him -until she half lay against his shoulder. She smiled up at him as he -kissed her. - -"Gloria," he whispered very softly. Again she had made a magic, subtle -and pervading as a spilt perfume, irresistible and sweet. - -Afterward, neither the next day nor after many years, could he remember -the important things of that afternoon. Had she been moved? In his arms -had she spoken a little--or at all? What measure of enjoyment had she -taken in his kisses? And had she at any time lost herself ever -so little? - -Oh, for him there was no doubt. He had risen and paced the floor in -sheer ecstasy. That such a girl should be; should poise curled in a -corner of the couch like a swallow newly landed from a clean swift -flight, watching him with inscrutable eyes. He would stop his pacing -and, half shy each time at first, drop his arm around her and find -her kiss. - -She was fascinating, he told her. He had never met any one like her -before. He besought her jauntily but earnestly to send him away; he -didn't want to fall in love. He wasn't coming to see her any -more--already she had haunted too many of his ways. - -What delicious romance! His true reaction was neither fear nor -sorrow--only this deep delight in being with her that colored the -banality of his words and made the mawkish seem sad and the posturing -seem wise. He _would_ come back--eternally. He should have known! - -"This is all. It's been very rare to have known you, very strange and -wonderful. But this wouldn't do--and wouldn't last." As he spoke there -was in his heart that tremulousness that we take for sincerity in -ourselves. - -Afterward he remembered one reply of hers to something he had asked her. -He remembered it in this form--perhaps he had unconsciously arranged and -polished it: - -"A woman should be able to kiss a man beautifully and romantically -without any desire to be either his wife or his mistress." - -As always when he was with her she seemed to grow gradually older until -at the end ruminations too deep for words would be wintering in -her eyes. - -An hour passed, and the fire leaped up in little ecstasies as though its -fading life was sweet. It was five now, and the clock over the mantel -became articulate in sound. Then as if a brutish sensibility in him was -reminded by those thin, tinny beats that the petals were falling from -the flowered afternoon, Anthony pulled her quickly to her feet and held -her helpless, without breath, in a kiss that was neither a game nor -a tribute. - -Her arms fell to her side. In an instant she was free. - -"Don't!" she said quietly. "I don't want that." - -She sat down on the far side of the lounge and gazed straight before -her. A frown had gathered between her eyes. Anthony sank down beside her -and closed his hand over hers. It was lifeless and unresponsive. - -"Why, Gloria!" He made a motion as if to put his arm about her but she -drew away. - -"I don't want that," she repeated. - -"I'm very sorry," he said, a little impatiently. "I--I didn't know you -made such fine distinctions." - -She did not answer. - -"Won't you kiss me, Gloria?" - -"I don't want to." It seemed to him she had not moved for hours. - -"A sudden change, isn't it?" Annoyance was growing in his voice. - -"Is it?" She appeared uninterested. It was almost as though she were -looking at some one else. - -"Perhaps I'd better go." - -No reply. He rose and regarded her angrily, uncertainly. Again he sat -down. - -"Gloria, Gloria, won't you kiss me?" - -"No." Her lips, parting for the word, had just faintly stirred. - -Again he got to his feet, this time with less decision, less confidence. - -"Then I'll go." - -Silence. - -"All right--I'll go." - -He was aware of a certain irremediable lack of originality in his -remarks. Indeed he felt that the whole atmosphere had grown oppressive. -He wished she would speak, rail at him, cry out upon him, anything but -this pervasive and chilling silence. He cursed himself for a weak fool; -his clearest desire was to move her, to hurt her, to see her wince. -Helplessly, involuntarily, he erred again. - -"If you're tired of kissing me I'd better go." - -He saw her lips curl slightly and his last dignity left him. She spoke, -at length: - -"I believe you've made that remark several times before." - -He looked about him immediately, saw his hat and coat on a -chair--blundered into them, during an intolerable moment. Looking again -at the couch he perceived that she had not turned, not even moved. With -a shaken, immediately regretted "good-by" he went quickly but without -dignity from the room. - -For over a moment Gloria made no sound. Her lips were still curled; her -glance was straight, proud, remote. Then her eyes blurred a little, and -she murmured three words half aloud to the death-bound fire: - -"Good-by, you ass!" she said. - - -PANIC - -The man had had the hardest blow of his life. He knew at last what he -wanted, but in finding it out it seemed that he had put it forever -beyond his grasp. He reached home in misery, dropped into an armchair -without even removing his overcoat, and sat there for over an hour, his -mind racing the paths of fruitless and wretched self-absorption. She had -sent him away! That was the reiterated burden of his despair. Instead of -seizing the girl and holding her by sheer strength until she became -passive to his desire, instead of beating down her will by the force of -his own, he had walked, defeated and powerless, from her door, with the -corners of his mouth drooping and what force there might have been in -his grief and rage hidden behind the manner of a whipped schoolboy. At -one minute she had liked him tremendously--ah, she had nearly loved him. -In the next he had become a thing of indifference to her, an insolent -and efficiently humiliated man. - -He had no great self-reproach--some, of course, but there were other -things dominant in him now, far more urgent. He was not so much in love -with Gloria as mad for her. Unless he could have her near him again, -kiss her, hold her close and acquiescent, he wanted nothing more from -life. By her three minutes of utter unwavering indifference the girl had -lifted herself from a high but somehow casual position in his mind, to -be instead his complete preoccupation. However much his wild thoughts -varied between a passionate desire for her kisses and an equally -passionate craving to hurt and mar her, the residue of his mind craved -in finer fashion to possess the triumphant soul that had shone through -those three minutes. She was beautiful--but especially she was without -mercy. He must own that strength that could send him away. - -At present no such analysis was possible to Anthony. His clarity of -mind, all those endless resources which he thought his irony had brought -him were swept aside. Not only for that night but for the days and weeks -that followed his books were to be but furniture and his friends only -people who lived and walked in a nebulous outer world from which he was -trying to escape--that world was cold and full of bleak wind, and for a -little while he had seen into a warm house where fires shone. - -About midnight he began to realize that he was hungry. He went down into -Fifty-second Street, where it was so cold that he could scarcely see; -the moisture froze on his lashes and in the corners of his lips. -Everywhere dreariness had come down from the north, settling upon the -thin and cheerless street, where black bundled figures blacker still -against the night, moved stumbling along the sidewalk through the -shrieking wind, sliding their feet cautiously ahead as though they were -on skis. Anthony turned over toward Sixth Avenue, so absorbed in his -thoughts as not to notice that several passers-by had stared at him. His -overcoat was wide open, and the wind was biting in, hard and full of -merciless death. - -... After a while a waitress spoke to him, a fat waitress with -black-rimmed eye-glasses from which dangled a long black cord. - -"Order, please!" - -Her voice, he considered, was unnecessarily loud. He looked up -resentfully. - -"You wanna order or doncha?" - -"Of course," he protested. - -"Well, I ast you three times. This ain't no rest-room." - -He glanced at the big clock and discovered with a start that it was -after two. He was down around Thirtieth Street somewhere, and after a -moment he found and translated the - -[Illustration: S'DLIHC] -[Transcribers note: The illustration shows the word "CHILD's" in mirror -image.] - -in a white semicircle of letters upon the glass front. The place was -inhabited sparsely by three or four bleak and half-frozen night-hawks. - -"Give me some bacon and eggs and coffee, please." - -The waitress bent upon him a last disgusted glance and, looking -ludicrously intellectual in her corded glasses, hurried away. - -God! Gloria's kisses had been such flowers. He remembered as though it -had been years ago the low freshness of her voice, the beautiful lines -of her body shining through her clothes, her face lily-colored under the -lamps of the street--under the lamps. - -Misery struck at him again, piling a sort of terror upon the ache and -yearning. He had lost her. It was true--no denying it, no softening it. -But a new idea had seared his sky--what of Bloeckman! What would happen -now? There was a wealthy man, middle-aged enough to be tolerant with a -beautiful wife, to baby her whims and indulge her unreason, to wear her -as she perhaps wished to be worn--a bright flower in his button-hole, -safe and secure from the things she feared. He felt that she had been -playing with the idea of marrying Bloeckman, and it was well possible -that this disappointment in Anthony might throw her on sudden impulse -into Bloeckman's arms. - -The idea drove him childishly frantic. He wanted to kill Bloeckman and -make him suffer for his hideous presumption. He was saying this over and -over to himself with his teeth tight shut, and a perfect orgy of hate -and fright in his eyes. - -But, behind this obscene jealousy, Anthony was in love at last, -profoundly and truly in love, as the word goes between man and woman. - -His coffee appeared at his elbow and gave off for a certain time a -gradually diminishing wisp of steam. The night manager, seated at his -desk, glanced at the motionless figure alone at the last table, and then -with a sigh moved down upon him just as the hour hand crossed the figure -three on the big clock. - - -WISDOM - -After another day the turmoil subsided and Anthony began to exercise a -measure of reason. He was in love--he cried it passionately to himself. -The things that a week before would have seemed insuperable obstacles, -his limited income, his desire to be irresponsible and independent, had -in this forty hours become the merest chaff before the wind of his -infatuation. If he did not marry her his life would be a feeble parody -on his own adolescence. To be able to face people and to endure the -constant reminder of Gloria that all existence had become, it was -necessary for him to have hope. So he built hope desperately and -tenaciously out of the stuff of his dream, a hope flimsy enough, to be -sure, a hope that was cracked and dissipated a dozen times a day, a hope -mothered by mockery, but, nevertheless, a hope that would be brawn and -sinew to his self-respect. - -Out of this developed a spark of wisdom, a true perception of his own -from out the effortless past. - -"Memory is short," he thought. - -So very short. At the crucial point the Trust President is on the stand, -a potential criminal needing but one push to be a jailbird, scorned by -the upright for leagues around. Let him be acquitted--and in a year all -is forgotten. "Yes, he did have some trouble once, just a technicality, -I believe." Oh, memory is very short! - -Anthony had seen Gloria altogether about a dozen times, say two dozen -hours. Supposing he left her alone for a month, made no attempt to see -her or speak to her, and avoided every place where she might possibly -be. Wasn't it possible, the more possible because she had never loved -him, that at the end of that time the rush of events would efface his -personality from her conscious mind, and with his personality his -offense and humiliation? She would forget, for there would be other men. -He winced. The implication struck out at him--other men. Two -months--God! Better three weeks, two weeks---- - -He thought this the second evening after the catastrophe when he was -undressing, and at this point he threw himself down on the bed and lay -there, trembling very slightly and looking at the top of the canopy. - -Two weeks--that was worse than no time at all. In two weeks he would -approach her much as he would have to now, without personality or -confidence--remaining still the man who had gone too far and then for a -period that in time was but a moment but in fact an eternity, whined. -No, two weeks was too short a time. Whatever poignancy there had been -for her in that afternoon must have time to dull. He must give her a -period when the incident should fade, and then a new period when she -should gradually begin to think of him, no matter how dimly, with a true -perspective that would remember his pleasantness as well as his -humiliation. - -He fixed, finally, on six weeks as approximately the interval best -suited to his purpose, and on a desk calendar he marked the days off, -finding that it would fall on the ninth of April. Very well, on that day -he would phone and ask her if he might call. Until then--silence. - -After his decision a gradual improvement was manifest. He had taken at -least a step in the direction to which hope pointed, and he realized -that the less he brooded upon her the better he would be able to give -the desired impression when they met. - -In another hour he fell into a deep sleep. - - -THE INTERVAL - -Nevertheless, though, as the days passed, the glory of her hair dimmed -perceptibly for him and in a year of separation might have departed -completely, the six weeks held many abominable days. He dreaded the -sight of Dick and Maury, imagining wildly that they knew all--but when -the three met it was Richard Caramel and not Anthony who was the centre -of attention; "The Demon Lover" had been accepted for immediate -publication. Anthony felt that from now on he moved apart. He no longer -craved the warmth and security of Maury's society which had cheered him -no further back than November. Only Gloria could give that now and no -one else ever again. So Dick's success rejoiced him only casually and -worried him not a little. It meant that the world was going -ahead--writing and reading and publishing--and living. And he wanted the -world to wait motionless and breathless for six weeks--while -Gloria forgot. - - -TWO ENCOUNTERS - -His greatest satisfaction was in Geraldine's company. He took her once -to dinner and the theatre and entertained her several times in his -apartment. When he was with her she absorbed him, not as Gloria had, but -quieting those erotic sensibilities in him that worried over Gloria. It -didn't matter how he kissed Geraldine. A kiss was a kiss--to be enjoyed -to the utmost for its short moment. To Geraldine things belonged in -definite pigeonholes: a kiss was one thing, anything further was quite -another; a kiss was all right; the other things were "bad." - -When half the interval was up two incidents occurred on successive days -that upset his increasing calm and caused a temporary relapse. - -The first was--he saw Gloria. It was a short meeting. Both bowed. Both -spoke, yet neither heard the other. But when it was over Anthony read -down a column of The Sun three times in succession without understanding -a single sentence. - -One would have thought Sixth Avenue a safe street! Having forsworn his -barber at the Plaza he went around the corner one morning to be shaved, -and while waiting his turn he took off coat and vest, and with his soft -collar open at the neck stood near the front of the shop. The day was an -oasis in the cold desert of March and the sidewalk was cheerful with a -population of strolling sun-worshippers. A stout woman upholstered in -velvet, her flabby cheeks too much massaged, swirled by with her poodle -straining at its leash--the effect being given of a tug bringing in an -ocean liner. Just behind them a man in a striped blue suit, walking -slue-footed in white-spatted feet, grinned at the sight and catching -Anthony's eye, winked through the glass. Anthony laughed, thrown -immediately into that humor in which men and women were graceless and -absurd phantasms, grotesquely curved and rounded in a rectangular world -of their own building. They inspired the same sensations in him as did -those strange and monstrous fish who inhabit the esoteric world of green -in the aquarium. - -Two more strollers caught his eye casually, a man and a girl--then in a -horrified instant the girl resolved herself into Gloria. He stood here -powerless; they came nearer and Gloria, glancing in, saw him. Her eyes -widened and she smiled politely. Her lips moved. She was less than five -feet away. - -"How do you do?" he muttered inanely. - -Gloria, happy, beautiful, and young--with a man he had never seen -before! - -It was then that the barber's chair was vacated and he read down the -newspaper column three times in succession. - -The second incident took place the next day. Going into the Manhattan -bar about seven he was confronted with Bloeckman. As it happened, the -room was nearly deserted, and before the mutual recognition he had -stationed himself within a foot of the older man and ordered his drink, -so it was inevitable that they should converse. - -"Hello, Mr. Patch," said Bloeckman amiably enough. - -Anthony took the proffered hand and exchanged a few aphorisms on the -fluctuations of the mercury. - -"Do you come in here much?" inquired Bloeckman. - -"No, very seldom." He omitted to add that the Plaza bar had, until -lately, been his favorite. - -"Nice bar. One of the best bars in town." - -Anthony nodded. Bloeckman emptied his glass and picked up his cane. He -was in evening dress. - -"Well, I'll be hurrying on. I'm going to dinner with Miss Gilbert." - -Death looked suddenly out at him from two blue eyes. Had he announced -himself as his vis-a-vis's prospective murderer he could not have struck -a more vital blow at Anthony. The younger man must have reddened -visibly, for his every nerve was in instant clamor. With tremendous -effort he mustered a rigid--oh, so rigid--smile, and said a conventional -good-by. But that night he lay awake until after four, half wild with -grief and fear and abominable imaginings. - - -WEAKNESS - -And one day in the fifth week he called her up. He had been sitting in -his apartment trying to read "L'Education Sentimental," and something in -the book had sent his thoughts racing in the direction that, set free, -they always took, like horses racing for a home stable. With suddenly -quickened breath he walked to the telephone. When he gave the number it -seemed to him that his voice faltered and broke like a schoolboy's. The -Central must have heard the pounding of his heart. The sound of the -receiver being taken up at the other end was a crack of doom, and Mrs. -Gilbert's voice, soft as maple syrup running into a glass container, had -for him a quality of horror in its single "Hello-o-ah?" - -"Miss Gloria's not feeling well. She's lying down, asleep. Who shall I -say called?" - -"Nobody!" he shouted. - -In a wild panic he slammed down the receiver; collapsed into his -armchair in the cold sweat of breathless relief. - - -SERENADE - -The first thing he said to her was: "Why, you've bobbed your hair!" and -she answered: "Yes, isn't it gorgeous?" - -It was not fashionable then. It was to be fashionable in five or six -years. At that time it was considered extremely daring. - -"It's all sunshine outdoors," he said gravely. "Don't you want to take a -walk?" - -She put on a light coat and a quaintly piquant Napoleon hat of Alice -Blue, and they walked along the Avenue and into the Zoo, where they -properly admired the grandeur of the elephant and the collar-height of -the giraffe, but did not visit the monkey house because Gloria said that -monkeys smelt so bad. - -Then they returned toward the Plaza, talking about nothing, but glad for -the spring singing in the air and for the warm balm that lay upon the -suddenly golden city. To their right was the Park, while at the left a -great bulk of granite and marble muttered dully a millionaire's chaotic -message to whosoever would listen: something about "I worked and I saved -and I was sharper than all Adam and here I sit, by golly, by golly!" - -All the newest and most beautiful designs in automobiles were out on -Fifth Avenue, and ahead of them the Plaza loomed up rather unusually -white and attractive. The supple, indolent Gloria walked a short -shadow's length ahead of him, pouring out lazy casual comments that -floated a moment on the dazzling air before they reached his ear. - -"Oh!" she cried, "I want to go south to Hot Springs! I want to get out -in the air and just roll around on the new grass and forget there's ever -been any winter." - -"Don't you, though!" - -"I want to hear a million robins making a frightful racket. I sort of -like birds." - -"All women _are_ birds," he ventured. - -"What kind am I?"--quick and eager. - -"A swallow, I think, and sometimes a bird of paradise. Most girls are -sparrows, of course--see that row of nurse-maids over there? They're -sparrows--or are they magpies? And of course you've met canary -girls--and robin girls." - -"And swan girls and parrot girls. All grown women are hawks, I think, or -owls." - -"What am I--a buzzard?" - -She laughed and shook her head. - -"Oh, no, you're not a bird at all, do you think? You're a Russian -wolfhound." - -Anthony remembered that they were white and always looked unnaturally -hungry. But then they were usually photographed with dukes and -princesses, so he was properly flattered. - -"Dick's a fox terrier, a trick fox terrier," she continued. - -"And Maury's a cat." Simultaneously it occurred to him how like -Bloeckman was to a robust and offensive hog. But he preserved a -discreet silence. - -Later, as they parted, Anthony asked when he might see her again. - -"Don't you ever make long engagements?" he pleaded, "even if it's a week -ahead, I think it'd be fun to spend a whole day together, morning and -afternoon both." - -"It would be, wouldn't it?" She thought for a moment. "Let's do it next -Sunday." - -"All right. I'll map out a programme that'll take up every minute." - -He did. He even figured to a nicety what would happen in the two hours -when she would come to his apartment for tea: how the good Bounds would -have the windows wide to let in the fresh breeze--but a fire going also -lest there be chill in the air--and how there would be clusters of -flowers about in big cool bowls that he would buy for the occasion. They -would sit on the lounge. - -And when the day came they did sit upon the lounge. After a while -Anthony kissed her because it came about quite naturally; he found -sweetness sleeping still upon her lips, and felt that he had never been -away. The fire was bright and the breeze sighing in through the curtains -brought a mellow damp, promising May and world of summer. His soul -thrilled to remote harmonies; he heard the strum of far guitars and -waters lapping on a warm Mediterranean shore--for he was young now as he -would never be again, and more triumphant than death. - -Six o'clock stole down too soon and rang the querulous melody of St. -Anne's chimes on the corner. Through the gathering dusk they strolled to -the Avenue, where the crowds, like prisoners released, were walking with -elastic step at last after the long winter, and the tops of the busses -were thronged with congenial kings and the shops full of fine soft -things for the summer, the rare summer, the gay promising summer that -seemed for love what the winter was for money. Life was singing for his -supper on the corner! Life was handing round cocktails in the street! Old -women there were in that crowd who felt that they could have run and won -a hundred-yard dash! - -In bed that night with the lights out and the cool room swimming with -moonlight, Anthony lay awake and played with every minute of the day -like a child playing in turn with each one of a pile of long-wanted -Christmas toys. He had told her gently, almost in the middle of a kiss, -that he loved her, and she had smiled and held him closer and murmured, -"I'm glad," looking into his eyes. There had been a new quality in her -attitude, a new growth of sheer physical attraction toward him and a -strange emotional tenseness, that was enough to make him clinch his -hands and draw in his breath at the recollection. He had felt nearer to -her than ever before. In a rare delight he cried aloud to the room that -he loved her. - -He phoned next morning--no hesitation now, no uncertainty--instead a -delirious excitement that doubled and trebled when he heard her voice: - -"Good morning--Gloria." - -"Good morning." - -"That's all I called you up to say-dear." - -"I'm glad you did." - -"I wish I could see you." - -"You will, to-morrow night." - -"That's a long time, isn't it?" - -"Yes--" Her voice was reluctant. His hand tightened on the receiver. - -"Couldn't I come to-night?" He dared anything in the glory and -revelation of that almost whispered "yes." - -"I have a date." - -"Oh--" - -"But I might--I might be able to break it." - -"Oh!"--a sheer cry, a rhapsody. "Gloria?" - -"What?" - -"I love you." - -Another pause and then: - -"I--I'm glad." - -Happiness, remarked Maury Noble one day, is only the first hour after -the alleviation of some especially intense misery. But oh, Anthony's -face as he walked down the tenth-floor corridor of the Plaza that night! -His dark eyes were gleaming--around his mouth were lines it was a -kindness to see. He was handsome then if never before, bound for one of -those immortal moments which come so radiantly that their remembered -light is enough to see by for years. - -He knocked and, at a word, entered. Gloria, dressed in simple pink, -starched and fresh as a flower, was across the room, standing very -still, and looking at him wide-eyed. - -As he closed the door behind him she gave a little cry and moved swiftly -over the intervening space, her arms rising in a premature caress as she -came near. Together they crushed out the stiff folds of her dress in one -triumphant and enduring embrace. - - - - - -BOOK TWO - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -THE RADIANT HOUR - -After a fortnight Anthony and Gloria began to indulge in "practical -discussions," as they called those sessions when under the guise of -severe realism they walked in an eternal moonlight. - -"Not as much as I do you," the critic of belles-lettres would insist. -"If you really loved me you'd want every one to know it." - -"I do," she protested; "I want to stand on the street corner like a -sandwich man, informing all the passers-by." - -"Then tell me all the reasons why you're going to marry me in June." - -"Well, because you're so clean. You're sort of blowy clean, like I am. -There's two sorts, you know. One's like Dick: he's clean like polished -pans. You and I are clean like streams and winds. I can tell whenever I -see a person whether he is clean, and if so, which kind of clean he is." - -"We're twins." - -Ecstatic thought! - -"Mother says"--she hesitated uncertainly--"mother says that two souls -are sometimes created together and--and in love before they're born." - -Bilphism gained its easiest convert.... After a while he lifted up his -head and laughed soundlessly toward the ceiling. When his eyes came back -to her he saw that she was angry. - -"Why did you laugh?" she cried, "you've done that twice before. There's -nothing funny about our relation to each other. I don't mind playing the -fool, and I don't mind having you do it, but I can't stand it when we're -together." - -"I'm sorry." - -"Oh, don't say you're sorry! If you can't think of anything better than -that, just keep quiet!" - -"I love you." - -"I don't care." - -There was a pause. Anthony was depressed.... At length Gloria murmured: - -"I'm sorry I was mean." - -"You weren't. I was the one." - -Peace was restored--the ensuing moments were so much more sweet and -sharp and poignant. They were stars on this stage, each playing to an -audience of two: the passion of their pretense created the actuality. -Here, finally, was the quintessence of self-expression--yet it was -probable that for the most part their love expressed Gloria rather than -Anthony. He felt often like a scarcely tolerated guest at a party she -was giving. - -Telling Mrs. Gilbert had been an embarrassed matter. She sat stuffed -into a small chair and listened with an intense and very blinky sort of -concentration. She must have known it--for three weeks Gloria had seen -no one else--and she must have noticed that this time there was an -authentic difference in her daughter's attitude. She had been given -special deliveries to post; she had heeded, as all mothers seem to heed, -the hither end of telephone conversations, disguised but still -rather warm-- - ---Yet she had delicately professed surprise and declared herself -immensely pleased; she doubtless was; so were the geranium plants -blossoming in the window-boxes, and so were the cabbies when the lovers -sought the romantic privacy of hansom cabs--quaint device--and the staid -bill of fares on which they scribbled "you know I do," pushing it over -for the other to see. - -But between kisses Anthony and this golden girl quarrelled incessantly. - -"Now, Gloria," he would cry, "please let me explain!" - -"Don't explain. Kiss me." - -"I don't think that's right. If I hurt your feelings we ought to discuss -it. I don't like this kiss-and-forget." - -"But I don't want to argue. I think it's wonderful that we _can_ kiss -and forget, and when we can't it'll be time to argue." - -At one time some gossamer difference attained such bulk that Anthony -arose and punched himself into his overcoat--for a moment it appeared -that the scene of the preceding February was to be repeated, but knowing -how deeply she was moved he retained his dignity with his pride, and in -a moment Gloria was sobbing in his arms, her lovely face miserable as a -frightened little girl's. - -Meanwhile they kept unfolding to each other, unwillingly, by curious -reactions and evasions, by distastes and prejudices and unintended hints -of the past. The girl was proudly incapable of jealousy and, because he -was extremely jealous, this virtue piqued him. He told her recondite -incidents of his own life on purpose to arouse some spark of it, but to -no avail. She possessed him now--nor did she desire the dead years. - -"Oh, Anthony," she would say, "always when I'm mean to you I'm sorry -afterward. I'd give my right hand to save you one little moment's pain." - -And in that instant her eyes were brimming and she was not aware that -she was voicing an illusion. Yet Anthony knew that there were days when -they hurt each other purposely--taking almost a delight in the thrust. -Incessantly she puzzled him: one hour so intimate and charming, striving -desperately toward an unguessed, transcendent union; the next, silent -and cold, apparently unmoved by any consideration of their love or -anything he could say. Often he would eventually trace these portentous -reticences to some physical discomfort--of these she never complained -until they were over--or to some carelessness or presumption in him, or -to an unsatisfactory dish at dinner, but even then the means by which -she created the infinite distances she spread about herself were a -mystery, buried somewhere back in those twenty-two years of -unwavering pride. - -"Why do you like Muriel?" he demanded one day. - -"I don't very much." - -"Then why do you go with her?" - -"Just for some one to go with. They're no exertion, those girls. They -sort of believe everything I tell them--but I rather like Rachael. I -think she's cute--and so clean and slick, don't you? I used to have -other friends--in Kansas City and at school--casual, all of them, girls -who just flitted into my range and out of it for no more reason than -that boys took us places together. They didn't interest me after -environment stopped throwing us together. Now they're mostly married. -What does it matter--they were all just people." - -"You like men better, don't you?" - -"Oh, much better. I've got a man's mind." - -"You've got a mind like mine. Not strongly gendered either way." - -Later she told him about the beginnings of her friendship with -Bloeckman. One day in Delmonico's, Gloria and Rachael had come upon -Bloeckman and Mr. Gilbert having luncheon and curiosity had impelled her -to make it a party of four. She had liked him--rather. He was a relief -from younger men, satisfied as he was with so little. He humored her and -he laughed, whether he understood her or not. She met him several times, -despite the open disapproval of her parents, and within a month he had -asked her to marry him, tendering her everything from a villa in Italy -to a brilliant career on the screen. She had laughed in his face--and he -had laughed too. - -But he had not given up. To the time of Anthony's arrival in the arena -he had been making steady progress. She treated him rather well--except -that she had called him always by an invidious nickname--perceiving, -meanwhile, that he was figuratively following along beside her as she -walked the fence, ready to catch her if she should fall. - -The night before the engagement was announced she told Bloeckman. It was -a heavy blow. She did not enlighten Anthony as to the details, but she -implied that he had not hesitated to argue with her. Anthony gathered -that the interview had terminated on a stormy note, with Gloria very -cool and unmoved lying in her corner of the sofa and Joseph Bloeckman of -"Films Par Excellence" pacing the carpet with eyes narrowed and head -bowed. Gloria had been sorry for him but she had judged it best not to -show it. In a final burst of kindness she had tried to make him hate -her, there at the last. But Anthony, understanding that Gloria's -indifference was her strongest appeal, judged how futile this must have -been. He wondered, often but quite casually, about Bloeckman--finally he -forgot him entirely. - - -HEYDAY - -One afternoon they found front seats on the sunny roof of a bus and rode -for hours from the fading Square up along the sullied river, and then, -as the stray beams fled the westward streets, sailed down the turgid -Avenue, darkening with ominous bees from the department stores. The -traffic was clotted and gripped in a patternless jam; the busses were -packed four deep like platforms above the crowd as they waited for the -moan of the traffic whistle. - -"Isn't it good!" cried Gloria. "Look!" - -A miller's wagon, stark white with flour, driven by a powdery clown, -passed in front of them behind a white horse and his black team-mate. - -"What a pity!" she complained; "they'd look so beautiful in the dusk, if -only both horses were white. I'm mighty happy just this minute, in -this city." - -Anthony shook his head in disagreement. - -"I think the city's a mountebank. Always struggling to approach the -tremendous and impressive urbanity ascribed to it. Trying to be -romantically metropolitan." - -"I don't. I think it is impressive." - -"Momentarily. But it's really a transparent, artificial sort of -spectacle. It's got its press-agented stars and its flimsy, unenduring -stage settings and, I'll admit, the greatest army of supers ever -assembled--" He paused, laughed shortly, and added: "Technically -excellent, perhaps, but not convincing." - -"I'll bet policemen think people are fools," said Gloria thoughtfully, -as she watched a large but cowardly lady being helped across the street. -"He always sees them frightened and inefficient and old--they are," she -added. And then: "We'd better get off. I told mother I'd have an early -supper and go to bed. She says I look tired, damn it." - -"I wish we were married," he muttered soberly; "there'll be no good -night then and we can do just as we want." - -"Won't it be good! I think we ought to travel a lot. I want to go to the -Mediterranean and Italy. And I'd like to go on the stage some time--say -for about a year." - -"You bet. I'll write a play for you." - -"Won't that be good! And I'll act in it. And then some time when we have -more money"--old Adam's death was always thus tactfully alluded -to--"we'll build a magnificent estate, won't we?" - -"Oh, yes, with private swimming pools." - -"Dozens of them. And private rivers. Oh, I wish it were now." - -Odd coincidence--he had just been wishing that very thing. They plunged -like divers into the dark eddying crowd and emerging in the cool fifties -sauntered indolently homeward, infinitely romantic to each other ... -both were walking alone in a dispassionate garden with a ghost found -in a dream. - -Halcyon days like boats drifting along slow-moving rivers; spring -evenings full of a plaintive melancholy that made the past beautiful and -bitter, bidding them look back and see that the loves of other summers -long gone were dead with the forgotten waltzes of their years. Always -the most poignant moments were when some artificial barrier kept them -apart: in the theatre their hands would steal together, join, give and -return gentle pressures through the long dark; in crowded rooms they -would form words with their lips for each other's eyes--not knowing that -they were but following in the footsteps of dusty generations but -comprehending dimly that if truth is the end of life happiness is a mode -of it, to be cherished in its brief and tremulous moment. And then, one -fairy night, May became June. Sixteen days now--fifteen--fourteen---- - - -THREE DIGRESSIONS - -Just before the engagement was announced Anthony had gone up to -Tarrytown to see his grandfather, who, a little more wizened and grizzly -as time played its ultimate chuckling tricks, greeted the news with -profound cynicism. - -"Oh, you're going to get married, are you?" He said this with such a -dubious mildness and shook his head up and down so many times that -Anthony was not a little depressed. While he was unaware of his -grandfather's intentions he presumed that a large part of the money -would come to him. A good deal would go in charities, of course; a good -deal to carry on the business of reform. - -"Are you going to work?" - -"Why--" temporized Anthony, somewhat disconcerted. "I _am_ working. You -know--" - -"Ah, I mean work," said Adam Patch dispassionately. - -"I'm not quite sure yet what I'll do. I'm not exactly a beggar, grampa," -he asserted with some spirit. - -The old man considered this with eyes half closed. Then almost -apologetically he asked: - -"How much do you save a year?" - -"Nothing so far--" - -"And so after just managing to get along on your money you've decided -that by some miracle two of you can get along on it." - -"Gloria has some money of her own. Enough to buy clothes." - -"How much?" - -Without considering this question impertinent, Anthony answered it. - -"About a hundred a month." - -"That's altogether about seventy-five hundred a year." Then he added -softly: "It ought to be plenty. If you have any sense it ought to be -plenty. But the question is whether you have any or not." - -"I suppose it is." It was shameful to be compelled to endure this pious -browbeating from the old man, and his next words were stiffened with -vanity. "I can manage very well. You seem convinced that I'm utterly -worthless. At any rate I came up here simply to tell you that I'm -getting married in June. Good-by, sir." With this he turned away and -headed for the door, unaware that in that instant his grandfather, for -the first time, rather liked him. - -"Wait!" called Adam Patch, "I want to talk to you." - -Anthony faced about. - -"Well, sir?" - -"Sit down. Stay all night." - -Somewhat mollified, Anthony resumed his seat. - -"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to see Gloria to-night." - -"What's her name?" - -"Gloria Gilbert." - -"New York girl? Someone you know?" - -"She's from the Middle West." - -"What business her father in?" - -"In a celluloid corporation or trust or something. They're from Kansas -City." - -"You going to be married out there?" - -"Why, no, sir. We thought we'd be married in New York--rather quietly." - -"Like to have the wedding out here?" - -Anthony hesitated. The suggestion made no appeal to him, but it was -certainly the part of wisdom to give the old man, if possible, a -proprietary interest in his married life. In addition Anthony was a -little touched. - -"That's very kind of you, grampa, but wouldn't it be a lot of trouble?" - -"Everything's a lot of trouble. Your father was married here--but in the -old house." - -"Why--I thought he was married in Boston." - -Adam Patch considered. - -"That's true. He _was_ married in Boston." - -Anthony felt a moment's embarrassment at having made the correction, and -he covered it up with words. - -"Well, I'll speak to Gloria about it. Personally I'd like to, but of -course it's up to the Gilberts, you see." - -His grandfather drew a long sigh, half closed his eyes, and sank back in -his chair. - -"In a hurry?" he asked in a different tone. - -"Not especially." - -"I wonder," began Adam Patch, looking out with a mild, kindly glance at -the lilac bushes that rustled against the windows, "I wonder if you ever -think about the after-life." - -"Why--sometimes." - -"I think a great deal about the after-life." His eyes were dim but his -voice was confident and clear. "I was sitting here to-day thinking about -what's lying in wait for us, and somehow I began to remember an -afternoon nearly sixty-five years ago, when I was playing with my little -sister Annie, down where that summer-house is now." He pointed out into -the long flower-garden, his eyes trembling of tears, his voice shaking. - -"I began thinking--and it seemed to me that _you_ ought to think a -little more about the after-life. You ought to be--steadier"--he paused -and seemed to grope about for the right word--"more industrious--why--" - -Then his expression altered, his entire personality seemed to snap -together like a trap, and when he continued the softness had gone from -his voice. - -"--Why, when I was just two years older than you," he rasped with a -cunning chuckle, "I sent three members of the firm of Wrenn and Hunt to -the poorhouse." - -Anthony started with embarrassment. - -"Well, good-by," added his grandfather suddenly, "you'll miss your -train." - -Anthony left the house unusually elated, and strangely sorry for the old -man; not because his wealth could buy him "neither youth nor digestion" -but because he had asked Anthony to be married there, and because he had -forgotten something about his son's wedding that he should have -remembered. - -Richard Caramel, who was one of the ushers, caused Anthony and Gloria -much distress in the last few weeks by continually stealing the rays of -their spot-light. "The Demon Lover" had been published in April, and it -interrupted the love affair as it may be said to have interrupted -everything its author came in contact with. It was a highly original, -rather overwritten piece of sustained description concerned with a Don -Juan of the New York slums. As Maury and Anthony had said before, as the -more hospitable critics were saying then, there was no writer in America -with such power to describe the atavistic and unsubtle reactions of that -section of society. - -The book hesitated and then suddenly "went." Editions, small at first, -then larger, crowded each other week by week. A spokesman of the -Salvation Army denounced it as a cynical misrepresentation of all the -uplift taking place in the underworld. Clever press-agenting spread the -unfounded rumor that "Gypsy" Smith was beginning a libel suit because -one of the principal characters was a burlesque of himself. It was -barred from the public library of Burlington, Iowa, and a Mid-Western -columnist announced by innuendo that Richard Caramel was in a sanitarium -with delirium tremens. - -The author, indeed, spent his days in a state of pleasant madness. The -book was in his conversation three-fourths of the time--he wanted to -know if one had heard "the latest"; he would go into a store and in a -loud voice order books to be charged to him, in order to catch a chance -morsel of recognition from clerk or customer. He knew to a town in what -sections of the country it was selling best; he knew exactly what he -cleared on each edition, and when he met any one who had not read it, -or, as it happened only too often, had not heard of it, he succumbed to -moody depression. - -So it was natural for Anthony and Gloria to decide, in their jealousy, -that he was so swollen with conceit as to be a bore. To Dick's great -annoyance Gloria publicly boasted that she had never read "The Demon -Lover," and didn't intend to until every one stopped talking about it. -As a matter of fact, she had no time to read now, for the presents were -pouring in--first a scattering, then an avalanche, varying from the -bric-a-brac of forgotten family friends to the photographs of forgotten -poor relations. - -Maury gave them an elaborate "drinking set," which included silver -goblets, cocktail shaker, and bottle-openers. The extortion from Dick -was more conventional--a tea set from Tiffany's. From Joseph Bloeckman -came a simple and exquisite travelling clock, with his card. There was -even a cigarette-holder from Bounds; this touched Anthony and made him -want to weep--indeed, any emotion short of hysteria seemed natural in -the half-dozen people who were swept up by this tremendous sacrifice to -convention. The room set aside in the Plaza bulged with offerings sent -by Harvard friends and by associates of his grandfather, with -remembrances of Gloria's Farmover days, and with rather pathetic -trophies from her former beaux, which last arrived with esoteric, -melancholy messages, written on cards tucked carefully inside, beginning -"I little thought when--" or "I'm sure I wish you all the happiness--" -or even "When you get this I shall be on my way to--" - -The most munificent gift was simultaneously the most disappointing. It -was a concession of Adam Patch's--a check for five thousand dollars. - -To most of the presents Anthony was cold. It seemed to him that they -would necessitate keeping a chart of the marital status of all their -acquaintances during the next half-century. But Gloria exulted in each -one, tearing at the tissue-paper and excelsior with the rapaciousness of -a dog digging for a bone, breathlessly seizing a ribbon or an edge of -metal and finally bringing to light the whole article and holding it up -critically, no emotion except rapt interest in her unsmiling face. - -"Look, Anthony!" - -"Darn nice, isn't it!" - -No answer until an hour later when she would give him a careful account -of her precise reaction to the gift, whether it would have been improved -by being smaller or larger, whether she was surprised at getting it, -and, if so, just how much surprised. - -Mrs. Gilbert arranged and rearranged a hypothetical house, distributing -the gifts among the different rooms, tabulating articles as "second-best -clock" or "silver to use _every_ day," and embarrassing Anthony and -Gloria by semi-facetious references to a room she called the nursery. -She was pleased by old Adam's gift and thereafter had it that he was a -very ancient soul, "as much as anything else." As Adam Patch never quite -decided whether she referred to the advancing senility of his mind or to -some private and psychic schema of her own, it cannot be said to have -pleased him. Indeed he always spoke of her to Anthony as "that old -woman, the mother," as though she were a character in a comedy he had -seen staged many times before. Concerning Gloria he was unable to make -up his mind. She attracted him but, as she herself told Anthony, he had -decided that she was frivolous and was afraid to approve of her. - -Five days!--A dancing platform was being erected on the lawn at -Tarrytown. Four days!--A special train was chartered to convey the -guests to and from New York. Three days!---- - - -THE DIARY - -She was dressed in blue silk pajamas and standing by her bed with her -hand on the light to put the room in darkness, when she changed her mind -and opening a table drawer brought out a little black book--a -"Line-a-day" diary. This she had kept for seven years. Many of the -pencil entries were almost illegible and there were notes and references -to nights and afternoons long since forgotten, for it was not an -intimate diary, even though it began with the immemorial "I am going to -keep a diary for my children." Yet as she thumbed over the pages the -eyes of many men seemed to look out at her from their half-obliterated -names. With one she had gone to New Haven for the first time--in 1908, -when she was sixteen and padded shoulders were fashionable at Yale--she -had been flattered because "Touch down" Michaud had "rushed" her all -evening. She sighed, remembering the grown-up satin dress she had been -so proud of and the orchestra playing "Yama-yama, My Yama Man" and -"Jungle-Town." So long ago!--the names: Eltynge Reardon, Jim Parsons, -"Curly" McGregor, Kenneth Cowan, "Fish-eye" Fry (whom she had liked for -being so ugly), Carter Kirby--he had sent her a present; so had Tudor -Baird;--Marty Reffer, the first man she had been in love with for more -than a day, and Stuart Holcome, who had run away with her in his -automobile and tried to make her marry him by force. And Larry Fenwick, -whom she had always admired because he had told her one night that if -she wouldn't kiss him she could get out of his car and walk home. What -a list! - -... And, after all, an obsolete list. She was in love now, set for the -eternal romance that was to be the synthesis of all romance, yet sad for -these men and these moonlights and for the "thrills" she had had--and -the kisses. The past--her past, oh, what a joy! She had been -exuberantly happy. - -Turning over the pages her eyes rested idly on the scattered entries of -the past four months. She read the last few carefully. - -"_April 1st_.--I know Bill Carstairs hates me because I was so -disagreeable, but I hate to be sentimentalized over sometimes. We drove -out to the Rockyear Country Club and the most wonderful moon kept -shining through the trees. My silver dress is getting tarnished. Funny -how one forgets the other nights at Rockyear--with Kenneth Cowan when I -loved him so! - -"_April 3rd_.--After two hours of Schroeder who, they inform me, has -millions, I've decided that this matter of sticking to things wears one -out, particularly when the things concerned are men. There's nothing so -often overdone and from to-day I swear to be amused. We talked about -'love'--how banal! With how many men have I talked about love? - -"_April 11th_.--Patch actually called up to-day! and when he forswore me -about a month ago he fairly raged out the door. I'm gradually losing -faith in any man being susceptible to fatal injuries. - -"_April 20th_.--Spent the day with Anthony. Maybe I'll marry him some -time. I kind of like his ideas--he stimulates all the originality in me. -Blockhead came around about ten in his new car and took me out Riverside -Drive. I liked him to-night: he's so considerate. He knew I didn't want -to talk so he was quiet all during the ride. - -"_April 21st_.--Woke up thinking of Anthony and sure enough he called -and sounded sweet on the phone--so I broke a date for him. To-day I feel -I'd break anything for him, including the ten commandments and my neck. -He's coming at eight and I shall wear pink and look very fresh and -starched----" - -She paused here, remembering that after he had gone that night she had -undressed with the shivering April air streaming in the windows. Yet it -seemed she had not felt the cold, warmed by the profound banalities -burning in her heart. - -The next entry occurred a few days later: - -"_April 24th_.--I want to marry Anthony, because husbands are so often -'husbands' and I must marry a lover. - -"There are four general types of husbands. - -"(1) The husband who always wants to stay in in the evening, has no vices -and works for a salary. Totally undesirable! - -"(2) The atavistic master whose mistress one is, to wait on his pleasure. -This sort always considers every pretty woman 'shallow,' a sort of -peacock with arrested development. - -"(3) Next comes the worshipper, the idolater of his wife and all that is -his, to the utter oblivion of everything else. This sort demands an -emotional actress for a wife. God! it must be an exertion to be thought -righteous. - -"(4) And Anthony--a temporarily passionate lover with wisdom enough to -realize when it has flown and that it must fly. And I want to get -married to Anthony. - -"What grubworms women are to crawl on their bellies through colorless -marriages! Marriage was created not to be a background but to need one. -Mine is going to be outstanding. It can't, shan't be the setting--it's -going to be the performance, the live, lovely, glamourous performance, -and the world shall be the scenery. I refuse to dedicate my life to -posterity. Surely one owes as much to the current generation as to one's -unwanted children. What a fate--to grow rotund and unseemly, to lose my -self-love, to think in terms of milk, oatmeal, nurse, diapers.... Dear -dream children, how much more beautiful you are, dazzling little -creatures who flutter (all dream children must flutter) on golden, -golden wings---- - -"Such children, however, poor dear babies, have little in common with the -wedded state. - -"_June 7th_.--Moral question: Was it wrong to make Bloeckman love me? -Because I did really make him. He was almost sweetly sad to-night. How -opportune it was that my throat is swollen plunk together and tears were -easy to muster. But he's just the past--buried already in my -plentiful lavender. - -"_June 8th_.--And to-day I've promised not to chew my mouth. Well, I -won't, I suppose--but if he'd only asked me not to eat! - -"Blowing bubbles--that's what we're doing, Anthony and me. And we blew -such beautiful ones to-day, and they'll explode and then we'll blow more -and more, I guess--bubbles just as big and just as beautiful, until all -the soap and water is used up." - -On this note the diary ended. Her eyes wandered up the page, over the -June 8th's of 1912, 1910, 1907. The earliest entry was scrawled in the -plump, bulbous hand of a sixteen-year-old girl--it was the name, Bob -Lamar, and a word she could not decipher. Then she knew what it -was--and, knowing, she found her eyes misty with tears. There in a -graying blur was the record of her first kiss, faded as its intimate -afternoon, on a rainy veranda seven years before. She seemed to remember -something one of them had said that day and yet she could not remember. -Her tears came faster, until she could scarcely see the page. She was -crying, she told herself, because she could remember only the rain and -the wet flowers in the yard and the smell of the damp grass. - -... After a moment she found a pencil and holding it unsteadily drew -three parallel lines beneath the last entry. Then she printed FINIS in -large capitals, put the book back in the drawer, and crept into bed. - - -BREATH OF THE CAVE - -Back in his apartment after the bridal dinner, Anthony snapped out his -lights and, feeling impersonal and fragile as a piece of china waiting -on a serving table, got into bed. It was a warm night--a sheet was -enough for comfort--and through his wide-open windows came sound, -evanescent and summery, alive with remote anticipation. He was thinking -that the young years behind him, hollow and colorful, had been lived in -facile and vacillating cynicism upon the recorded emotions of men long -dust. And there was something beyond that; he knew now. There was the -union of his soul with Gloria's, whose radiant fire and freshness was -the living material of which the dead beauty of books was made. - -From the night into his high-walled room there came, persistently, that -evanescent and dissolving sound--something the city was tossing up and -calling back again, like a child playing with a ball. In Harlem, the -Bronx, Gramercy Park, and along the water-fronts, in little parlors or -on pebble-strewn, moon-flooded roofs, a thousand lovers were making this -sound, crying little fragments of it into the air. All the city was -playing with this sound out there in the blue summer dark, throwing it -up and calling it back, promising that, in a little while, life would be -beautiful as a story, promising happiness--and by that promise giving -it. It gave love hope in its own survival. It could do no more. - -It was then that a new note separated itself jarringly from the soft -crying of the night. It was a noise from an areaway within a hundred -feet from his rear window, the noise of a woman's laughter. It began -low, incessant and whining--some servant-maid with her fellow, he -thought--and then it grew in volume and became hysterical, until it -reminded him of a girl he had seen overcome with nervous laughter at a -vaudeville performance. Then it sank, receded, only to rise again and -include words--a coarse joke, some bit of obscure horseplay he could not -distinguish. It would break off for a moment and he would just catch the -low rumble of a man's voice, then begin again--interminably; at first -annoying, then strangely terrible. He shivered, and getting up out of -bed went to the window. It had reached a high point, tensed and stifled, -almost the quality of a scream--then it ceased and left behind it a -silence empty and menacing as the greater silence overhead. Anthony -stood by the window a moment longer before he returned to his bed. He -found himself upset and shaken. Try as he might to strangle his -reaction, some animal quality in that unrestrained laughter had grasped -at his imagination, and for the first time in four months aroused his -old aversion and horror toward all the business of life. The room had -grown smothery. He wanted to be out in some cool and bitter breeze, -miles above the cities, and to live serene and detached back in the -corners of his mind. Life was that sound out there, that ghastly -reiterated female sound. - -"Oh, my _God_!" he cried, drawing in his breath sharply. - -Burying his face in the pillows he tried in vain to concentrate upon the -details of the next day. - - -MORNING - -In the gray light he found that it was only five o'clock. He regretted -nervously that he had awakened so early--he would appear fagged at the -wedding. He envied Gloria who could hide her fatigue with careful -pigmentation. - -In his bathroom he contemplated himself in the mirror and saw that he -was unusually white--half a dozen small imperfections stood out against -the morning pallor of his complexion, and overnight he had grown the -faint stubble of a beard--the general effect, he fancied, was -unprepossessing, haggard, half unwell. - -On his dressing table were spread a number of articles which he told -over carefully with suddenly fumbling fingers--their tickets to -California, the book of traveller's checks, his watch, set to the half -minute, the key to his apartment, which he must not forget to give to -Maury, and, most important of all, the ring. It was of platinum set -around with small emeralds; Gloria had insisted on this; she had always -wanted an emerald wedding ring, she said. - -It was the third present he had given her; first had come the engagement -ring, and then a little gold cigarette-case. He would be giving her many -things now--clothes and jewels and friends and excitement. It seemed -absurd that from now on he would pay for all her meals. It was going to -cost: he wondered if he had not underestimated for this trip, and if he -had not better cash a larger check. The question worried him. - -Then the breathless impendency of the event swept his mind clear of -details. This was the day--unsought, unsuspected six months before, but -now breaking in yellow light through his east window, dancing along the -carpet as though the sun were smiling at some ancient and reiterated gag -of his own. - -Anthony laughed in a nervous one-syllable snort. - -"By God!" he muttered to himself, "I'm as good as married!" - - -THE USHERS - -_Six young men in_ CROSS PATCH'S _library growing more and more cheery -under the influence of Mumm's Extra Dry, set surreptitiously in cold -pails by the bookcases._ - -THE FIRST YOUNG MAN: By golly! Believe me, in my next book I'm going to -do a wedding scene that'll knock 'em cold! - -THE SECOND YOUNG MAN: Met a debutante th'other day said she thought your -book was powerful. As a rule young girls cry for this primitive business. - -THE THIRD YOUNG MAN: Where's Anthony? - -THE FOURTH YOUNG MAN: Walking up and down outside talking to himself. - -SECOND YOUNG MAN: Lord! Did you see the minister? Most peculiar looking -teeth. - -FIFTH YOUNG MAN: Think they're natural. Funny thing people having gold -teeth. - -SIXTH YOUNG MAN: They say they love 'em. My dentist told me once a woman -came to him and insisted on having two of her teeth covered with gold. -No reason at all. All right the way they were. - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: Hear you got out a book, Dicky. 'Gratulations! - -DICK: (_Stiffly_) Thanks. - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: (_Innocently_) What is it? College stories? - -DICK: (_More stiffly_) No. Not college stories. - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: Pity! Hasn't been a good book about Harvard for years. - -DICK: (_Touchily_) Why don't you supply the lack? - -THIRD YOUNG MAN: I think I saw a squad of guests turn the drive in a -Packard just now. - -SIXTH YOUNG MAN: Might open a couple more bottles on the strength of -that. - -THIRD YOUNG MAN: It was the shock of my life when I heard the old man -was going to have a wet wedding. Rabid prohibitionist, you know. - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: (_Snapping his fingers excitedly_) By gad! I knew I'd -forgotten something. Kept thinking it was my vest. - -DICK: What was it? - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: By gad! By gad! - -SIXTH YOUNG MAN: Here! Here! Why the tragedy? - -SECOND YOUNG MAN: What'd you forget? The way home? - -DICK: (_Maliciously_) He forgot the plot for his book of Harvard -stories. - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: No, sir, I forgot the present, by George! I forgot to -buy old Anthony a present. I kept putting it off and putting it off, and -by gad I've forgotten it! What'll they think? - -SIXTH YOUNG MAN: (_Facetiously_) That's probably what's been holding up -the wedding. - -(THE FOURTH YOUNG MAN _looks nervously at his watch. Laughter._) - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: By gad! What an ass I am! - -SECOND YOUNG MAN: What d'you make of the bridesmaid who thinks she's -Nora Bayes? Kept telling me she wished this was a ragtime wedding. -Name's Haines or Hampton. - -DICK: (_Hurriedly spurring his imagination_) Kane, you mean, Muriel -Kane. She's a sort of debt of honor, I believe. Once saved Gloria from -drowning, or something of the sort. - -SECOND YOUNG MAN: I didn't think she could stop that perpetual swaying -long enough to swim. Fill up my glass, will you? Old man and I had a -long talk about the weather just now. - -MAURY: Who? Old Adam? - -SECOND YOUNG MAN: No, the bride's father. He must be with a weather -bureau. - -DICK: He's my uncle, Otis. - -OTIS: Well, it's an honorable profession. (_Laughter._) - -SIXTH YOUNG MAN: Bride your cousin, isn't she? - -DICK: Yes, Cable, she is. - -CABLE: She certainly is a beauty. Not like you, Dicky. Bet she brings -old Anthony to terms. - -MAURY: Why are all grooms given the title of "old"? I think marriage is -an error of youth. - -DICK: Maury, the professional cynic. - -MAURY: Why, you intellectual faker! - -FIFTH YOUNG MAN: Battle of the highbrows here, Otis. Pick up what crumbs -you can. - -DICK: Faker yourself! What do _you_ know? - -MAURY: What do _you_ know? - -LICK: Ask me anything. Any branch of knowledge. - -MAURY: All right. What's the fundamental principle of biology? - -DICK: You don't know yourself. - -MAURY: Don't hedge! - -DICK: Well, natural selection? - -MAURY: Wrong. - -DICK: I give it up. - -MAURY: Ontogony recapitulates phyllogony. - -FIFTH YOUNG MAN: Take your base! - -MAURY: Ask you another. What's the influence of mice on the clover crop? -(_Laughter._) - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: What's the influence of rats on the Decalogue? - -MAURY: Shut up, you saphead. There _is_ a connection. - -DICK: What is it then? - -MAURY: (_Pausing a moment in growing disconcertion_) Why, let's see. I -seem to have forgotten exactly. Something about the bees eating -the clover. - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: And the clover eating the mice! Haw! Haw! - -MAURY: (_Frowning_) Let me just think a minute. - -DICK: (_Sitting up suddenly_) Listen! - -(_A volley of chatter explodes in the adjoining room. The six young men -arise, feeling at their neckties._) - -DICK: (_Weightily_) We'd better join the firing squad. They're going to -take the picture, I guess. No, that's afterward. - -OTIS: Cable, you take the ragtime bridesmaid. - -FOURTH YOUNG MAN: I wish to God I'd sent that present. - -MAURY: If you'll give me another minute I'll think of that about the -mice. - -OTIS: I was usher last month for old Charlie McIntyre and---- - -(_They move slowly toward the door as the chatter becomes a babel and -the practising preliminary to the overture issues in long pious groans -from ADAM PATCH'S organ_.) - - -ANTHONY - -There were five hundred eyes boring through the back of his cutaway and -the sun glinting on the clergyman's inappropriately bourgeois teeth. -With difficulty he restrained a laugh. Gloria was saying something in a -clear proud voice and he tried to think that the affair was irrevocable, -that every second was significant, that his life was being slashed into -two periods and that the face of the world was changing before him. He -tried to recapture that ecstatic sensation of ten weeks before. All -these emotions eluded him, he did not even feel the physical nervousness -of that very morning--it was all one gigantic aftermath. And those gold -teeth! He wondered if the clergyman were married; he wondered perversely -if a clergyman could perform his own marriage service.... - -But as he took Gloria into his arms he was conscious of a strong -reaction. The blood was moving in his veins now. A languorous and -pleasant content settled like a weight upon him, bringing responsibility -and possession. He was married. - - -GLORIA - -So many, such mingled emotions, that no one of them was separable from -the others! She could have wept for her mother, who was crying quietly -back there ten feet and for the loveliness of the June sunlight flooding -in at the windows. She was beyond all conscious perceptions. Only a -sense, colored with delirious wild excitement, that the ultimately -important was happening--and a trust, fierce and passionate, burning in -her like a prayer, that in a moment she would be forever and -securely safe. - -Late one night they arrived in Santa Barbara, where the night clerk at -the Hotel Lafcadio refused to admit them, on the grounds that they were -not married. - -The clerk thought that Gloria was beautiful. He did not think that -anything so beautiful as Gloria could be moral. - - -"CON AMORE" - -That first half-year--the trip West, the long months' loiter along the -California coast, and the gray house near Greenwich where they lived -until late autumn made the country dreary--those days, those places, saw -the enraptured hours. The breathless idyl of their engagement gave way, -first, to the intense romance of the more passionate relationship. The -breathless idyl left them, fled on to other lovers; they looked around -one day and it was gone, how they scarcely knew. Had either of them lost -the other in the days of the idyl, the love lost would have been ever to -the loser that dim desire without fulfilment which stands back of all -life. But magic must hurry on, and the lovers remain.... - -The idyl passed, bearing with it its extortion of youth. Came a day when -Gloria found that other men no longer bored her; came a day when Anthony -discovered that he could sit again late into the evening, talking with -Dick of those tremendous abstractions that had once occupied his world. -But, knowing they had had the best of love, they clung to what remained. -Love lingered--by way of long conversations at night into those stark -hours when the mind thins and sharpens and the borrowings from dreams -become the stuff of all life, by way of deep and intimate kindnesses -they developed toward each other, by way of their laughing at the same -absurdities and thinking the same things noble and the same things sad. - -It was, first of all, a time of discovery. The things they found in each -other were so diverse, so intermixed and, moreover, so sugared with love -as to seem at the time not so much discoveries as isolated phenomena--to -be allowed for, and to be forgotten. Anthony found that he was living -with a girl of tremendous nervous tension and of the most high-handed -selfishness. Gloria knew within a month that her husband was an utter -coward toward any one of a million phantasms created by his imagination. -Her perception was intermittent, for this cowardice sprang out, became -almost obscenely evident, then faded and vanished as though it had been -only a creation of her own mind. Her reactions to it were not those -attributed to her sex--it roused her neither to disgust nor to a -premature feeling of motherhood. Herself almost completely without -physical fear, she was unable to understand, and so she made the most of -what she felt to be his fear's redeeming feature, which was that though -he was a coward under a shock and a coward under a strain--when his -imagination was given play--he had yet a sort of dashing recklessness -that moved her on its brief occasions almost to admiration, and a pride -that usually steadied him when he thought he was observed. - -The trait first showed itself in a dozen incidents of little more than -nervousness--his warning to a taxi-driver against fast driving, in -Chicago; his refusal to take her to a certain tough cafe she had always -wished to visit; these of course admitted the conventional -interpretation--that it was of her he had been thinking; nevertheless, -their culminative weight disturbed her. But something that occurred in a -San Francisco hotel, when they had been married a week, gave the matter -certainty. - -It was after midnight and pitch dark in their room. Gloria was dozing -off and Anthony's even breathing beside her made her suppose that he was -asleep, when suddenly she saw him raise himself on his elbow and stare -at the window. - -"What is it, dearest?" she murmured. - -"Nothing"--he had relaxed to his pillow and turned toward her--"nothing, -my darling wife." - -"Don't say 'wife.' I'm your mistress. Wife's such an ugly word. Your -'permanent mistress' is so much more tangible and desirable.... Come -into my arms," she added in a rush of tenderness; "I can sleep so well, -so well with you in my arms." - -Coming into Gloria's arms had a quite definite meaning. It required that -he should slide one arm under her shoulder, lock both arms about her, -and arrange himself as nearly as possible as a sort of three-sided crib -for her luxurious ease. Anthony, who tossed, whose arms went tinglingly -to sleep after half an hour of that position, would wait until she was -asleep and roll her gently over to her side of the bed--then, left to -his own devices, he would curl himself into his usual knots. - -Gloria, having attained sentimental comfort, retired into her doze. Five -minutes ticked away on Bloeckman's travelling clock; silence lay all -about the room, over the unfamiliar, impersonal furniture and the -half-oppressive ceiling that melted imperceptibly into invisible walls -on both sides. Then there was suddenly a rattling flutter at the window, -staccato and loud upon the hushed, pent air. - -With a leap Anthony was out of the bed and standing tense beside it. - -"Who's there?" he cried in an awful voice. - -Gloria lay very still, wide awake now and engrossed not so much in the -rattling as in the rigid breathless figure whose voice had reached from -the bedside into that ominous dark. - -The sound stopped; the room was quiet as before--then Anthony pouring -words in at the telephone. - -"Some one just tried to get into the room! ... - -"There's some one at the window!" His voice was emphatic now, faintly -terrified. - -"All right! Hurry!" He hung up the receiver; stood motionless. - -... There was a rush and commotion at the door, a knocking--Anthony went -to open it upon an excited night clerk with three bell-boys grouped -staring behind him. Between thumb and finger the night clerk held a wet -pen with the threat of a weapon; one of the bell-boys had seized a -telephone directory and was looking at it sheepishly. Simultaneously the -group was joined by the hastily summoned house-detective, and as one man -they surged into the room. - -Lights sprang on with a click. Gathering a piece of sheet about her -Gloria dove away from sight, shutting her eyes to keep out the horror of -this unpremeditated visitation. There was no vestige of an idea in her -stricken sensibilities save that her Anthony was at grievous fault. - -... The night clerk was speaking from the window, his tone half of the -servant, half of the teacher reproving a schoolboy. - -"Nobody out there," he declared conclusively; "my golly, nobody _could_ -be out there. This here's a sheer fall to the street of fifty feet. It -was the wind you heard, tugging at the blind." - -"Oh." - -Then she was sorry for him. She wanted only to comfort him and draw him -back tenderly into her arms, to tell them to go away because the thing -their presence connotated was odious. Yet she could not raise her head -for shame. She heard a broken sentence, apologies, conventions of the -employee and one unrestrained snicker from a bell-boy. - -"I've been nervous as the devil all evening," Anthony was saying; -"somehow that noise just shook me--I was only about half awake." - -"Sure, I understand," said the night clerk with comfortable tact; "been -that way myself." - -The door closed; the lights snapped out; Anthony crossed the floor -quietly and crept into bed. Gloria, feigning to be heavy with sleep, -gave a quiet little sigh and slipped into his arms. - -"What was it, dear?" - -"Nothing," he answered, his voice still shaken; "I thought there was -somebody at the window, so I looked out, but I couldn't see any one and -the noise kept up, so I phoned down-stairs. Sorry if I disturbed you, -but I'm awfully darn nervous to-night." - -Catching the lie, she gave an interior start--he had not gone to the -window, nor near the window. He had stood by the bed and then sent in -his call of fear. - -"Oh," she said--and then: "I'm so sleepy." - -For an hour they lay awake side by side, Gloria with her eyes shut so -tight that blue moons formed and revolved against backgrounds of deepest -mauve, Anthony staring blindly into the darkness overhead. - -After many weeks it came gradually out into the light, to be laughed and -joked at. They made a tradition to fit over it--whenever that -overpowering terror of the night attacked Anthony, she would put her -arms about him and croon, soft as a song: - -"I'll protect my Anthony. Oh, nobody's ever going to harm my Anthony!" - -He would laugh as though it were a jest they played for their mutual -amusement, but to Gloria it was never quite a jest. It was, at first, a -keen disappointment; later, it was one of the times when she controlled -her temper. - -The management of Gloria's temper, whether it was aroused by a lack of -hot water for her bath or by a skirmish with her husband, became almost -the primary duty of Anthony's day. It must be done just so--by this much -silence, by that much pressure, by this much yielding, by that much -force. It was in her angers with their attendant cruelties that her -inordinate egotism chiefly displayed itself. Because she was brave, -because she was "spoiled," because of her outrageous and commendable -independence of judgment, and finally because of her arrogant -consciousness that she had never seen a girl as beautiful as herself, -Gloria had developed into a consistent, practising Nietzschean. This, of -course, with overtones of profound sentiment. - -There was, for example, her stomach. She was used to certain dishes, and -she had a strong conviction that she could not possibly eat anything -else. There must be a lemonade and a tomato sandwich late in the -morning, then a light lunch with a stuffed tomato. Not only did she -require food from a selection of a dozen dishes, but in addition this -food must be prepared in just a certain way. One of the most annoying -half hours of the first fortnight occurred in Los Angeles, when an -unhappy waiter brought her a tomato stuffed with chicken salad instead -of celery. - -"We always serve it that way, madame," he quavered to the gray eyes that -regarded him wrathfully. - -Gloria made no answer, but when the waiter had turned discreetly away -she banged both fists upon the table until the china and silver rattled. - -"Poor Gloria!" laughed Anthony unwittingly, "you can't get what you want -ever, can you?" - -"I can't eat _stuff_!" she flared up. - -"I'll call back the waiter." - -"I don't want you to! He doesn't know anything, the darn _fool_!" - -"Well, it isn't the hotel's fault. Either send it back, forget it, or be -a sport and eat it." - -"Shut up!" she said succinctly. - -"Why take it out on me?" - -"Oh, I'm _not_," she wailed, "but I simply _can't_ eat it." - -Anthony subsided helplessly. - -"We'll go somewhere else," he suggested. - -"I don't _want_ to go anywhere else. I'm tired of being trotted around -to a dozen cafes and not getting _one thing_ fit to eat." - -"When did we go around to a dozen cafes?" - -"You'd _have_ to in _this_ town," insisted Gloria with ready sophistry. - -Anthony, bewildered, tried another tack. - -"Why don't you try to eat it? It can't be as bad as you think." - -"Just--because--I--don't--like--chicken!" - -She picked up her fork and began poking contemptuously at the tomato, -and Anthony expected her to begin flinging the stuffings in all -directions. He was sure that she was approximately as angry as she had -ever been--for an instant he had detected a spark of hate directed as -much toward him as toward any one else--and Gloria angry was, for the -present, unapproachable. - -Then, surprisingly, he saw that she had tentatively raised the fork to -her lips and tasted the chicken salad. Her frown had not abated and he -stared at her anxiously, making no comment and daring scarcely to -breathe. She tasted another forkful--in another moment she was eating. -With difficulty Anthony restrained a chuckle; when at length he spoke -his words had no possible connection with chicken salad. - -This incident, with variations, ran like a lugubrious fugue through the -first year of marriage; always it left Anthony baffled, irritated, and -depressed. But another rough brushing of temperaments, a question of -laundry-bags, he found even more annoying as it ended inevitably in a -decisive defeat for him. - -One afternoon in Coronado, where they made the longest stay of their -trip, more than three weeks, Gloria was arraying herself brilliantly for -tea. Anthony, who had been down-stairs listening to the latest rumor -bulletins of war in Europe, entered the room, kissed the back of her -powdered neck, and went to his dresser. After a great pulling out and -pushing in of drawers, evidently unsatisfactory, he turned around to the -Unfinished Masterpiece. - -"Got any handkerchiefs, Gloria?" he asked. Gloria shook her golden head. - -"Not a one. I'm using one of yours." - -"The last one, I deduce." He laughed dryly. - -"Is it?" She applied an emphatic though very delicate contour to her -lips. - -"Isn't the laundry back?" - -"I don't know." - -Anthony hesitated--then, with sudden discernment, opened the closet -door. His suspicions were verified. On the hook provided hung the blue -bag furnished by the hotel. This was full of his clothes--he had put -them there himself. The floor beneath it was littered with an -astonishing mass of finery--lingerie, stockings, dresses, nightgowns, -and pajamas--most of it scarcely worn but all of it coming indubitably -under the general heading of Gloria's laundry. - -He stood holding the closet door open. - -"Why, Gloria!" - -"What?" - -The lip line was being erased and corrected according to some mysterious -perspective; not a finger trembled as she manipulated the lip-stick, not -a glance wavered in his direction. It was a triumph of concentration. - -"Haven't you ever sent out the laundry?" - -"Is it there?" - -"It most certainly is." - -"Well, I guess I haven't, then." - -"Gloria," began Anthony, sitting down on the bed and trying to catch her -mirrored eyes, "you're a nice fellow, you are! I've sent it out every -time it's been sent since we left New York, and over a week ago you -promised you'd do it for a change. All you'd have to do would be to cram -your own junk into that bag and ring for the chambermaid." - -"Oh, why fuss about the laundry?" exclaimed Gloria petulantly, "I'll -take care of it." - -"I haven't fussed about it. I'd just as soon divide the bother with you, -but when we run out of handkerchiefs it's darn near time -something's done." - -Anthony considered that he was being extraordinarily logical. But -Gloria, unimpressed, put away her cosmetics and casually offered him -her back. - -"Hook me up," she suggested; "Anthony, dearest, I forgot all about it. I -meant to, honestly, and I will to-day. Don't be cross with your -sweetheart." - -What could Anthony do then but draw her down upon his knee and kiss a -shade of color from her lips. - -"But I don't mind," she murmured with a smile, radiant and magnanimous. -"You can kiss all the paint off my lips any time you want." - -They went down to tea. They bought some handkerchiefs in a notion store -near by. All was forgotten. - -But two days later Anthony looked in the closet and saw the bag still -hung limp upon its hook and that the gay and vivid pile on the floor had -increased surprisingly in height. - -"Gloria!" he cried. - -"Oh--" Her voice was full of real distress. Despairingly Anthony went to -the phone and called the chambermaid. - -"It seems to me," he said impatiently, "that you expect me to be some -sort of French valet to you." - -Gloria laughed, so infectiously that Anthony was unwise enough to smile. -Unfortunate man! In some intangible manner his smile made her mistress -of the situation--with an air of injured righteousness she went -emphatically to the closet and began pushing her laundry violently into -the bag. Anthony watched her--ashamed of himself. - -"There!" she said, implying that her fingers had been worked to the bone -by a brutal taskmaster. - -He considered, nevertheless, that he had given her an object-lesson and -that the matter was closed, but on the contrary it was merely beginning. -Laundry pile followed laundry pile--at long intervals; dearth of -handkerchief followed dearth of handkerchief--at short ones; not to -mention dearth of sock, of shirt, of everything. And Anthony found at -length that either he must send it out himself or go through the -increasingly unpleasant ordeal of a verbal battle with Gloria. - - -GLORIA AND GENERAL LEE - -On their way East they stopped two days in Washington, strolling about -with some hostility in its atmosphere of harsh repellent light, of -distance without freedom, of pomp without splendor--it seemed a -pasty-pale and self-conscious city. The second day they made an -ill-advised trip to General Lee's old home at Arlington. - -The bus which bore them was crowded with hot, unprosperous people, and -Anthony, intimate to Gloria, felt a storm brewing. It broke at the Zoo, -where the party stopped for ten minutes. The Zoo, it seemed, smelt of -monkeys. Anthony laughed; Gloria called down the curse of Heaven upon -monkeys, including in her malevolence all the passengers of the bus and -their perspiring offspring who had hied themselves monkey-ward. - -Eventually the bus moved on to Arlington. There it met other busses and -immediately a swarm of women and children were leaving a trail of -peanut-shells through the halls of General Lee and crowding at length -into the room where he was married. On the wall of this room a pleasing -sign announced in large red letters "Ladies' Toilet." At this final blow -Gloria broke down. - -"I think it's perfectly terrible!" she said furiously, "the idea of -letting these people come here! And of encouraging them by making these -houses show-places." - -"Well," objected Anthony, "if they weren't kept up they'd go to pieces." - -"What if they did!" she exclaimed as they sought the wide pillared -porch. "Do you think they've left a breath of 1860 here? This has become -a thing of 1914." - -"Don't you want to preserve old things?" - -"But you _can't_, Anthony. Beautiful things grow to a certain height and -then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay. And -just as any period decays in our minds, the things of that period should -decay too, and in that way they're preserved for a while in the few -hearts like mine that react to them. That graveyard at Tarrytown, for -instance. The asses who give money to preserve things have spoiled that -too. Sleepy Hollow's gone; Washington Irving's dead and his books are -rotting in our estimation year by year--then let the graveyard rot too, -as it should, as all things should. Trying to preserve a century by -keeping its relics up to date is like keeping a dying man alive by -stimulants." - -"So you think that just as a time goes to pieces its houses ought to go -too?" - -"Of course! Would you value your Keats letter if the signature was -traced over to make it last longer? It's just because I love the past -that I want this house to look back on its glamourous moment of youth -and beauty, and I want its stairs to creak as if to the footsteps of -women with hoop skirts and men in boots and spurs. But they've made it -into a blondined, rouged-up old woman of sixty. It hasn't any right to -look so prosperous. It might care enough for Lee to drop a brick now and -then. How many of these--these _animals_"--she waved her hand -around--"get anything from this, for all the histories and guide-books -and restorations in existence? How many of them who think that, at best, -appreciation is talking in undertones and walking on tiptoes would even -come here if it was any trouble? I want it to smell of magnolias instead -of peanuts and I want my shoes to crunch on the same gravel that Lee's -boots crunched on. There's no beauty without poignancy and there's no -poignancy without the feeling that it's going, men, names, books, -houses--bound for dust--mortal--" - -A small boy appeared beside them and, swinging a handful of -banana-peels, flung them valiantly in the direction of the Potomac. - - -SENTIMENT - -Simultaneously with the fall of Liege, Anthony and Gloria arrived in New -York. In retrospect the six weeks seemed miraculously happy. They had -found to a great extent, as most young couples find in some measure, -that they possessed in common many fixed ideas and curiosities and odd -quirks of mind; they were essentially companionable. - -But it had been a struggle to keep many of their conversations on the -level of discussions. Arguments were fatal to Gloria's disposition. She -had all her life been associated either with her mental inferiors or -with men who, under the almost hostile intimidation of her beauty, had -not dared to contradict her; naturally, then, it irritated her when -Anthony emerged from the state in which her pronouncements were an -infallible and ultimate decision. - -He failed to realize, at first, that this was the result partly of her -"female" education and partly of her beauty, and he was inclined to -include her with her entire sex as curiously and definitely limited. It -maddened him to find she had no sense of justice. But he discovered -that, when a subject did interest her, her brain tired less quickly than -his. What he chiefly missed in her mind was the pedantic teleology--the -sense of order and accuracy, the sense of life as a mysteriously -correlated piece of patchwork, but he understood after a while that such -a quality in her would have been incongruous. - -Of the things they possessed in common, greatest of all was their almost -uncanny pull at each other's hearts. The day they left the hotel in -Coronado she sat down on one of the beds while they were packing, and -began to weep bitterly. - -"Dearest--" His arms were around her; he pulled her head down upon his -shoulder. "What is it, my own Gloria? Tell me." - -"We're going away," she sobbed. "Oh, Anthony, it's sort of the first -place we've lived together. Our two little beds here--side by -side--they'll be always waiting for us, and we're never coming back to -'em any more." - -She was tearing at his heart as she always could. Sentiment came over -him, rushed into his eyes. - -"Gloria, why, we're going on to another room. And two other little beds. -We're going to be together all our lives." - -Words flooded from her in a low husky voice. - -"But it won't be--like our two beds--ever again. Everywhere we go and -move on and change, something's lost--something's left behind. You can't -ever quite repeat anything, and I've been so yours, here--" - -He held her passionately near, discerning far beyond any criticism of -her sentiment, a wise grasping of the minute, if only an indulgence of -her desire to cry--Gloria the idler, caresser of her own dreams, -extracting poignancy from the memorable things of life and youth. - -Later in the afternoon when he returned from the station with the -tickets he found her asleep on one of the beds, her arm curled about a -black object which he could not at first identify. Coming closer he -found it was one of his shoes, not a particularly new one, nor clean -one, but her face, tear-stained, was pressed against it, and he -understood her ancient and most honorable message. There was almost -ecstasy in waking her and seeing her smile at him, shy but well aware of -her own nicety of imagination. - -With no appraisal of the worth or dross of these two things, it seemed -to Anthony that they lay somewhere near the heart of love. - - -THE GRAY HOUSE - -It is in the twenties that the actual momentum of life begins to -slacken, and it is a simple soul indeed to whom as many things are -significant and meaningful at thirty as at ten years before. At thirty -an organ-grinder is a more or less moth-eaten man who grinds an -organ--and once he was an organ-grinder! The unmistakable stigma of -humanity touches all those impersonal and beautiful things that only -youth ever grasps in their impersonal glory. A brilliant ball, gay with -light romantic laughter, wears through its own silks and satins to show -the bare framework of a man-made thing--oh, that eternal hand!--a play, -most tragic and most divine, becomes merely a succession of speeches, -sweated over by the eternal plagiarist in the clammy hours and acted by -men subject to cramps, cowardice, and manly sentiment. - -And this time with Gloria and Anthony, this first year of marriage, and -the gray house caught them in that stage when the organ-grinder was -slowly undergoing his inevitable metamorphosis. She was twenty-three; he -was twenty-six. - -The gray house was, at first, of sheerly pastoral intent. They lived -impatiently in Anthony's apartment for the first fortnight after the -return from California, in a stifled atmosphere of open trunks, too many -callers, and the eternal laundry-bags. They discussed with their friends -the stupendous problem of their future. Dick and Maury would sit with -them agreeing solemnly, almost thoughtfully, as Anthony ran through his -list of what they "ought" to do, and where they "ought" to live. - -"I'd like to take Gloria abroad," he complained, "except for this damn -war--and next to that I'd sort of like to have a place in the country, -somewhere near New York, of course, where I could write--or whatever I -decide to do." - -Gloria laughed. - -"Isn't he cute?" she required of Maury. "'Whatever he decides to do!' -But what am _I_ going to do if he works? Maury, will you take me around -if Anthony works?" - -"Anyway, I'm not going to work yet," said Anthony quickly. - -It was vaguely understood between them that on some misty day he would -enter a sort of glorified diplomatic service and be envied by princes -and prime ministers for his beautiful wife. - -"Well," said Gloria helplessly, "I'm sure I don't know. We talk and talk -and never get anywhere, and we ask all our friends and they just answer -the way we want 'em to. I wish somebody'd take care of us." - -"Why don't you go out to--out to Greenwich or something?" suggested -Richard Caramel. - -"I'd like that," said Gloria, brightening. "Do you think we could get a -house there?" - -Dick shrugged his shoulders and Maury laughed. - -"You two amuse me," he said. "Of all the unpractical people! As soon as -a place is mentioned you expect us to pull great piles of photographs -out of our pockets showing the different styles of architecture -available in bungalows." - -"That's just what I don't want," wailed Gloria, "a hot stuffy bungalow, -with a lot of babies next door and their father cutting the grass in his -shirt sleeves--" - -"For Heaven's sake, Gloria," interrupted Maury, "nobody wants to lock -you up in a bungalow. Who in God's name brought bungalows into the -conversation? But you'll never get a place anywhere unless you go out -and hunt for it." - -"Go where? You say 'go out and hunt for it,' but where?" - -With dignity Maury waved his hand paw-like about the room. - -"Out anywhere. Out in the country. There're lots of places." - -"Thanks." - -"Look here!" Richard Caramel brought his yellow eye rakishly into play. -"The trouble with you two is that you're all disorganized. Do you know -anything about New York State? Shut up, Anthony, I'm talking to Gloria." - -"Well," she admitted finally, "I've been to two or three house parties -in Portchester and around in Connecticut--but, of course, that isn't in -New York State, is it? And neither is Morristown," she finished with -drowsy irrelevance. - -There was a shout of laughter. - -"Oh, Lord!" cried Dick, "neither is Morristown!' No, and neither is -Santa Barbara, Gloria. Now listen. To begin with, unless you have a -fortune there's no use considering any place like Newport or -Southhampton or Tuxedo. They're out of the question." - -They all agreed to this solemnly. - -"And personally I hate New Jersey. Then, of course, there's upper New -York, above Tuxedo." - -"Too cold," said Gloria briefly. "I was there once in an automobile." - -"Well, it seems to me there're a lot of towns like Rye between New York -and Greenwich where you could buy a little gray house of some--" - -Gloria leaped at the phrase triumphantly. For the first time since their -return East she knew what she wanted. - -"Oh, _yes_!" she cried. "Oh, _yes_! that's it: a little gray house with -sort of white around and a whole lot of swamp maples just as brown and -gold as an October picture in a gallery. Where can we find one?" - -"Unfortunately, I've mislaid my list of little gray houses with swamp -maples around them--but I'll try to find it. Meanwhile you take a piece -of paper and write down the names of seven possible towns. And every day -this week you take a trip to one of those towns." - -"Oh, gosh!" protested Gloria, collapsing mentally, "why won't you do it -for us? I hate trains." - -"Well, hire a car, and--" - -Gloria yawned. - -"I'm tired of discussing it. Seems to me all we do is talk about where -to live." - -"My exquisite wife wearies of thought," remarked Anthony ironically. -"She must have a tomato sandwich to stimulate her jaded nerves. Let's go -out to tea." - -As the unfortunate upshot of this conversation, they took Dick's advice -literally, and two days later went out to Rye, where they wandered -around with an irritated real estate agent, like bewildered babes in the -wood. They were shown houses at a hundred a month which closely adjoined -other houses at a hundred a month; they were shown isolated houses to -which they invariably took violent dislikes, though they submitted -weakly to the agent's desire that they "look at that stove--some stove!" -and to a great shaking of doorposts and tapping of walls, intended -evidently to show that the house would not immediately collapse, no -matter how convincingly it gave that impression. They gazed through -windows into interiors furnished either "commercially" with slab-like -chairs and unyielding settees, or "home-like" with the melancholy -bric-a-brac of other summers--crossed tennis rackets, fit-form couches, -and depressing Gibson girls. With a feeling of guilt they looked at a -few really nice houses, aloof, dignified, and cool--at three hundred a -month. They went away from Rye thanking the real estate agent very -much indeed. - -On the crowded train back to New York the seat behind was occupied by a -super-respirating Latin whose last few meals had obviously been composed -entirely of garlic. They reached the apartment gratefully, almost -hysterically, and Gloria rushed for a hot bath in the reproachless -bathroom. So far as the question of a future abode was concerned both of -them were incapacitated for a week. - -The matter eventually worked itself out with unhoped-for romance. -Anthony ran into the living room one afternoon fairly radiating -"the idea." - -"I've got it," he was exclaiming as though he had just caught a mouse. -"We'll get a car." - -"Gee whiz! Haven't we got troubles enough taking care of ourselves?" - -"Give me a second to explain, can't you? just let's leave our stuff with -Dick and just pile a couple of suitcases in our car, the one we're going -to buy--we'll have to have one in the country anyway--and just start out -in the direction of New Haven. You see, as we get out of commuting -distance from New York, the rents'll get cheaper, and as soon as we find -a house we want we'll just settle down." - -By his frequent and soothing interpolation of the word "just" he aroused -her lethargic enthusiasm. Strutting violently about the room, he -simulated a dynamic and irresistible efficiency. "We'll buy a car -to-morrow." - -Life, limping after imagination's ten-league boots, saw them out of town -a week later in a cheap but sparkling new roadster, saw them through the -chaotic unintelligible Bronx, then over a wide murky district which -alternated cheerless blue-green wastes with suburbs of tremendous and -sordid activity. They left New York at eleven and it was well past a hot -and beatific noon when they moved rakishly through Pelham. - -"These aren't towns," said Gloria scornfully, "these are just city -blocks plumped down coldly into waste acres. I imagine all the men here -have their mustaches stained from drinking their coffee too quickly in -the morning." - -"And play pinochle on the commuting trains." - -"What's pinochle?" - -"Don't be so literal. How should I know? But it sounds as though they -ought to play it." - -"I like it. It sounds as if it were something where you sort of cracked -your knuckles or something.... Let me drive." - -Anthony looked at her suspiciously. - -"You swear you're a good driver?" - -"Since I was fourteen." - -He stopped the car cautiously at the side of the road and they changed -seats. Then with a horrible grinding noise the car was put in gear, -Gloria adding an accompaniment of laughter which seemed to Anthony -disquieting and in the worst possible taste. - -"Here we go!" she yelled. "Whoo-oop!" - -Their heads snapped back like marionettes on a single wire as the car -leaped ahead and curved retchingly about a standing milk-wagon, whose -driver stood up on his seat and bellowed after them. In the immemorial -tradition of the road Anthony retorted with a few brief epigrams as to -the grossness of the milk-delivering profession. He cut his remarks -short, however, and turned to Gloria with the growing conviction that he -had made a grave mistake in relinquishing control and that Gloria was a -driver of many eccentricities and of infinite carelessness. - -"Remember now!" he warned her nervously, "the man said we oughtn't to go -over twenty miles an hour for the first five thousand miles." - -She nodded briefly, but evidently intending to accomplish the -prohibitive distance as quickly as possible, slightly increased her -speed. A moment later he made another attempt. - -"See that sign? Do you want to get us pinched?" - -"Oh, for Heaven's sake," cried Gloria in exasperation, "you _always_ -exaggerate things so!" - -"Well, I don't want to get arrested." - -"Who's arresting you? You're so persistent--just like you were about my -cough medicine last night." - -"It was for your own good." - -"Ha! I might as well be living with mama." - -"What a thing to say to me!" - -A standing policeman swerved into view, was hastily passed. - -"See him?" demanded Anthony. - -"Oh, you drive me crazy! He didn't arrest us, did he?" - -"When he does it'll be too late," countered Anthony brilliantly. - -Her reply was scornful, almost injured. - -"Why, this old thing won't _go_ over thirty-five." - -"It isn't old." - -"It is in spirit." - -That afternoon the car joined the laundry-bags and Gloria's appetite as -one of the trinity of contention. He warned her of railroad tracks; he -pointed out approaching automobiles; finally he insisted on taking the -wheel and a furious, insulted Gloria sat silently beside him between the -towns of Larchmont and Rye. - -But it was due to this furious silence of hers that the gray house -materialized from its abstraction, for just beyond Rye he surrendered -gloomily to it and re-relinquished the wheel. Mutely he beseeched her -and Gloria, instantly cheered, vowed to be more careful. But because a -discourteous street-car persisted callously in remaining upon its track -Gloria ducked down a side-street--and thereafter that afternoon was -never able to find her way back to the Post Road. The street they -finally mistook for it lost its Post-Road aspect when it had gone five -miles from Cos Cob. Its macadam became gravel, then dirt--moreover, it -narrowed and developed a border of maple trees, through which filtered -the weltering sun, making its endless experiments with shadow designs -upon the long grass. - -"We're lost now," complained Anthony. - -"Read that sign!" - -"Marietta--Five Miles. What's Marietta?" - -"Never heard of it, but let's go on. We can't turn here and there's -probably a detour back to the Post Road." - -The way became scarred with deepening ruts and insidious shoulders of -stone. Three farmhouses faced them momentarily, slid by. A town sprang -up in a cluster of dull roofs around a white tall steeple. - -Then Gloria, hesitating between two approaches, and making her choice -too late, drove over a fire-hydrant and ripped the transmission -violently from the car. - -It was dark when the real-estate agent of Marietta showed them the gray -house. They came upon it just west of the village, where it rested -against a sky that was a warm blue cloak buttoned with tiny stars. The -gray house had been there when women who kept cats were probably -witches, when Paul Revere made false teeth in Boston preparatory to -arousing the great commercial people, when our ancestors were gloriously -deserting Washington in droves. Since those days the house had been -bolstered up in a feeble corner, considerably repartitioned and newly -plastered inside, amplified by a kitchen and added to by a -side-porch--but, save for where some jovial oaf had roofed the new -kitchen with red tin, Colonial it defiantly remained. - -"How did you happen to come to Marietta?" demanded the real-estate agent -in a tone that was first cousin to suspicion. He was showing them -through four spacious and airy bedrooms. - -"We broke down," explained Gloria. "I drove over a fire-hydrant and we -had ourselves towed to the garage and then we saw your sign." - -The man nodded, unable to follow such a sally of spontaneity. There was -something subtly immoral in doing anything without several months' -consideration. - -They signed a lease that night and, in the agent's car, returned -jubilantly to the somnolent and dilapidated Marietta Inn, which was too -broken for even the chance immoralities and consequent gaieties of a -country road-house. Half the night they lay awake planning the things -they were to do there. Anthony was going to work at an astounding pace -on his history and thus ingratiate himself with his cynical -grandfather.... When the car was repaired they would explore the country -and join the nearest "really nice" club, where Gloria would play golf -"or something" while Anthony wrote. This, of course, was Anthony's -idea--Gloria was sure she wanted but to read and dream and be fed tomato -sandwiches and lemonades by some angelic servant still in a shadowy -hinterland. Between paragraphs Anthony would come and kiss her as she -lay indolently in the hammock.... The hammock! a host of new dreams in -tune to its imagined rhythm, while the wind stirred it and waves of sun -undulated over the shadows of blown wheat, or the dusty road freckled -and darkened with quiet summer rain.... - -And guests--here they had a long argument, both of them trying to be -extraordinarily mature and far-sighted. Anthony claimed that they would -need people at least every other week-end "as a sort of change." This -provoked an involved and extremely sentimental conversation as to -whether Anthony did not consider Gloria change enough. Though he assured -her that he did, she insisted upon doubting him.... Eventually the -conversation assumed its eternal monotone: "What then? Oh, what'll we -do then?" - -"Well, we'll have a dog," suggested Anthony. - -"I don't want one. I want a kitty." She went thoroughly and with great -enthusiasm into the history, habits, and tastes of a cat she had once -possessed. Anthony considered that it must have been a horrible -character with neither personal magnetism nor a loyal heart. - -Later they slept, to wake an hour before dawn with the gray house -dancing in phantom glory before their dazzled eyes. - - -THE SOUL OF GLORIA - -For that autumn the gray house welcomed them with a rush of sentiment -that falsified its cynical old age. True, there were the laundry-bags, -there was Gloria's appetite, there was Anthony's tendency to brood and -his imaginative "nervousness," but there were intervals also of an -unhoped-for serenity. Close together on the porch they would wait for -the moon to stream across the silver acres of farmland, jump a thick -wood and tumble waves of radiance at their feet. In such a moonlight -Gloria's face was of a pervading, reminiscent white, and with a modicum -of effort they would slip off the blinders of custom and each would find -in the other almost the quintessential romance of the vanished June. - -One night while her head lay upon his heart and their cigarettes glowed -in swerving buttons of light through the dome of darkness over the bed, -she spoke for the first time and fragmentarily of the men who had hung -for brief moments on her beauty. - -"Do you ever think of them?" he asked her. - -"Only occasionally--when something happens that recalls a particular -man." - -"What do you remember--their kisses?" - -"All sorts of things.... Men are different with women." - -"Different in what way?" - -"Oh, entirely--and quite inexpressibly. Men who had the most firmly -rooted reputation for being this way or that would sometimes be -surprisingly inconsistent with me. Brutal men were tender, negligible -men were astonishingly loyal and lovable, and, often, honorable men took -attitudes that were anything but honorable." - -"For instance?" - -"Well, there was a boy named Percy Wolcott from Cornell who was quite a -hero in college, a great athlete, and saved a lot of people from a fire -or something like that. But I soon found he was stupid in a rather -dangerous way." - -"What way?" - -"It seems he had some naive conception of a woman 'fit to be his wife,' -a particular conception that I used to run into a lot and that always -drove me wild. He demanded a girl who'd never been kissed and who liked -to sew and sit home and pay tribute to his self-esteem. And I'll bet a -hat if he's gotten an idiot to sit and be stupid with him he's tearing -out on the side with some much speedier lady." - -"I'd be sorry for his wife." - -"I wouldn't. Think what an ass she'd be not to realize it before she -married him. He's the sort whose idea of honoring and respecting a woman -would be never to give her any excitement. With the best intentions, he -was deep in the dark ages." - -"What was his attitude toward you?" - -"I'm coming to that. As I told you--or did I tell you?--he was mighty -good-looking: big brown honest eyes and one of those smiles that -guarantee the heart behind it is twenty-karat gold. Being young and -credulous, I thought he had some discretion, so I kissed him fervently -one night when we were riding around after a dance at the Homestead at -Hot Springs. It had been a wonderful week, I remember--with the most -luscious trees spread like green lather, sort of, all over the valley -and a mist rising out of them on October mornings like bonfires lit to -turn them brown--" - -"How about your friend with the ideals?" interrupted Anthony. - -"It seems that when he kissed me he began to think that perhaps he could -get away with a little more, that I needn't be 'respected' like this -Beatrice Fairfax glad-girl of his imagination." - -"What'd he do?" - -"Not much. I pushed him off a sixteen-foot embankment before he was well -started." - -"Hurt him?" inquired Anthony with a laugh. - -"Broke his arm and sprained his ankle. He told the story all over Hot -Springs, and when his arm healed a man named Barley who liked me fought -him and broke it over again. Oh, it was all an awful mess. He threatened -to sue Barley, and Barley--he was from Georgia--was seen buying a gun in -town. But before that mama had dragged me North again, much against my -will, so I never did find out all that happened--though I saw Barley -once in the Vanderbilt lobby." - -Anthony laughed long and loud. - -"What a career! I suppose I ought to be furious because you've kissed so -many men. I'm not, though." - -At this she sat up in bed. - -"It's funny, but I'm so sure that those kisses left no mark on me--no -taint of promiscuity, I mean--even though a man once told me in all -seriousness that he hated to think I'd been a public drinking glass." - -"He had his nerve." - -"I just laughed and told him to think of me rather as a loving-cup that -goes from hand to hand but should be valued none the less." - -"Somehow it doesn't bother me--on the other hand it would, of course, if -you'd done any more than kiss them. But I believe _you're_ absolutely -incapable of jealousy except as hurt vanity. Why don't you care what -I've done? Wouldn't you prefer it if I'd been absolutely innocent?" - -"It's all in the impression it might have made on you. _My_ kisses were -because the man was good-looking, or because there was a slick moon, or -even because I've felt vaguely sentimental and a little stirred. But -that's all--it's had utterly no effect on me. But you'd remember and let -memories haunt you and worry you." - -"Haven't you ever kissed any one like you've kissed me?" - -"No," she answered simply. "As I've told you, men have tried--oh, lots -of things. Any pretty girl has that experience.... You see," she -resumed, "it doesn't matter to me how many women you've stayed with in -the past, so long as it was merely a physical satisfaction, but I don't -believe I could endure the idea of your ever having lived with another -woman for a protracted period or even having wanted to marry some -possible girl. It's different somehow. There'd be all the little -intimacies remembered--and they'd dull that freshness that after all is -the most precious part of love." - -Rapturously he pulled her down beside him on the pillow. - -"Oh, my darling," he whispered, "as if I remembered anything but your -dear kisses." - -Then Gloria, in a very mild voice: - -"Anthony, did I hear anybody say they were thirsty?" - -Anthony laughed abruptly and with a sheepish and amused grin got out of -bed. - -"With just a _little_ piece of ice in the water," she added. "Do you -suppose I could have that?" - -Gloria used the adjective "little" whenever she asked a favor--it made -the favor sound less arduous. But Anthony laughed again--whether she -wanted a cake of ice or a marble of it, he must go down-stairs to the -kitchen.... Her voice followed him through the hall: "And just a -_little_ cracker with just a _little_ marmalade on it...." - -"Oh, gosh!" sighed Anthony in rapturous slang, "she's wonderful, that -girl! She _has_ it!" - -"When we have a baby," she began one day--this, it had already been -decided, was to be after three years--"I want it to look like you." - -"Except its legs," he insinuated slyly. - -"Oh, yes, except his legs. He's got to have my legs. But the rest of him -can be you." - -"My nose?" - -Gloria hesitated. - -"Well, perhaps my nose. But certainly your eyes--and my mouth, and I -guess my shape of the face. I wonder; I think he'd be sort of cute if he -had my hair." - -"My dear Gloria, you've appropriated the whole baby." - -"Well, I didn't mean to," she apologized cheerfully. - -"Let him have my neck at least," he urged, regarding himself gravely in -the glass. "You've often said you liked my neck because the Adam's apple -doesn't show, and, besides, your neck's too short." - -"Why, it is _not_!" she cried indignantly, turning to the mirror, "it's -just right. I don't believe I've ever seen a better neck." - -"It's too short," he repeated teasingly. - -"Short?" Her tone expressed exasperated wonder. - -"Short? You're crazy!" She elongated and contracted it to convince -herself of its reptilian sinuousness. "Do you call _that_ a short neck?" - -"One of the shortest I've ever seen." - -For the first time in weeks tears started from Gloria's eyes and the -look she gave him had a quality of real pain. - -"Oh, Anthony--" - -"My Lord, Gloria!" He approached her in bewilderment and took her elbows -in his hands. "Don't cry, _please_! Didn't you know I was only kidding? -Gloria, look at me! Why, dearest, you've got the longest neck I've ever -seen. Honestly." - -Her tears dissolved in a twisted smile. - -"Well--you shouldn't have said that, then. Let's talk about the b-baby." - -Anthony paced the floor and spoke as though rehearsing for a debate. - -"To put it briefly, there are two babies we could have, two distinct and -logical babies, utterly differentiated. There's the baby that's the -combination of the best of both of us. Your body, my eyes, my mind, your -intelligence--and then there is the baby which is our worst--my body, -your disposition, and my irresolution." - -"I like that second baby," she said. - -"What I'd really like," continued Anthony, "would be to have two sets of -triplets one year apart and then experiment with the six boys--" - -"Poor me," she interjected. - -"--I'd educate them each in a different country and by a different -system and when they were twenty-three I'd call them together and see -what they were like." - -"Let's have 'em all with my neck," suggested Gloria. - - -THE END OF A CHAPTER - -The car was at length repaired and with a deliberate vengeance took up -where it left off the business of causing infinite dissension. Who -should drive? How fast should Gloria go? These two questions and the -eternal recriminations involved ran through the days. They motored to -the Post-Road towns, Rye, Portchester, and Greenwich, and called on a -dozen friends, mostly Gloria's, who all seemed to be in different stages -of having babies and in this respect as well as in others bored her to a -point of nervous distraction. For an hour after each visit she would -bite her fingers furiously and be inclined to take out her rancor -on Anthony. - -"I loathe women," she cried in a mild temper. "What on earth can you say -to them--except talk 'lady-lady'? I've enthused over a dozen babies that -I've wanted only to choke. And every one of those girls is either -incipiently jealous and suspicious of her husband if he's charming or -beginning to be bored with him if he isn't." - -"Don't you ever intend to see any women?" - -"I don't know. They never seem clean to me--never--never. Except just a -few. Constance Shaw--you know, the Mrs. Merriam who came over to see us -last Tuesday--is almost the only one. She's so tall and fresh-looking -and stately." - -"I don't like them so tall." - -Though they went to several dinner dances at various country clubs, they -decided that the autumn was too nearly over for them to "go out" on any -scale, even had they been so inclined. He hated golf; Gloria liked it -only mildly, and though she enjoyed a violent rush that some -undergraduates gave her one night and was glad that Anthony should be -proud of her beauty, she also perceived that their hostess for the -evening, a Mrs. Granby, was somewhat disquieted by the fact that -Anthony's classmate, Alec Granby, joined with enthusiasm in the rush. -The Granbys never phoned again, and though Gloria laughed, it piqued her -not a little. - -"You see," she explained to Anthony, "if I wasn't married it wouldn't -worry her--but she's been to the movies in her day and she thinks I may -be a vampire. But the point is that placating such people requires an -effort that I'm simply unwilling to make.... And those cute little -freshmen making eyes at me and paying me idiotic compliments! I've grown -up, Anthony." - -Marietta itself offered little social life. Half a dozen farm-estates -formed a hectagon around it, but these belonged to ancient men who -displayed themselves only as inert, gray-thatched lumps in the back of -limousines on their way to the station, whither they were sometimes -accompanied by equally ancient and doubly massive wives. The townspeople -were a particularly uninteresting type--unmarried females were -predominant for the most part--with school-festival horizons and souls -bleak as the forbidding white architecture of the three churches. The -only native with whom they came into close contact was the broad-hipped, -broad-shouldered Swedish girl who came every day to do their work. She -was silent and efficient, and Gloria, after finding her weeping -violently into her bowed arms upon the kitchen table, developed an -uncanny fear of her and stopped complaining about the food. Because of -her untold and esoteric grief the girl stayed on. - -Gloria's penchant for premonitions and her bursts of vague -supernaturalism were a surprise to Anthony. Either some complex, -properly and scientifically inhibited in the early years with her -Bilphistic mother, or some inherited hypersensitiveness, made her -susceptible to any suggestion of the psychic, and, far from gullible -about the motives of people, she was inclined to credit any -extraordinary happening attributed to the whimsical perambulations of -the buried. The desperate squeakings about the old house on windy nights -that to Anthony were burglars with revolvers ready in hand represented -to Gloria the auras, evil and restive, of dead generations, expiating -the inexpiable upon the ancient and romantic hearth. One night, because -of two swift bangs down-stairs, which Anthony fearfully but unavailingly -investigated, they lay awake nearly until dawn asking each other -examination-paper questions about the history of the world. - -In October Muriel came out for a two weeks' visit. Gloria had -called her on long-distance, and Miss Kane ended the conversation -characteristically by saying "All-ll-ll righty. I'll be there with -bells!" She arrived with a dozen popular songs under her arm. - -"You ought to have a phonograph out here in the country," she said, -"just a little Vic--they don't cost much. Then whenever you're lonesome -you can have Caruso or Al Jolson right at your door." - -She worried Anthony to distraction by telling him that "he was the first -clever man she had ever known and she got so tired of shallow people." -He wondered that people fell in love with such women. Yet he supposed -that under a certain impassioned glance even she might take on a -softness and promise. - -But Gloria, violently showing off her love for Anthony, was diverted -into a state of purring content. - -Finally Richard Caramel arrived for a garrulous and to Gloria painfully -literary week-end, during which he discussed himself with Anthony long -after she lay in childlike sleep up-stairs. - -"It's been mighty funny, this success and all," said Dick. "Just before -the novel appeared I'd been trying, without success, to sell some short -stories. Then, after my book came out, I polished up three and had them -accepted by one of the magazines that had rejected them before. I've -done a lot of them since; publishers don't pay me for my book till -this winter." - -"Don't let the victor belong to the spoils." - -"You mean write trash?" He considered. "If you mean deliberately -injecting a slushy fade-out into each one, I'm not. But I don't suppose -I'm being so careful. I'm certainly writing faster and I don't seem to -be thinking as much as I used to. Perhaps it's because I don't get any -conversation, now that you're married and Maury's gone to Philadelphia. -Haven't the old urge and ambition. Early success and all that." - -"Doesn't it worry you?" - -"Frantically. I get a thing I call sentence-fever that must be like -buck-fever--it's a sort of intense literary self-consciousness that -comes when I try to force myself. But the really awful days aren't when -I think I can't write. They're when I wonder whether any writing is -worth while at all--I mean whether I'm not a sort of glorified buffoon." - -"I like to hear you talk that way," said Anthony with a touch of his old -patronizing insolence. "I was afraid you'd gotten a bit idiotic over -your work. Read the damnedest interview you gave out----" - -Dick interrupted with an agonized expression. - -"Good Lord! Don't mention it. Young lady wrote it--most admiring young -lady. Kept telling me my work was 'strong,' and I sort of lost my head -and made a lot of strange pronouncements. Some of it was good, though, -don't you think?" - -"Oh, yes; that part about the wise writer writing for the youth of his -generation, the critic of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever -afterward." - -"Oh, I believe a lot of it," admitted Richard Caramel with a faint beam. -"It simply was a mistake to give it out." - -In November they moved into Anthony's apartment, from which they sallied -triumphantly to the Yale-Harvard and Harvard-Princeton football games, -to the St. Nicholas ice-skating rink, to a thorough round of the -theatres and to a miscellany of entertainments--from small, staid dances -to the great affairs that Gloria loved, held in those few houses where -lackeys with powdered wigs scurried around in magnificent Anglomania -under the direction of gigantic majordomos. Their intention was to go -abroad the first of the year or, at any rate, when the war was over. -Anthony had actually completed a Chestertonian essay on the twelfth -century by way of introduction to his proposed book and Gloria had done -some extensive research work on the question of Russian sable coats--in -fact the winter was approaching quite comfortably, when the Bilphistic -demiurge decided suddenly in mid-December that Mrs. Gilbert's soul had -aged sufficiently in its present incarnation. In consequence Anthony -took a miserable and hysterical Gloria out to Kansas City, where, in the -fashion of mankind, they paid the terrible and mind-shaking deference -to the dead. - -Mr. Gilbert became, for the first and last time in his life, a truly -pathetic figure. That woman he had broken to wait upon his body and play -congregation to his mind had ironically deserted him--just when he could -not much longer have supported her. Never again would he be able so -satisfactorily to bore and bully a human soul. - - - -CHAPTER II - - -SYMPOSIUM - -Gloria had lulled Anthony's mind to sleep. She, who seemed of all women -the wisest and the finest, hung like a brilliant curtain across his -doorways, shutting out the light of the sun. In those first years what -he believed bore invariably the stamp of Gloria; he saw the sun always -through the pattern of the curtain. - -It was a sort of lassitude that brought them back to Marietta for -another summer. Through a golden enervating spring they had loitered, -restive and lazily extravagant, along the California coast, joining -other parties intermittently and drifting from Pasadena to Coronado, -from Coronado to Santa Barbara, with no purpose more apparent than -Gloria's desire to dance by different music or catch some infinitesimal -variant among the changing colors of the sea. Out of the Pacific there -rose to greet them savage rocklands and equally barbaric hostelries -built that at tea-time one might drowse into a languid wicker bazaar -glorified by the polo costumes of Southhampton and Lake Forest and -Newport and Palm Beach. And, as the waves met and splashed and glittered -in the most placid of the bays, so they joined this group and that, and -with them shifted stations, murmuring ever of those strange -unsubstantial gaieties in wait just over the next green and -fruitful valley. - -A simple healthy leisure class it was--the best of the men not -unpleasantly undergraduate--they seemed to be on a perpetual candidates -list for some etherealized "Porcellian" or "Skull and Bones" extended -out indefinitely into the world; the women, of more than average beauty, -fragilely athletic, somewhat idiotic as hostesses but charming and -infinitely decorative as guests. Sedately and gracefully they danced the -steps of their selection in the balmy tea hours, accomplishing with a -certain dignity the movements so horribly burlesqued by clerk and chorus -girl the country over. It seemed ironic that in this lone and -discredited offspring of the arts Americans should excel, -unquestionably. - -Having danced and splashed through a lavish spring, Anthony and Gloria -found that they had spent too much money and for this must go into -retirement for a certain period. There was Anthony's "work," they said. -Almost before they knew it they were back in the gray house, more aware -now that other lovers had slept there, other names had been called over -the banisters, other couples had sat upon the porch steps watching the -gray-green fields and the black bulk of woods beyond. - -It was the same Anthony, more restless, inclined to quicken only under -the stimulus of several high-balls, faintly, almost imperceptibly, -apathetic toward Gloria. But Gloria--she would be twenty-four in August -and was in an attractive but sincere panic about it. Six years to -thirty! Had she been less in love with Anthony her sense of the flight -of time would have expressed itself in a reawakened interest in other -men, in a deliberate intention of extracting a transient gleam of -romance from every potential lover who glanced at her with lowered brows -over a shining dinner table. She said to Anthony one day: - -"How I feel is that if I wanted anything I'd take it. That's what I've -always thought all my life. But it happens that I want you, and so I -just haven't room for any other desires." - -They were bound eastward through a parched and lifeless Indiana, and she -had looked up from one of her beloved moving picture magazines to find a -casual conversation suddenly turned grave. - -Anthony frowned out the car window. As the track crossed a country road -a farmer appeared momentarily in his wagon; he was chewing on a straw -and was apparently the same farmer they had passed a dozen times before, -sitting in silent and malignant symbolism. As Anthony turned to Gloria -his frown intensified. - -"You worry me," he objected; "I can imagine _wanting_ another woman -under certain transitory circumstances, but I can't imagine taking her." - -"But I don't feel that way, Anthony. I can't be bothered resisting -things I want. My way is not to want them--to want nobody but you." - -"Yet when I think that if you just happened to take a fancy to some -one--" - -"Oh, don't be an idiot!" she exclaimed. "There'd be nothing casual about -it. And I can't even imagine the possibility." - -This emphatically closed the conversation. Anthony's unfailing -appreciation made her happier in his company than in any one's else. She -definitely enjoyed him--she loved him. So the summer began very much as -had the one before. - -There was, however, one radical change in menage. The icy-hearted -Scandinavian, whose austere cooking and sardonic manner of waiting on -table had so depressed Gloria, gave way to an exceedingly efficient -Japanese whose name was Tanalahaka, but who confessed that he heeded any -summons which included the dissyllable "Tana." - -Tana was unusually small even for a Japanese, and displayed a somewhat -naive conception of himself as a man of the world. On the day of his -arrival from "R. Gugimoniki, Japanese Reliable Employment Agency," he -called Anthony into his room to see the treasures of his trunk. These -included a large collection of Japanese post cards, which he was all for -explaining to his employer at once, individually and at great length. -Among them were half a dozen of pornographic intent and plainly of -American origin, though the makers had modestly omitted both their names -and the form for mailing. He next brought out some of his own -handiwork--a pair of American pants, which he had made himself, and two -suits of solid silk underwear. He informed Anthony confidentially as to -the purpose for which these latter were reserved. The next exhibit was a -rather good copy of an etching of Abraham Lincoln, to whose face he had -given an unmistakable Japanese cast. Last came a flute; he had made it -himself but it was broken: he was going to fix it soon. - -After these polite formalities, which Anthony conjectured must be native -to Japan, Tana delivered a long harangue in splintered English on the -relation of master and servant from which Anthony gathered that he had -worked on large estates but had always quarrelled with the other -servants because they were not honest. They had a great time over the -word "honest," and in fact became rather irritated with each other, -because Anthony persisted stubbornly that Tana was trying to say -"hornets," and even went to the extent of buzzing in the manner of a bee -and flapping his arms to imitate wings. - -After three-quarters of an hour Anthony was released with the warm -assurance that they would have other nice chats in which Tana would tell -"how we do in my countree." - -Such was Tana's garrulous premiere in the gray house--and he fulfilled -its promise. Though he was conscientious and honorable, he was -unquestionably a terrific bore. He seemed unable to control his tongue, -sometimes continuing from paragraph to paragraph with a look akin to -pain in his small brown eyes. - -Sunday and Monday afternoons he read the comic sections of the -newspapers. One cartoon which contained a facetious Japanese butler -diverted him enormously, though he claimed that the protagonist, who to -Anthony appeared clearly Oriental, had really an American face. The -difficulty with the funny paper was that when, aided by Anthony, he had -spelled out the last three pictures and assimilated their context with a -concentration surely adequate for Kant's "Critique," he had entirely -forgotten what the first pictures were about. - -In the middle of June Anthony and Gloria celebrated their first -anniversary by having a "date." Anthony knocked at the door and she ran -to let him in. Then they sat together on the couch calling over those -names they had made for each other, new combinations of endearments ages -old. Yet to this "date" was appended no attenuated good-night with its -ecstasy of regret. - -Later in June horror leered out at Gloria, struck at her and frightened -her bright soul back half a generation. Then slowly it faded out, faded -back into that impenetrable darkness whence it had come--taking -relentlessly its modicum of youth. - -With an infallible sense of the dramatic it chose a little railroad -station in a wretched village near Portchester. The station platform lay -all day bare as a prairie, exposed to the dusty yellow sun and to the -glance of that most obnoxious type of countryman who lives near a -metropolis and has attained its cheap smartness without its urbanity. A -dozen of these yokels, red-eyed, cheerless as scarecrows, saw the -incident. Dimly it passed across their confused and uncomprehending -minds, taken at its broadest for a coarse joke, at its subtlest for a -"shame." Meanwhile there upon the platform a measure of brightness faded -from the world. - -With Eric Merriam, Anthony had been sitting over a decanter of Scotch -all the hot summer afternoon, while Gloria and Constance Merriam swam -and sunned themselves at the Beach Club, the latter under a striped -parasol-awning, Gloria stretched sensuously upon the soft hot sand, -tanning her inevitable legs. Later they had all four played with -inconsequential sandwiches; then Gloria had risen, tapping Anthony's -knee with her parasol to get his attention. - -"We've got to go, dear." - -"Now?" He looked at her unwillingly. At that moment nothing seemed of -more importance than to idle on that shady porch drinking mellowed -Scotch, while his host reminisced interminably on the byplay of some -forgotten political campaign. - -"We've really got to go," repeated Gloria. "We can get a taxi to the -station.... Come on, Anthony!" she commanded a bit more imperiously. - -"Now see here--" Merriam, his yarn cut off, made conventional -objections, meanwhile provocatively filling his guest's glass with a -high-ball that should have been sipped through ten minutes. But at -Gloria's annoyed "We really _must!_" Anthony drank it off, got to his -feet and made an elaborate bow to his hostess. - -"It seems we 'must,'" he said, with little grace. - -In a minute he was following Gloria down a garden-walk between tall -rose-bushes, her parasol brushing gently the June-blooming leaves. Most -inconsiderate, he thought, as they reached the road. He felt with -injured naivete that Gloria should not have interrupted such innocent -and harmless enjoyment. The whiskey had both soothed and clarified the -restless things in his mind. It occurred to him that she had taken this -same attitude several times before. Was he always to retreat from -pleasant episodes at a touch of her parasol or a flicker of her eye? His -unwillingness blurred to ill will, which rose within him like a -resistless bubble. He kept silent, perversely inhibiting a desire to -reproach her. They found a taxi in front of the Inn; rode silently to -the little station.... - -Then Anthony knew what he wanted--to assert his will against this cool -and impervious girl, to obtain with one magnificent effort a mastery -that seemed infinitely desirable. - -"Let's go over to see the Barneses," he said without looking at her. "I -don't feel like going home." - ---Mrs. Barnes, nee Rachael Jerryl, had a summer place several miles from -Redgate. - -"We went there day before yesterday," she answered shortly. - -"I'm sure they'd be glad to see us." He felt that that was not a strong -enough note, braced himself stubbornly, and added: "I want to see the -Barneses. I haven't any desire to go home." - -"Well, I haven't any desire to go to the Barneses." - -Suddenly they stared at each other. - -"Why, Anthony," she said with annoyance, "this is Sunday night and they -probably have guests for supper. Why we should go in at this hour--" - -"Then why couldn't we have stayed at the Merriams'?" he burst out. "Why -go home when we were having a perfectly decent time? They asked us -to supper." - -"They had to. Give me the money and I'll get the railroad tickets." - -"I certainly will not! I'm in no humour for a ride in that damn hot -train." - -Gloria stamped her foot on the platform. - -"Anthony, you act as if you're tight!" - -"On the contrary, I'm perfectly sober." - -But his voice had slipped into a husky key and she knew with certainty -that this was untrue. - -"If you're sober you'll give me the money for the tickets." - -But it was too late to talk to him that way. In his mind was but one -idea--that Gloria was being selfish, that she was always being selfish -and would continue to be unless here and now he asserted himself as her -master. This was the occasion of all occasions, since for a whim she had -deprived him of a pleasure. His determination solidified, approached -momentarily a dull and sullen hate. - -"I won't go in the train," he said, his voice trembling a little with -anger. "We're going to the Barneses." - -"I'm not!" she cried. "If you go I'm going home alone." - -"Go on, then." - -Without a word she turned toward the ticket office; simultaneously he -remembered that she had some money with her and that this was not the -sort of victory he wanted, the sort he must have. He took a step after -her and seized her arm. - -"See here!" he muttered, "you're _not_ going alone!" - -"I certainly am--why, Anthony!" This exclamation as she tried to pull -away from him and he only tightened his grasp. - -He looked at her with narrowed and malicious eyes. - -"Let go!" Her cry had a quality of fierceness. "If you have _any_ -decency you'll let go." - -"Why?" He knew why. But he took a confused and not quite confident pride -in holding her there. - -"I'm going home, do you understand? And you're going to let me go!" - -"No, I'm not." - -Her eyes were burning now. - -"Are you going to make a scene here?" - -"I say you're not going! I'm tired of your eternal selfishness!" - -"I only want to go home." Two wrathful tears started from her eyes. - -"This time you're going to do what _I_ say." - -Slowly her body straightened: her head went back in a gesture of -infinite scorn. - -"I hate you!" Her low words were expelled like venom through her -clenched teeth. "Oh, _let_ me go! Oh, I _hate_ you!" She tried to jerk -herself away but he only grasped the other arm. "I hate you! I -hate you!" - -At Gloria's fury his uncertainty returned, but he felt that now he had -gone too far to give in. It seemed that he had always given in and that -in her heart she had despised him for it. Ah, she might hate him now, -but afterward she would admire him for his dominance. - -The approaching train gave out a premonitory siren that tumbled -melodramatically toward them down the glistening blue tracks. Gloria -tugged and strained to free herself, and words older than the Book of -Genesis came to her lips. - -"Oh, you brute!" she sobbed. "Oh, you brute! Oh, I hate you! Oh, you -brute! Oh--" - -On the station platform other prospective passengers were beginning to -turn and stare; the drone of the train was audible, it increased to a -clamor. Gloria's efforts redoubled, then ceased altogether, and she -stood there trembling and hot-eyed at this helpless humiliation, as the -engine roared and thundered into the station. - -Low, below the flood of steam and the grinding of the brakes came her -voice: - -"Oh, if there was one _man_ here you couldn't do this! You couldn't do -this! You coward! You coward, oh, you coward!" - -Anthony, silent, trembling himself, gripped her rigidly, aware that -faces, dozens of them, curiously unmoved, shadows of a dream, were -regarding him. Then the bells distilled metallic crashes that were like -physical pain, the smoke-stacks volleyed in slow acceleration at the -sky, and in a moment of noise and gray gaseous turbulence the line of -faces ran by, moved off, became indistinct--until suddenly there was -only the sun slanting east across the tracks and a volume of sound -decreasing far off like a train made out of tin thunder. He dropped her -arms. He had won. - -Now, if he wished, he might laugh. The test was done and he had -sustained his will with violence. Let leniency walk in the wake -of victory. - -"We'll hire a car here and drive back to Marietta," he said with fine -reserve. - -For answer Gloria seized his hand with both of hers and raising it to -her mouth bit deeply into his thumb. He scarcely noticed the pain; -seeing the blood spurt he absent-mindedly drew out his handkerchief and -wrapped the wound. That too was part of the triumph he supposed--it was -inevitable that defeat should thus be resented--and as such was -beneath notice. - -She was sobbing, almost without tears, profoundly and bitterly. - -"I won't go! I won't go! You--can't--make--me--go! You've--you've killed -any love I ever had for you, and any respect. But all that's left in me -would die before I'd move from this place. Oh, if I'd thought _you'd_ -lay your hands on me--" - -"You're going with me," he said brutally, "if I have to carry you." - -He turned, beckoned to a taxicab, told the driver to go to Marietta. The -man dismounted and swung the door open. Anthony faced his wife and said -between his clenched teeth: - -"Will you get in?--or will I _put_ you in?" - -With a subdued cry of infinite pain and despair she yielded herself up -and got into the car. - -All the long ride, through the increasing dark of twilight, she sat -huddled in her side of the car, her silence broken by an occasional dry -and solitary sob. Anthony stared out the window, his mind working dully -on the slowly changing significance of what had occurred. Something was -wrong--that last cry of Gloria's had struck a chord which echoed -posthumously and with incongruous disquiet in his heart. He must be -right--yet, she seemed such a pathetic little thing now, broken and -dispirited, humiliated beyond the measure of her lot to bear. The -sleeves of her dress were torn; her parasol was gone, forgotten on the -platform. It was a new costume, he remembered, and she had been so proud -of it that very morning when they had left the house.... He began -wondering if any one they knew had seen the incident. And persistently -there recurred to him her cry: - -"All that's left in me would die--" - -This gave him a confused and increasing worry. It fitted so well with -the Gloria who lay in the corner--no longer a proud Gloria, nor any -Gloria he had known. He asked himself if it were possible. While he did -not believe she would cease to love him--this, of course, was -unthinkable--it was yet problematical whether Gloria without her -arrogance, her independence, her virginal confidence and courage, would -be the girl of his glory, the radiant woman who was precious and -charming because she was ineffably, triumphantly herself. - -He was very drunk even then, so drunk as not to realize his own -drunkenness. When they reached the gray house he went to his own room -and, his mind still wrestling helplessly and sombrely with what he had -done, fell into a deep stupor on his bed. - -It was after one o'clock and the hall seemed extraordinarily quiet when -Gloria, wide-eyed and sleepless, traversed it and pushed open the door -of his room. He had been too befuddled to open the windows and the air -was stale and thick with whiskey. She stood for a moment by his bed, a -slender, exquisitely graceful figure in her boyish silk pajamas--then -with abandon she flung herself upon him, half waking him in the frantic -emotion of her embrace, dropping her warm tears upon his throat. - -"Oh, Anthony!" she cried passionately, "oh, my darling, you don't know -what you did!" - -Yet in the morning, coming early into her room, he knelt down by her bed -and cried like a little boy, as though it was his heart that had -been broken. - -"It seemed, last night," she said gravely, her fingers playing in his -hair, "that all the part of me you loved, the part that was worth -knowing, all the pride and fire, was gone. I knew that what was left of -me would always love you, but never in quite the same way." - -Nevertheless, she was aware even then that she would forget in time and -that it is the manner of life seldom to strike but always to wear away. -After that morning the incident was never mentioned and its deep wound -healed with Anthony's hand--and if there was triumph some darker force -than theirs possessed it, possessed the knowledge and the victory. - - -NIETZSCHEAN INCIDENT - -Gloria's independence, like all sincere and profound qualities, had -begun unconsciously, but, once brought to her attention by Anthony's -fascinated discovery of it, it assumed more nearly the proportions of a -formal code. From her conversation it might be assumed that all her -energy and vitality went into a violent affirmation of the negative -principle "Never give a damn." - -"Not for anything or anybody," she said, "except myself and, by -implication, for Anthony. That's the rule of all life and if it weren't -I'd be that way anyhow. Nobody'd do anything for me if it didn't gratify -them to, and I'd do as little for them." - -She was on the front porch of the nicest lady in Marietta when she said -this, and as she finished she gave a curious little cry and sank in a -dead faint to the porch floor. - -The lady brought her to and drove her home in her car. It had occurred -to the estimable Gloria that she was probably with child. - -She lay upon the long lounge down-stairs. Day was slipping warmly out -the window, touching the late roses on the porch pillars. - -"All I think of ever is that I love you," she wailed. "I value my body -because you think it's beautiful. And this body of mine--of yours--to -have it grow ugly and shapeless? It's simply intolerable. Oh, Anthony, -I'm not afraid of the pain." - -He consoled her desperately--but in vain. She continued: - -"And then afterward I might have wide hips and be pale, with all my -freshness gone and no radiance in my hair." - -He paced the floor with his hands in his pockets, asking: - -"Is it certain?" - -"I don't know anything. I've always hated obstrics, or whatever you call -them. I thought I'd have a child some time. But not now." - -"Well, for God's sake don't lie there and go to pieces." - -Her sobs lapsed. She drew down a merciful silence from the twilight -which filled the room. "Turn on the lights," she pleaded. "These days -seem so short--June seemed--to--have--longer days when I was a -little girl." - -The lights snapped on and it was as though blue drapes of softest silk -had been dropped behind the windows and the door. Her pallor, her -immobility, without grief now, or joy, awoke his sympathy. - -"Do you want me to have it?" she asked listlessly. - -"I'm indifferent. That is, I'm neutral. If you have it I'll probably be -glad. If you don't--well, that's all right too." - -"I wish you'd make up your mind one way or the other!" - -"Suppose you make up _your_ mind." - -She looked at him contemptuously, scorning to answer. - -"You'd think you'd been singled out of all the women in the world for -this crowning indignity." - -"What if I do!" she cried angrily. "It isn't an indignity for them. It's -their one excuse for living. It's the one thing they're good for. It -_is_ an indignity for _me._ - -"See here, Gloria, I'm with you whatever you do, but for God's sake be a -sport about it." - -"Oh, don't _fuss_ at me!" she wailed. - -They exchanged a mute look of no particular significance but of much -stress. Then Anthony took a book from the shelf and dropped into -a chair. - -Half an hour later her voice came out of the intense stillness that -pervaded the room and hung like incense on the air. - -"I'll drive over and see Constance Merriam to-morrow." - -"All right. And I'll go to Tarrytown and see Grampa." - -"--You see," she added, "it isn't that I'm afraid--of this or anything -else. I'm being true to me, you know." - -"I know," he agreed. - - -THE PRACTICAL MEN - -Adam Patch, in a pious rage against the Germans, subsisted on the war -news. Pin maps plastered his walls; atlases were piled deep on tables -convenient to his hand together with "Photographic Histories of the -World War," official Explain-alls, and the "Personal Impressions" of war -correspondents and of Privates X, Y, and Z. Several times during -Anthony's visit his grandfather's secretary, Edward Shuttleworth, the -one-time "Accomplished Gin-physician" of "Pat's Place" in Hoboken, now -shod with righteous indignation, would appear with an extra. The old man -attacked each paper with untiring fury, tearing out those columns which -appeared to him of sufficient pregnancy for preservation and thrusting -them into one of his already bulging files. - -"Well, what have you been doing?" he asked Anthony blandly. "Nothing? -Well, I thought so. I've been intending to drive over and see you, -all summer." - -"I've been writing. Don't you remember the essay I sent you--the one I -sold to The Florentine last winter?" - -"Essay? You never sent _me_ any essay." - -"Oh, yes, I did. We talked about it." - -Adam Patch shook his head mildly. - -"Oh, no. You never sent _me_ any essay. You may have thought you sent it -but it never reached me." - -"Why, you read it, Grampa," insisted Anthony, somewhat exasperated, "you -read it and disagreed with it." - -The old man suddenly remembered, but this was made apparent only by a -partial falling open of his mouth, displaying rows of gray gums. Eying -Anthony with a green and ancient stare he hesitated between confessing -his error and covering it up. - -"So you're writing," he said quickly. "Well, why don't you go over and -write about these Germans? Write something real, something about what's -going on, something people can read." - -"Anybody can't be a war correspondent," objected Anthony. "You have to -have some newspaper willing to buy your stuff. And I can't spare the -money to go over as a free-lance." - -"I'll send you over," suggested his grandfather surprisingly. "I'll get -you over as an authorized correspondent of any newspaper you pick out." - -Anthony recoiled from the idea--almost simultaneously he bounded toward -it. - -"I--don't--know--" - -He would have to leave Gloria, whose whole life yearned toward him and -enfolded him. Gloria was in trouble. Oh, the thing wasn't -feasible--yet--he saw himself in khaki, leaning, as all war -correspondents lean, upon a heavy stick, portfolio at shoulder--trying -to look like an Englishman. "I'd like to think it over," he, confessed. -"It's certainly very kind of you. I'll think it over and I'll let -you know." - -Thinking it over absorbed him on the journey to New York. He had had one -of those sudden flashes of illumination vouchsafed to all men who are -dominated by a strong and beloved woman, which show them a world of -harder men, more fiercely trained and grappling with the abstractions of -thought and war. In that world the arms of Gloria would exist only as -the hot embrace of a chance mistress, coolly sought and quickly -forgotten.... - -These unfamiliar phantoms were crowding closely about him when he -boarded his train for Marietta, in the Grand Central Station. The car -was crowded; he secured the last vacant seat and it was only after -several minutes that he gave even a casual glance to the man beside him. -When he did he saw a heavy lay of jaw and nose, a curved chin and small, -puffed-under eyes. In a moment he recognized Joseph Bloeckman. - -Simultaneously they both half rose, were half embarrassed, and exchanged -what amounted to a half handshake. Then, as though to complete the -matter, they both half laughed. - -"Well," remarked Anthony without inspiration, "I haven't seen you for a -long time." Immediately he regretted his words and started to add: "I -didn't know you lived out this way." But Bloeckman anticipated him by -asking pleasantly: - -"How's your wife? ..." - -"She's very well. How've you been?" - -"Excellent." His tone amplified the grandeur of the word. - -It seemed to Anthony that during the last year Bloeckman had grown -tremendously in dignity. The boiled look was gone, he seemed "done" at -last. In addition he was no longer overdressed. The inappropriate -facetiousness he had affected in ties had given way to a sturdy dark -pattern, and his right hand, which had formerly displayed two heavy -rings, was now innocent of ornament and even without the raw glow of -a manicure. - -This dignity appeared also in his personality. The last aura of the -successful travelling-man had faded from him, that deliberate -ingratiation of which the lowest form is the bawdy joke in the Pullman -smoker. One imagined that, having been fawned upon financially, he had -attained aloofness; having been snubbed socially, he had acquired -reticence. But whatever had given him weight instead of bulk, Anthony no -longer felt a correct superiority in his presence. - -"D'you remember Caramel, Richard Caramel? I believe you met him one -night." - -"I remember. He was writing a book." - -"Well, he sold it to the movies. Then they had some scenario man named -Jordan work on it. Well, Dick subscribes to a clipping bureau and he's -furious because about half the movie reviewers speak of the 'power and -strength of William Jordan's "Demon Lover."' Didn't mention old Dick at -all. You'd think this fellow Jordan had actually conceived and developed -the thing." - -Bloeckman nodded comprehensively. - -"Most of the contracts state that the original writer's name goes into -all the paid publicity. Is Caramel still writing?" - -"Oh, yes. Writing hard. Short stories." - -"Well, that's fine, that's fine.... You on this train often?" - -"About once a week. We live in Marietta." - -"Is that so? Well, well! I live near Cos Cob myself. Bought a place -there only recently. We're only five miles apart." - -"You'll have to come and see us." Anthony was surprised at his own -courtesy. "I'm sure Gloria'd be delighted to see an old friend. -Anybody'll tell you where the house is--it's our second season there." - -"Thank you." Then, as though returning a complementary politeness: "How -is your grandfather?" - -"He's been well. I had lunch with him to-day." - -"A great character," said Bloeckman severely. "A fine example of an -American." - - -THE TRIUMPH OF LETHARGY - -Anthony found his wife deep in the porch hammock voluptuously engaged -with a lemonade and a tomato sandwich and carrying on an apparently -cheery conversation with Tana upon one of Tana's complicated themes. - -"In my countree," Anthony recognized his invariable preface, "all -time--peoples--eat rice--because haven't got. Cannot eat what no have -got." Had his nationality not been desperately apparent one would have -thought he had acquired his knowledge of his native land from American -primary-school geographies. - -When the Oriental had been squelched and dismissed to the kitchen, -Anthony turned questioningly to Gloria: - -"It's all right," she announced, smiling broadly. "And it surprised me -more than it does you." - -"There's no doubt?" - -"None! Couldn't be!" - -They rejoiced happily, gay again with reborn irresponsibility. Then he -told her of his opportunity to go abroad, and that he was almost ashamed -to reject it. - -"What do _you_ think? Just tell me frankly." - -"Why, Anthony!" Her eyes were startled. "Do you want to go? Without me?" - -His face fell--yet he knew, with his wife's question, that it was too -late. Her arms, sweet and strangling, were around him, for he had made -all such choices back in that room in the Plaza the year before. This -was an anachronism from an age of such dreams. - -"Gloria," he lied, in a great burst of comprehension, "of course I -don't. I was thinking you might go as a nurse or something." He wondered -dully if his grandfather would consider this. - -As she smiled he realized again how beautiful she was, a gorgeous girl -of miraculous freshness and sheerly honorable eyes. She embraced his -suggestion with luxurious intensity, holding it aloft like a sun of her -own making and basking in its beams. She strung together an amazing -synopsis for an extravaganza of martial adventure. - -After supper, surfeited with the subject, she yawned. She wanted not to -talk but only to read "Penrod," stretched upon the lounge until at -midnight she fell asleep. But Anthony, after he had carried her -romantically up the stairs, stayed awake to brood upon the day, vaguely -angry with her, vaguely dissatisfied. - -"What am I going to do?" he began at breakfast. "Here we've been married -a year and we've just worried around without even being efficient people -of leisure." - -"Yes, you ought to do something," she admitted, being in an agreeable -and loquacious humor. This was not the first of these discussions, but -as they usually developed Anthony in the role of protagonist, she had -come to avoid them. - -"It's not that I have any moral compunctions about work," he continued, -"but grampa may die to-morrow and he may live for ten years. Meanwhile -we're living above our income and all we've got to show for it is a -farmer's car and a few clothes. We keep an apartment that we've only -lived in three months and a little old house way off in nowhere. We're -frequently bored and yet we won't make any effort to know any one except -the same crowd who drift around California all summer wearing sport -clothes and waiting for their families to die." - -"How you've changed!" remarked Gloria. "Once you told me you didn't see -why an American couldn't loaf gracefully." - -"Well, damn it, I wasn't married. And the old mind was working at top -speed and now it's going round and round like a cog-wheel with nothing -to catch it. As a matter of fact I think that if I hadn't met you I -_would_ have done something. But you make leisure so subtly -attractive--" - -"Oh, it's all my fault--" - -"I didn't mean that, and you know I didn't. But here I'm almost -twenty-seven and--" - -"Oh," she interrupted in vexation, "you make me tired! Talking as though -I were objecting or hindering you!" - -"I was just discussing it, Gloria. Can't I discuss--" - -"I should think you'd be strong enough to settle--" - -"--something with you without--" - -"--your own problems without coming to me. You _talk_ a lot about going -to work. I could use more money very easily, but _I'm_ not complaining. -Whether you work or not I love you." Her last words were gentle as fine -snow upon hard ground. But for the moment neither was attending to the -other--they were each engaged in polishing and perfecting his -own attitude. - -"I have worked--some." This by Anthony was an imprudent bringing up of -raw reserves. Gloria laughed, torn between delight and derision; she -resented his sophistry as at the same time she admired his nonchalance. -She would never blame him for being the ineffectual idler so long as he -did it sincerely, from the attitude that nothing much was worth doing. - -"Work!" she scoffed. "Oh, you sad bird! You bluffer! Work--that means a -great arranging of the desk and the lights, a great sharpening of -pencils, and 'Gloria, don't sing!' and 'Please keep that damn Tana away -from me,' and 'Let me read you my opening sentence,' and 'I won't be -through for a long time, Gloria, so don't stay up for me,' and a -tremendous consumption of tea or coffee. And that's all. In just about -an hour I hear the old pencil stop scratching and look over. You've got -out a book and you're 'looking up' something. Then you're reading. Then -yawns--then bed and a great tossing about because you're all full of -caffeine and can't sleep. Two weeks later the whole performance -over again." - -With much difficulty Anthony retained a scanty breech-clout of dignity. - -"Now that's a _slight_ exaggeration. You know _darn well_ I sold an -essay to The Florentine--and it attracted a lot of attention considering -the circulation of The Florentine. And what's more, Gloria, you know I -sat up till five o'clock in the morning finishing it." - -She lapsed into silence, giving him rope. And if he had not hanged -himself he had certainly come to the end of it. - -"At least," he concluded feebly, "I'm perfectly willing to be a war -correspondent." - -But so was Gloria. They were both willing--anxious; they assured each -other of it. The evening ended on a note of tremendous sentiment, the -majesty of leisure, the ill health of Adam Patch, love at any cost. - -"Anthony!" she called over the banister one afternoon a week later, -"there's some one at the door." Anthony, who had been lolling in the -hammock on the sun-speckled south porch, strolled around to the front of -the house. A foreign car, large and impressive, crouched like an immense -and saturnine bug at the foot of the path. A man in a soft pongee suit, -with cap to match, hailed him. - -"Hello there, Patch. Ran over to call on you." - -It was Bloeckman; as always, infinitesimally improved, of subtler -intonation, of more convincing ease. - -"I'm awfully glad you did." Anthony raised his voice to a vine-covered -window: "Glor-i-_a_! We've got a visitor!" - -"I'm in the tub," wailed Gloria politely. - -With a smile the two men acknowledged the triumph of her alibi. - -"She'll be down. Come round here on the side-porch. Like a drink? -Gloria's always in the tub--good third of every day." - -"Pity she doesn't live on the Sound." - -"Can't afford it." - -As coming from Adam Patch's grandson, Bloeckman took this as a form of -pleasantry. After fifteen minutes filled with estimable brilliancies, -Gloria appeared, fresh in starched yellow, bringing atmosphere and an -increase of vitality. - -"I want to be a successful sensation in the movies," she announced. "I -hear that Mary Pickford makes a million dollars annually." - -"You could, you know," said Bloeckman. "I think you'd film very well." - -"Would you let me, Anthony? If I only play unsophisticated roles?" - -As the conversation continued in stilted commas, Anthony wondered that -to him and Bloeckman both this girl had once been the most stimulating, -the most tonic personality they had ever known--and now the three sat -like overoiled machines, without conflict, without fear, without -elation, heavily enamelled little figures secure beyond enjoyment in a -world where death and war, dull emotion and noble savagery were covering -a continent with the smoke of terror. - -In a moment he would call Tana and they would pour into themselves a gay -and delicate poison which would restore them momentarily to the -pleasurable excitement of childhood, when every face in a crowd had -carried its suggestion of splendid and significant transactions taking -place somewhere to some magnificent and illimitable purpose.... Life was -no more than this summer afternoon; a faint wind stirring the lace -collar of Gloria's dress; the slow baking drowsiness of the veranda.... -Intolerably unmoved they all seemed, removed from any romantic imminency -of action. Even Gloria's beauty needed wild emotions, needed poignancy, -needed death.... - -"... Any day next week," Bloeckman was saying to Gloria. "Here--take -this card. What they do is to give you a test of about three hundred -feet of film, and they can tell pretty accurately from that." - -"How about Wednesday?" - -"Wednesday's fine. Just phone me and I'll go around with you--" - -He was on his feet, shaking hands briskly--then his car was a wraith of -dust down the road. Anthony turned to his wife in bewilderment. - -"Why, Gloria!" - -"You don't mind if I have a trial, Anthony. Just a trial? I've got to go -to town Wednesday, _any_how." - -"But it's so silly! You don't want to go into the movies--moon around a -studio all day with a lot of cheap chorus people." - -"Lot of mooning around Mary Pickford does!" - -"Everybody isn't a Mary Pickford." - -"Well, I can't see how you'd object to my _try_ing." - -"I do, though. I hate actors." - -"Oh, you make me tired. Do you imagine I have a very thrilling time -dozing on this damn porch?" - -"You wouldn't mind if you loved me." - -"Of course I love you," she said impatiently, making out a quick case -for herself. "It's just because I do that I hate to see you go to pieces -by just lying around and saying you ought to work. Perhaps if I _did_ go -into this for a while it'd stir you up so you'd do something." - -"It's just your craving for excitement, that's all it is." - -"Maybe it is! It's a perfectly natural craving, isn't it?" - -"Well, I'll tell you one thing. If you go to the movies I'm going to -Europe." - -"Well, go on then! _I'm_ not stopping you!" - -To show she was not stopping him she melted into melancholy tears. -Together they marshalled the armies of sentiment--words, kisses, -endearments, self-reproaches. They attained nothing. Inevitably they -attained nothing. Finally, in a burst of gargantuan emotion each of them -sat down and wrote a letter. Anthony's was to his grandfather; Gloria's -was to Joseph Bloeckman. It was a triumph of lethargy. - -One day early in July Anthony, returned from an afternoon in New York, -called up-stairs to Gloria. Receiving no answer he guessed she was -asleep and so went into the pantry for one of the little sandwiches that -were always prepared for them. He found Tana seated at the kitchen table -before a miscellaneous assortment of odds and ends--cigar-boxes, knives, -pencils, the tops of cans, and some scraps of paper covered with -elaborate figures and diagrams. - -"What the devil you doing?" demanded Anthony curiously. - -Tana politely grinned. - -"I show you," he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I tell--" - -"You making a dog-house?" - -"No, sa." Tana grinned again. "Make typewutta." - -"Typewriter?" - -"Yes, sa. I think, oh all time I think, lie in bed think 'bout -typewutta." - -"So you thought you'd make one, eh?" - -"Wait. I tell." - -Anthony, munching a sandwich, leaned leisurely against the sink. Tana -opened and closed his mouth several times as though testing its capacity -for action. Then with a rush he began: - -"I been think--typewutta--has, oh, many many many many _thing_. Oh many -many many many." "Many keys. I see." - -"No-o? _Yes_-key! Many many many many lettah. Like so a-b-c." - -"Yes, you're right." - -"Wait. I tell." He screwed his face up in a tremendous effort to express -himself: "I been think--many words--end same. Like i-n-g." - -"You bet. A whole raft of them." - -"So--I make--typewutta--quick. Not so many lettah--" - -"That's a great idea, Tana. Save time. You'll make a fortune. Press one -key and there's 'ing.' Hope you work it out." - -Tana laughed disparagingly. "Wait. I tell--" "Where's Mrs. Patch?" - -"She out. Wait, I tell--" Again he screwed up his face for action. "_My_ -typewutta----" - -"Where is she?" - -"Here--I make." He pointed to the miscellany of junk on the table. - -"I mean Mrs. Patch." - -"She out." Tana reassured him. "She be back five o'clock, she say." - -"Down in the village?" - -"No. Went off before lunch. She go Mr. Bloeckman." - -Anthony started. - -"Went out with Mr. Bloeckman?" - -"She be back five." - -Without a word Anthony left the kitchen with Tana's disconsolate "I -tell" trailing after him. So this was Gloria's idea of excitement, by -God! His fists were clenched; within a moment he had worked himself up -to a tremendous pitch of indignation. He went to the door and looked -out; there was no car in sight and his watch stood at four minutes of -five. With furious energy he dashed down to the end of the path--as far -as the bend of the road a mile off he could see no car--except--but it -was a farmer's flivver. Then, in an undignified pursuit of dignity, he -rushed back to the shelter of the house as quickly as he had rushed out. - -Pacing up and down the living room he began an angry rehearsal of the -speech he would make to her when she came in-- - -"So this is love!" he would begin--or no, it sounded too much like the -popular phrase "So this is Paris!" He must be dignified, hurt, grieved. -Anyhow--"So this is what _you_ do when I have to go up and trot all day -around the hot city on business. No wonder I can't write! No wonder I -don't dare let you out of my sight!" He was expanding now, warming to -his subject. "I'll tell you," he continued, "I'll tell you--" He paused, -catching a familiar ring in the words--then he realized--it was -Tana's "I tell." - -Yet Anthony neither laughed nor seemed absurd to himself. To his frantic -imagination it was already six--seven--eight, and she was never coming! -Bloeckman finding her bored and unhappy had persuaded her to go to -California with him.... - ---There was a great to-do out in front, a joyous "Yoho, Anthony!" and he -rose trembling, weakly happy to see her fluttering up the path. -Bloeckman was following, cap in hand. - -"Dearest!" she cried. - -"We've been for the best jaunt--all over New York State." - -"I'll have to be starting home," said Bloeckman, almost immediately. -"Wish you'd both been here when I came." - -"I'm sorry I wasn't," answered Anthony dryly. When he had departed -Anthony hesitated. The fear was gone from his heart, yet he felt that -some protest was ethically apropos. Gloria resolved his uncertainty. - -"I knew you wouldn't mind. He came just before lunch and said he had to -go to Garrison on business and wouldn't I go with him. He looked so -lonesome, Anthony. And I drove his car all the way." - -Listlessly Anthony dropped into a chair, his mind tired--tired with -nothing, tired with everything, with the world's weight he had never -chosen to bear. He was ineffectual and vaguely helpless here as he had -always been. One of those personalities who, in spite of all their -words, are inarticulate, he seemed to have inherited only the vast -tradition of human failure--that, and the sense of death. - -"I suppose I don't care," he answered. - -One must be broad about these things, and Gloria being young, being -beautiful, must have reasonable privileges. Yet it wearied him that he -failed to understand. - - -WINTER - -She rolled over on her back and lay still for a moment in the great bed -watching the February sun suffer one last attenuated refinement in its -passage through the leaded panes into the room. For a time she had no -accurate sense of her whereabouts or of the events of the day before, or -the day before that; then, like a suspended pendulum, memory began to -beat out its story, releasing with each swing a burdened quota of time -until her life was given back to her. - -She could hear, now, Anthony's troubled breathing beside her; she could -smell whiskey and cigarette smoke. She noticed that she lacked complete -muscular control; when she moved it was not a sinuous motion with the -resultant strain distributed easily over her body--it was a tremendous -effort of her nervous system as though each time she were hypnotizing -herself into performing an impossible action.... - -She was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth to get rid of that -intolerable taste; then back by the bedside listening to the rattle of -Bounds's key in the outer door. - -"Wake up, Anthony!" she said sharply. - -She climbed into bed beside him and closed her eyes. Almost the last -thing she remembered was a conversation with Mr. and Mrs. Lacy. Mrs. -Lacy had said, "Sure you don't want us to get you a taxi?" and Anthony -had replied that he guessed they could walk over to Fifth all right. -Then they had both attempted, imprudently, to bow--and collapsed -absurdly into a battalion of empty milk bottles just outside the door. -There must have been two dozen milk bottles standing open-mouthed in the -dark. She could conceive of no plausible explanation of those milk -bottles. Perhaps they had been attracted by the singing in the Lacy -house and had hurried over agape with wonder to see the fun. Well, -they'd had the worst of it--though it seemed that she and Anthony never -would get up, the perverse things rolled so.... - -Still, they had found a taxi. "My meter's broken and it'll cost you a -dollar and a half to get home," said the taxi driver. "Well," said -Anthony, "I'm young Packy McFarland and if you'll come down here I'll -beat you till you can't stand up." ...At that point the man had driven -off without them. They must have found another taxi, for they were in -the apartment.... - -"What time is it?" Anthony was sitting up in bed, staring at her with -owlish precision. - -This was obviously a rhetorical question. Gloria could think of no -reason why she should be expected to know the time. - -"Golly, I feel like the devil!" muttered Anthony dispassionately. -Relaxing, he tumbled back upon his pillow. "Bring on your grim reaper!" - -"Anthony, how'd we finally get home last night?" - -"Taxi." - -"Oh!" Then, after a pause: "Did you put me to bed?" - -"I don't know. Seems to me you put _me_ to bed. What day is it?" - -"Tuesday." - -"Tuesday? I hope so. If it's Wednesday, I've got to start work at that -idiotic place. Supposed to be down at nine or some such ungodly hour." - -"Ask Bounds," suggested Gloria feebly. - -"Bounds!" he called. - -Sprightly, sober--a voice from a world that it seemed in the past two -days they had left forever, Bounds sprang in short steps down the hall -and appeared in the half darkness of the door. - -"What day, Bounds?" - -"February the twenty-second, I think, sir." - -"I mean day of the week." - -"Tuesday, sir." "Thanks." After a pause: "Are you ready for breakfast, -sir?" - -"Yes, and Bounds, before you get it, will you make a pitcher of water, -and set it here beside the bed? I'm a little thirsty." - -"Yes, sir." - -Bounds retreated in sober dignity down the hallway. - -"Lincoln's birthday," affirmed Anthony without enthusiasm, "or St. -Valentine's or somebody's. When did we start on this insane party?" - -"Sunday night." - -"After prayers?" he suggested sardonically. - -"We raced all over town in those hansoms and Maury sat up with his -driver, don't you remember? Then we came home and he tried to cook some -bacon--came out of the pantry with a few blackened remains, insisting it -was 'fried to the proverbial crisp.'" - -Both of them laughed, spontaneously but with some difficulty, and lying -there side by side reviewed the chain of events that had ended in this -rusty and chaotic dawn. - -They had been in New York for almost four months, since the country had -grown too cool in late October. They had given up California this year, -partly because of lack of funds, partly with the idea of going abroad -should this interminable war, persisting now into its second year, end -during the winter. Of late their income had lost elasticity; no longer -did it stretch to cover gay whims and pleasant extravagances, and -Anthony had spent many puzzled and unsatisfactory hours over a densely -figured pad, making remarkable budgets that left huge margins for -"amusements, trips, etc.," and trying to apportion, even approximately, -their past expenditures. - -He remembered a time when in going on a "party" with his two best -friends, he and Maury had invariably paid more than their share of the -expenses. They would buy the tickets for the theatre or squabble between -themselves for the dinner check. It had seemed fitting; Dick, with his -naivete and his astonishing fund of information about himself, had been -a diverting, almost juvenile, figure--court jester to their royalty. But -this was no longer true. It was Dick who always had money; it was -Anthony who entertained within limitations--always excepting occasional -wild, wine-inspired, check-cashing parties--and it was Anthony who was -solemn about it next morning and told the scornful and disgusted Gloria -that they'd have to be "more careful next time." - -In the two years since the publication of "The Demon Lover," Dick had -made over twenty-five thousand dollars, most of it lately, when the -reward of the author of fiction had begun to swell unprecedentedly as a -result of the voracious hunger of the motion pictures for plots. He -received seven hundred dollars for every story, at that time a large -emolument for such a young man--he was not quite thirty--and for every -one that contained enough "action" (kissing, shooting, and sacrificing) -for the movies, he obtained an additional thousand. His stories varied; -there was a measure of vitality and a sort of instinctive in all of -them, but none attained the personality of "The Demon Lover," and there -were several that Anthony considered downright cheap. These, Dick -explained severely, were to widen his audience. Wasn't it true that men -who had attained real permanence from Shakespeare to Mark Twain had -appealed to the many as well as to the elect? - -Though Anthony and Maury disagreed, Gloria told him to go ahead and make -as much money as he could--that was the only thing that counted -anyhow.... - -Maury, a little stouter, faintly mellower, and more complaisant, had -gone to work in Philadelphia. He came to New York once or twice a month -and on such occasions the four of them travelled the popular routes from -dinner to the theatre, thence to the Frolic or, perhaps, at the urging -of the ever-curious Gloria, to one of the cellars of Greenwich Village, -notorious through the furious but short-lived vogue of the "new poetry -movement." - -In January, after many monologues directed at his reticent wife, Anthony -determined to "get something to do," for the winter at any rate. He -wanted to please his grandfather and even, in a measure, to see how he -liked it himself. He discovered during several tentative semi-social -calls that employers were not interested in a young man who was only -going to "try it for a few months or so." As the grandson of Adam Patch -he was received everywhere with marked courtesy, but the old man was a -back number now--the heyday of his fame as first an "oppressor" and then -an uplifter of the people had been during the twenty years preceding his -retirement. Anthony even found several of the younger men who were under -the impression that Adam Patch had been dead for some years. - -Eventually Anthony went to his grandfather and asked his advice, which -turned out to be that he should enter the bond business as a salesman, a -tedious suggestion to Anthony, but one that in the end he determined to -follow. Sheer money in deft manipulation had fascinations under all -circumstances, while almost any side of manufacturing would be -insufferably dull. He considered newspaper work but decided that the -hours were not ordered for a married man. And he lingered over pleasant -fancies of himself either as editor of a brilliant weekly of opinion, an -American Mercure de France, or as scintillant producer of satiric comedy -and Parisian musical revue. However, the approaches to these latter -guilds seemed to be guarded by professional secrets. Men drifted into -them by the devious highways of writing and acting. It was palpably -impossible to get on a magazine unless you had been on one before. - -So in the end he entered, by way of his grandfather's letter, that -Sanctum Americanum where sat the president of Wilson, Hiemer and Hardy -at his "cleared desk," and issued therefrom employed. He was to begin -work on the twenty-third of February. - -In tribute to the momentous occasion this two-day revel had been -planned, since, he said, after he began working he'd have to get to bed -early during the week. Maury Noble had arrived from Philadelphia on a -trip that had to do with seeing some man in Wall Street (whom, -incidentally, he failed to see), and Richard Caramel had been half -persuaded, half tricked into joining them. They had condescended to a -wet and fashionable wedding on Monday afternoon, and in the evening had -occurred the denouement: Gloria, going beyond her accustomed limit of -four precisely timed cocktails, led them on as gay and joyous a -bacchanal as they had ever known, disclosing an astonishing knowledge of -ballet steps, and singing songs which she confessed had been taught her -by her cook when she was innocent and seventeen. She repeated these by -request at intervals throughout the evening with such frank conviviality -that Anthony, far from being annoyed, was gratified at this fresh source -of entertainment. The occasion was memorable in other ways--a long -conversation between Maury and a defunct crab, which he was dragging -around on the end of a string, as to whether the crab was fully -conversant with the applications of the binomial theorem, and the -aforementioned race in two hansom cabs with the sedate and impressive -shadows of Fifth Avenue for audience, ending in a labyrinthine escape -into the darkness of Central Park. Finally Anthony and Gloria had paid a -call on some wild young married people--the Lacys--and collapsed in the -empty milk bottles. - -Morning now--theirs to add up the checks cashed here and there in clubs, -stores, restaurants. Theirs to air the dank staleness of wine and -cigarettes out of the tall blue front room, to pick up the broken glass -and brush at the stained fabric of chairs and sofas; to give Bounds -suits and dresses for the cleaners; finally, to take their smothery -half-feverish bodies and faded depressed spirits out into the chill air -of February, that life might go on and Wilson, Hiemer and Hardy obtain -the services of a vigorous man at nine next morning. - -"Do you remember," called Anthony from the bathroom, "when Maury got out -at the corner of One Hundred and Tenth Street and acted as a traffic -cop, beckoning cars forward and motioning them back? They must have -thought he was a private detective." - -After each reminiscence they both laughed inordinately, their -overwrought nerves responding as acutely and janglingly to mirth as to -depression. - -Gloria at the mirror was wondering at the splendid color and freshness -of her face--it seemed that she had never looked so well, though her -stomach hurt her and her head was aching furiously. - -The day passed slowly. Anthony, riding in a taxi to his broker's to -borrow money on a bond, found that he had only two dollars in his -pocket. The fare would cost all of that, but he felt that on this -particular afternoon he could not have endured the subway. When the -taximetre reached his limit he must get out and walk. - -With this his mind drifted off into one of its characteristic -day-dreams.... In this dream he discovered that the metre was going too -fast--the driver had dishonestly adjusted it. Calmly he reached his -destination and then nonchalantly handed the man what he justly owed -him. The man showed fight, but almost before his hands were up Anthony -had knocked him down with one terrific blow. And when he rose Anthony -quickly sidestepped and floored him definitely with a crack in -the temple. - -... He was in court now. The judge had fined him five dollars and he had -no money. Would the court take his check? Ah, but the court did not know -him. Well, he could identify himself by having them call his apartment. - -... They did so. Yes, it was Mrs. Anthony Patch speaking--but how did -she know that this man was her husband? How could she know? Let the -police sergeant ask her if she remembered the milk bottles ... - -He leaned forward hurriedly and tapped at the glass. The taxi was only -at Brooklyn Bridge, but the metre showed a dollar and eighty cents, and -Anthony would never have omitted the ten per cent tip. - -Later in the afternoon he returned to the apartment. Gloria had also -been out--shopping--and was asleep, curled in a corner of the sofa with -her purchase locked securely in her arms. Her face was as untroubled as -a little girl's, and the bundle that she pressed tightly to her bosom -was a child's doll, a profound and infinitely healing balm to her -disturbed and childish heart. - - -DESTINY - -It was with this party, more especially with Gloria's part in it, that a -decided change began to come over their way of living. The magnificent -attitude of not giving a damn altered overnight; from being a mere tenet -of Gloria's it became the entire solace and justification for what they -chose to do and what consequence it brought. Not to be sorry, not to -loose one cry of regret, to live according to a clear code of honor -toward each other, and to seek the moment's happiness as fervently and -persistently as possible. - -"No one cares about us but ourselves, Anthony," she said one day. "It'd -be ridiculous for me to go about pretending I felt any obligations -toward the world, and as for worrying what people think about me, I -simply _don't_, that's all. Since I was a little girl in dancing-school -I've been criticised by the mothers of all the little girls who weren't -as popular as I was, and I've always looked on criticism as a sort of -envious tribute." - -This was because of a party in the "Boul' Mich'" one night, where -Constance Merriam had seen her as one of a highly stimulated party of -four. Constance Merriam, "as an old school friend," had gone to the -trouble of inviting her to lunch next day in order to inform her how -terrible it was. - -"I told her I couldn't see it," Gloria told Anthony. "Eric Merriam is a -sort of sublimated Percy Wolcott--you remember that man in Hot Springs I -told you about--his idea of respecting Constance is to leave her at home -with her sewing and her baby and her book, and such innocuous -amusements, whenever he's going on a party that promises to be anything -but deathly dull." - -"Did you tell her that?" - -"I certainly did. And I told her that what she really objected to was -that I was having a better time than she was." - -Anthony applauded her. He was tremendously proud of Gloria, proud that -she never failed to eclipse whatever other women might be in the party, -proud that men were always glad to revel with her in great rowdy groups, -without any attempt to do more than enjoy her beauty and the warmth of -her vitality. - -These "parties" gradually became their chief source of entertainment. -Still in love, still enormously interested in each other, they yet found -as spring drew near that staying at home in the evening palled on them; -books were unreal; the old magic of being alone had long since -vanished--instead they preferred to be bored by a stupid musical comedy, -or to go to dinner with the most uninteresting of their acquaintances, -so long as there would be enough cocktails to keep the conversation from -becoming utterly intolerable. A scattering of younger married people who -had been their friends in school or college, as well as a varied -assortment of single men, began to think instinctively of them whenever -color and excitement were needed, so there was scarcely a day without -its phone call, its "Wondered what you were doing this evening." Wives, -as a rule, were afraid of Gloria--her facile attainment of the centre of -the stage, her innocent but nevertheless disturbing way of becoming a -favorite with husbands--these things drove them instinctively into an -attitude of profound distrust, heightened by the fact that Gloria was -largely unresponsive to any intimacy shown her by a woman. - -On the appointed Wednesday in February Anthony had gone to the imposing -offices of Wilson, Hiemer and Hardy and listened to many vague -instructions delivered by an energetic young man of about his own age, -named Kahler, who wore a defiant yellow pompadour, and in announcing -himself as an assistant secretary gave the impression that it was a -tribute to exceptional ability. - -"There's two kinds of men here, you'll find," he said. "There's the man -who gets to be an assistant secretary or treasurer, gets his name on our -folder here, before he's thirty, and there's the man who gets his name -there at forty-five. The man who gets his name there at forty-five stays -there the rest of his life." - -"How about the man who gets it there at thirty?" inquired Anthony -politely. - -"Why, he gets up here, you see." He pointed to a list of assistant -vice-presidents upon the folder. "Or maybe he gets to be president or -secretary or treasurer." - -"And what about these over here?" - -"Those? Oh, those are the trustees--the men with capital." - -"I see." - -"Now some people," continued Kahler, "think that whether a man gets -started early or late depends on whether he's got a college education. -But they're wrong." - -"I see." - -"I had one; I was Buckleigh, class of nineteen-eleven, but when I came -down to the Street I soon found that the things that would help me here -weren't the fancy things I learned in college. In fact, I had to get a -lot of fancy stuff out of my head." - -Anthony could not help wondering what possible "fancy stuff" he had -learned at Buckleigh in nineteen-eleven. An irrepressible idea that it -was some sort of needlework recurred to him throughout the rest of the -conversation. - -"See that fellow over there?" Kahler pointed to a youngish-looking man -with handsome gray hair, sitting at a desk inside a mahogany railing. -"That's Mr. Ellinger, the first vice-president. Been everywhere, seen -everything; got a fine education." - -In vain did Anthony try to open his mind to the romance of finance; he -could think of Mr. Ellinger only as one of the buyers of the handsome -leather sets of Thackeray, Balzac, Hugo, and Gibbon that lined the walls -of the big bookstores. - -Through the damp and uninspiring month of March he was prepared for -salesmanship. Lacking enthusiasm he was capable of viewing the turmoil -and bustle that surrounded him only as a fruitless circumambient -striving toward an incomprehensible goal, tangibly evidenced only by the -rival mansions of Mr. Frick and Mr. Carnegie on Fifth Avenue. That these -portentous vice-presidents and trustees should be actually the fathers -of the "best men" he had known at Harvard seemed to him incongruous. - -He ate in an employees' lunch-room up-stairs with an uneasy suspicion -that he was being uplifted, wondering through that first week if the -dozens of young clerks, some of them alert and immaculate, and just out -of college, lived in flamboyant hope of crowding onto that narrow slip -of cardboard before the catastrophic thirties. The conversation that -interwove with the pattern of the day's work was all much of a piece. -One discussed how Mr. Wilson had made his money, what method Mr. Hiemer -had employed, and the means resorted to by Mr. Hardy. One related -age-old but eternally breathless anecdotes of the fortunes stumbled on -precipitously in the Street by a "butcher" or a "bartender," or "a darn -_mess_enger boy, by golly!" and then one talked of the current gambles, -and whether it was best to go out for a hundred thousand a year or be -content with twenty. During the preceding year one of the assistant -secretaries had invested all his savings in Bethlehem Steel. The story -of his spectacular magnificence, of his haughty resignation in January, -and of the triumphal palace he was now building in California, was the -favorite office subject. The man's very name had acquired a magic -significance, symbolizing as he did the aspirations of all good -Americans. Anecdotes were told about him--how one of the vice-presidents -had advised him to sell, by golly, but he had hung on, even bought on -margin, "and _now_ look where he is!" - -Such, obviously, was the stuff of life--a dizzy triumph dazzling the -eyes of all of them, a gypsy siren to content them with meagre wage and -with the arithmetical improbability of their eventual success. - -To Anthony the notion became appalling. He felt that to succeed here the -idea of success must grasp and limit his mind. It seemed to him that the -essential element in these men at the top was their faith that their -affairs were the very core of life. All other things being equal, -self-assurance and opportunism won out over technical knowledge; it was -obvious that the more expert work went on near the bottom--so, with -appropriate efficiency, the technical experts were kept there. - -His determination to stay in at night during the week did not survive, -and a good half of the time he came to work with a splitting, sickish -headache and the crowded horror of the morning subway ringing in his -ears like an echo of hell. - -Then, abruptly, he quit. He had remained in bed all one Monday, and late -in the evening, overcome by one of those attacks of moody despair to -which he periodically succumbed, he wrote and mailed a letter to Mr. -Wilson, confessing that he considered himself ill adapted to the work. -Gloria, coming in from the theatre with Richard Caramel, found him on -the lounge, silently staring at the high ceiling, more depressed and -discouraged than he had been at any time since their marriage. - -She wanted him to whine. If he had she would have reproached him -bitterly, for she was not a little annoyed, but he only lay there so -utterly miserable that she felt sorry for him, and kneeling down she -stroked his head, saying how little it mattered, how little anything -mattered so long as they loved each other. It was like their first year, -and Anthony, reacting to her cool hand, to her voice that was soft as -breath itself upon his ear, became almost cheerful, and talked with her -of his future plans. He even regretted, silently, before he went to bed -that he had so hastily mailed his resignation. - -"Even when everything seems rotten you can't trust that judgment," -Gloria had said. "It's the sum of all your judgments that counts." - -In mid-April came a letter from the real-estate agent in Marietta, -encouraging them to take the gray house for another year at a slightly -increased rental, and enclosing a lease made out for their signatures. -For a week lease and letter lay carelessly neglected on Anthony's desk. -They had no intention of returning to Marietta. They were weary of the -place, and had been bored most of the preceding summer. Besides, their -car had deteriorated to a rattling mass of hypochondriacal metal, and a -new one was financially inadvisable. - -But because of another wild revel, enduring through four days and -participated in, at one time or another, by more than a dozen people, -they did sign the lease; to their utter horror they signed it and sent -it, and immediately it seemed as though they heard the gray house, -drably malevolent at last, licking its white chops and waiting to -devour them. - -"Anthony, where's that lease?" she called in high alarm one Sunday -morning, sick and sober to reality. "Where did you leave it? It -was here!" - -Then she knew where it was. She remembered the house party they had -planned on the crest of their exuberance; she remembered a room full of -men to whose less exhilarated moments she and Anthony were of no -importance, and Anthony's boast of the transcendent merit and seclusion -of the gray house, that it was so isolated that it didn't matter how -much noise went on there. Then Dick, who had visited them, cried -enthusiastically that it was the best little house imaginable, and that -they were idiotic not to take it for another summer. It had been easy to -work themselves up to a sense of how hot and deserted the city was -getting, of how cool and ambrosial were the charms of Marietta. Anthony -had picked up the lease and waved it wildly, found Gloria happily -acquiescent, and with one last burst of garrulous decision during which -all the men agreed with solemn handshakes that they would come out for -a visit ... - -"Anthony," she cried, "we've signed and sent it!" - -"What?" - -"The lease!" - -"What the devil!" - -"Oh, _An_thony!" There was utter misery in her voice. For the summer, -for eternity, they had built themselves a prison. It seemed to strike at -the last roots of their stability. Anthony thought they might arrange it -with the real-estate agent. They could no longer afford the double rent, -and going to Marietta meant giving up his apartment, his reproachless -apartment with the exquisite bath and the rooms for which he had bought -his furniture and hangings--it was the closest to a home that he had -ever had--familiar with memories of four colorful years. - -But it was not arranged with the real-estate agent, nor was it arranged -at all. Dispiritedly, without even any talk of making the best of it, -without even Gloria's all-sufficing "I don't care," they went back to -the house that they now knew heeded neither youth nor love--only those -austere and incommunicable memories that they could never share. - - -THE SINISTER SUMMER - -There was a horror in the house that summer. It came with them and -settled itself over the place like a sombre pall, pervasive through the -lower rooms, gradually spreading and climbing up the narrow stairs until -it oppressed their very sleep. Anthony and Gloria grew to hate being -there alone. Her bedroom, which had seemed so pink and young and -delicate, appropriate to her pastel-shaded lingerie tossed here and -there on chair and bed, seemed now to whisper with its rustling curtains: - -"Ah, my beautiful young lady, yours is not the first daintiness and -delicacy that has faded here under the summer suns ... generations of -unloved women have adorned themselves by that glass for rustic lovers -who paid no heed.... Youth has come into this room in palest blue and -left it in the gray cerements of despair, and through long nights many -girls have lain awake where that bed stands pouring out waves of misery -into the darkness." - -Gloria finally tumbled all her clothes and unguents ingloriously out of -it, declaring that she had come to live with Anthony, and making the -excuse that one of her screens was rotten and admitted bugs. So her room -was abandoned to insensitive guests, and they dressed and slept in her -husband's chamber, which Gloria considered somehow "good," as though -Anthony's presence there had acted as exterminator of any uneasy shadows -of the past that might have hovered about its walls. - -The distinction between "good" and "bad," ordered early and summarily -out of both their lives, had been reinstated in another form. Gloria -insisted that any one invited to the gray house must be "good," which, -in the case of a girl, meant that she must be either simple and -reproachless or, if otherwise, must possess a certain solidity and -strength. Always intensely sceptical of her sex, her judgments were now -concerned with the question of whether women were or were not clean. By -uncleanliness she meant a variety of things, a lack of pride, a -slackness in fibre and, most of all, the unmistakable aura of -promiscuity. - -"Women soil easily," she said, "far more easily than men. Unless a -girl's very young and brave it's almost impossible for her to go -down-hill without a certain hysterical animality, the cunning, dirty -sort of animality. A man's different--and I suppose that's why one of -the commonest characters of romance is a man going gallantly to -the devil." - -She was disposed to like many men, preferably those who gave her frank -homage and unfailing entertainment--but often with a flash of insight -she told Anthony that some one of his friends was merely using him, and -consequently had best be left alone. Anthony customarily demurred, -insisting that the accused was a "good one," but he found that his -judgment was more fallible than hers, memorably when, as it happened on -several occasions, he was left with a succession of restaurant checks -for which to render a solitary account. - -More from their fear of solitude than from any desire to go through the -fuss and bother of entertaining, they filled the house with guests every -week-end, and often on through the week. The week-end parties were much -the same. When the three or four men invited had arrived, drinking was -more or less in order, followed by a hilarious dinner and a ride to the -Cradle Beach Country Club, which they had joined because it was -inexpensive, lively if not fashionable, and almost a necessity for just -such occasions as these. Moreover, it was of no great moment what one -did there, and so long as the Patch party were reasonably inaudible, it -mattered little whether or not the social dictators of Cradle Beach saw -the gay Gloria imbibing cocktails in the supper room at frequent -intervals during the evening. - -Saturday ended, generally, in a glamourous confusion--it proving often -necessary to assist a muddled guest to bed. Sunday brought the New York -papers and a quiet morning of recuperating on the porch--and Sunday -afternoon meant good-by to the one or two guests who must return to the -city, and a great revival of drinking among the one or two who remained -until next day, concluding in a convivial if not hilarious evening. - -The faithful Tana, pedagogue by nature and man of all work by -profession, had returned with them. Among their more frequent guests a -tradition had sprung up about him. Maury Noble remarked one afternoon -that his real name was Tannenbaum, and that he was a German agent kept -in this country to disseminate Teutonic propaganda through Westchester -County, and, after that, mysterious letters began to arrive from -Philadelphia addressed to the bewildered Oriental as "Lt. Emile -Tannenbaum," containing a few cryptic messages signed "General Staff," -and adorned with an atmospheric double column of facetious Japanese. -Anthony always handed them to Tana without a smile; hours afterward the -recipient could be found puzzling over them in the kitchen and declaring -earnestly that the perpendicular symbols were not Japanese, nor anything -resembling Japanese. - -Gloria had taken a strong dislike to the man ever since the day when, -returning unexpectedly from the village, she had discovered him -reclining on Anthony's bed, puzzling out a newspaper. It was the -instinct of all servants to be fond of Anthony and to detest Gloria, and -Tana was no exception to the rule. But he was thoroughly afraid of her -and made plain his aversion only in his moodier moments by subtly -addressing Anthony with remarks intended for her ear: - -"What Miz Pats want dinner?" he would say, looking at his master. Or -else he would comment about the bitter selfishness of "'Merican peoples" -in such manner that there was no doubt who were the "peoples" -referred to. - -But they dared not dismiss him. Such a step would have been abhorrent to -their inertia. They endured Tana as they endured ill weather and -sickness of the body and the estimable Will of God--as they endured all -things, even themselves. - - -IN DARKNESS - -One sultry afternoon late in July Richard Caramel telephoned from New -York that he and Maury were coming out, bringing a friend with them. -They arrived about five, a little drunk, accompanied by a small, stocky -man of thirty-five, whom they introduced as Mr. Joe Hull, one of the -best fellows that Anthony and Gloria had ever met. - -Joe Hull had a yellow beard continually fighting through his skin and a -low voice which varied between basso profundo and a husky whisper. -Anthony, carrying Maury's suitcase up-stairs, followed into the room and -carefully closed the door. - -"Who is this fellow?" he demanded. - -Maury chuckled enthusiastically. - -"Who, Hull? Oh, _he's_ all right. He's a good one." - -"Yes, but who is he?" - -"Hull? He's just a good fellow. He's a prince." His laughter redoubled, -culminating in a succession of pleasant catlike grins. Anthony hesitated -between a smile and a frown. - -"He looks sort of funny to me. Weird-looking clothes"--he paused--"I've -got a sneaking suspicion you two picked him up somewhere last night." - -"Ridiculous," declared Maury. "Why, I've known him all my life." -However, as he capped this statement with another series of chuckles, -Anthony was impelled to remark: "The devil you have!" - -Later, just before dinner, while Maury and Dick were conversing -uproariously, with Joe Hull listening in silence as he sipped his drink, -Gloria drew Anthony into the dining room: - -"I don't like this man Hull," she said. "I wish he'd use Tana's -bathtub." - -"I can't very well ask him to." - -"Well, I don't want him in ours." - -"He seems to be a simple soul." - -"He's got on white shoes that look like gloves. I can see his toes right -through them. Uh! Who is he, anyway?" - -"You've got me." - -"Well, I think they've got their nerve to bring him out here. This isn't -a Sailor's Rescue Home!" - -"They were tight when they phoned. Maury said they've been on a party -since yesterday afternoon." - -Gloria shook her head angrily, and saying no more returned to the porch. -Anthony saw that she was trying to forget her uncertainty and devote -herself to enjoying the evening. - -It had been a tropical day, and even into late twilight the heat-waves -emanating from the dry road were quivering faintly like undulating panes -of isinglass. The sky was cloudless, but far beyond the woods in the -direction of the Sound a faint and persistent rolling had commenced. -When Tana announced dinner the men, at a word from Gloria, remained -coatless and went inside. - -Maury began a song, which they accomplished in harmony during the first -course. It had two lines and was sung to a popular air called Daisy -Dear. The lines were: - -"The--pan-ic--has--come--over us, So _ha-a-as_--the moral de_cline_!" - -Each rendition was greeted with bursts of enthusiasm and prolonged -applause. - -"Cheer up, Gloria!" suggested Maury. "You seem the least bit depressed." - -"I'm not," she lied. - -"Here, Tannenbaum!" he called over his shoulder. "I've filled you a -drink. Come on!" - -Gloria tried to stay his arm. - -"Please don't, Maury!" - -"Why not? Maybe he'll play the flute for us after dinner. Here, Tana." - -Tana, grinning, bore the glass away to the kitchen. In a few moments -Maury gave him another. - -"Cheer up, Gloria!" he cried. "For Heaven's sakes everybody, cheer up -Gloria." - -"Dearest, have another drink," counselled Anthony. - -"Do, please!" - -"Cheer up, Gloria," said Joe Hull easily. - -Gloria winced at this uncalled-for use of her first name, and glanced -around to see if any one else had noticed it. The word coming so glibly -from the lips of a man to whom she had taken an inordinate dislike -repelled her. A moment later she noticed that Joe Hull had given Tana -another drink, and her anger increased, heightened somewhat from the -effects of the alcohol. - -"--and once," Maury was saying, "Peter Granby and I went into a Turkish -bath in Boston, about two o'clock at night. There was no one there but -the proprietor, and we jammed him into a closet and locked the door. -Then a fella came in and wanted a Turkish bath. Thought we were the -rubbers, by golly! Well, we just picked him up and tossed him into the -pool with all his clothes on. Then we dragged him out and laid him on a -slab and slapped him until he was black and blue. 'Not so rough, -fellows!' he'd say in a little squeaky voice, 'please! ...'" - ---Was this Maury? thought Gloria. From any one else the story would have -amused her, but from Maury, the infinitely appreciative, the apotheosis -of tact and consideration.... - -"The--pan-ic--has--come--over us, So _ha-a-as_--" - -A drum of thunder from outside drowned out the rest of the song; Gloria -shivered and tried to empty her glass, but the first taste nauseated -her, and she set it down. Dinner was over and they all marched into the -big room, bearing several bottles and decanters. Some one had closed the -porch door to keep out the wind, and in consequence circular tentacles -of cigar smoke were twisting already upon the heavy air. - -"Paging Lieutenant Tannenbaum!" Again it was the changeling Maury. -"Bring us the flute!" - -Anthony and Maury rushed into the kitchen; Richard Caramel started the -phonograph and approached Gloria. - -"Dance with your well-known cousin." - -"I don't want to dance." - -"Then I'm going to carry you around." - -As though he were doing something of overpowering importance, he picked -her up in his fat little arms and started trotting gravely about -the room. - -"Set me down, Dick! I'm dizzy!" she insisted. - -He dumped her in a bouncing bundle on the couch, and rushed off to the -kitchen, shouting "Tana! Tana!" - -Then, without warning, she felt other arms around her, felt herself -lifted from the lounge. Joe Hull had picked her up and was trying, -drunkenly, to imitate Dick. - -"Put me down!" she said sharply. - -His maudlin laugh, and the sight of that prickly yellow jaw close to her -face stirred her to intolerable disgust. - -"At once!" - -"The--pan-ic--" he began, but got no further, for Gloria's hand swung -around swiftly and caught him in the cheek. At this he all at once let -go of her, and she fell to the floor, her shoulder hitting the table a -glancing blow in transit.... - -Then the room seemed full of men and smoke. There was Tana in his white -coat reeling about supported by Maury. Into his flute he was blowing a -weird blend of sound that was known, cried Anthony, as the Japanese -train-song. Joe Hull had found a box of candles and was juggling them, -yelling "One down!" every time he missed, and Dick was dancing by -himself in a fascinated whirl around and about the room. It appeared to -her that everything in the room was staggering in grotesque -fourth-dimensional gyrations through intersecting planes of hazy blue. - -Outside, the storm had come up amazingly--the lulls within were filled -with the scrape of the tall bushes against the house and the roaring of -the rain on the tin roof of the kitchen. The lightning was interminable, -letting down thick drips of thunder like pig iron from the heart of a -white-hot furnace. Gloria could see that the rain was spitting in at -three of the windows--but she could not move to shut them.... - -... She was in the hall. She had said good night but no one had heard or -heeded her. It seemed for an instant as though something had looked down -over the head of the banister, but she could not have gone back into the -living room--better madness than the madness of that clamor.... -Up-stairs she fumbled for the electric switch and missed it in the -darkness; a roomful of lightning showed her the button plainly on the -wall. But when the impenetrable black shut down, it again eluded her -fumbling fingers, so she slipped off her dress and petticoat and threw -herself weakly on the dry side of the half-drenched bed. - -She shut her eyes. From down-stairs arose the babel of the drinkers, -punctured suddenly by a tinkling shiver of broken glass, and then -another, and by a soaring fragment of unsteady, irregular song.... - -She lay there for something over two hours--so she calculated afterward, -sheerly by piecing together the bits of time. She was conscious, even -aware, after a long while that the noise down-stairs had lessened, and -that the storm was moving off westward, throwing back lingering showers -of sound that fell, heavy and lifeless as her soul, into the soggy -fields. This was succeeded by a slow, reluctant scattering of the rain -and wind, until there was nothing outside her windows but a gentle -dripping and the swishing play of a cluster of wet vine against the -sill. She was in a state half-way between sleeping and waking, with -neither condition predominant ... and she was harassed by a desire to -rid herself of a weight pressing down upon her breast. She felt that if -she could cry the weight would be lifted, and forcing the lids of her -eyes together she tried to raise a lump in her throat ... to -no avail.... - -Drip! Drip! Drip! The sound was not unpleasant--like spring, like a cool -rain of her childhood, that made cheerful mud in her back yard and -watered the tiny garden she had dug with miniature rake and spade and -hoe. Drip--dri-ip! It was like days when the rain came out of yellow -skies that melted just before twilight and shot one radiant shaft of -sunlight diagonally down the heavens into the damp green trees. So cool, -so clear and clean--and her mother there at the centre of the world, at -the centre of the rain, safe and dry and strong. She wanted her mother -now, and her mother was dead, beyond sight and touch forever. And this -weight was pressing on her, pressing on her--oh, it pressed on her so! - -She became rigid. Some one had come to the door and was standing -regarding her, very quiet except for a slight swaying motion. She could -see the outline of his figure distinct against some indistinguishable -light. There was no sound anywhere, only a great persuasive -silence--even the dripping had ceased ... only this figure, swaying, -swaying in the doorway, an indiscernible and subtly menacing terror, a -personality filthy under its varnish, like smallpox spots under a layer -of powder. Yet her tired heart, beating until it shook her breasts, made -her sure that there was still life in her, desperately shaken, -threatened.... - -The minute or succession of minutes prolonged itself interminably, and a -swimming blur began to form before her eyes, which tried with childish -persistence to pierce the gloom in the direction of the door. In another -instant it seemed that some unimaginable force would shatter her out of -existence ... and then the figure in the doorway--it was Hull, she saw, -Hull--turned deliberately and, still slightly swaying, moved back and -off, as if absorbed into that incomprehensible light that had given him -dimension. - -Blood rushed back into her limbs, blood and life together. With a start -of energy she sat upright, shifting her body until her feet touched the -floor over the side of the bed. She knew what she must do--now, now, -before it was too late. She must go out into this cool damp, out, away, -to feel the wet swish of the grass around her feet and the fresh -moisture on her forehead. Mechanically she struggled into her clothes, -groping in the dark of the closet for a hat. She must go from this house -where the thing hovered that pressed upon her bosom, or else made itself -into stray, swaying figures in the gloom. - -In a panic she fumbled clumsily at her coat, found the sleeve just as -she heard Anthony's footsteps on the lower stair. She dared not wait; he -might not let her go, and even Anthony was part of this weight, part of -this evil house and the sombre darkness that was growing up about it.... - -Through the hall then ... and down the back stairs, hearing Anthony's -voice in the bedroom she had just left-- - -"Gloria! Gloria!" - -But she had reached the kitchen now, passed out through the doorway into -the night. A hundred drops, startled by a flare of wind from a dripping -tree, scattered on her and she pressed them gladly to her face with -hot hands. - -"Gloria! Gloria!" - -The voice was infinitely remote, muffed and made plaintive by the walls -she had just left. She rounded the house and started down the front path -toward the road, almost exultant as she turned into it, and followed the -carpet of short grass alongside, moving with caution in the -intense darkness. - -"Gloria!" - -She broke into a run, stumbled over the segment of a branch twisted off -by the wind. The voice was outside the house now. Anthony, finding the -bedroom deserted, had come onto the porch. But this thing was driving -her forward; it was back there with Anthony, and she must go on in her -flight under this dim and oppressive heaven, forcing herself through the -silence ahead as though it were a tangible barrier before her. - -She had gone some distance along the barely discernible road, probably -half a mile, passed a single deserted barn that loomed up, black and -foreboding, the only building of any sort between the gray house and -Marietta; then she turned the fork, where the road entered the wood and -ran between two high walls of leaves and branches that nearly touched -overhead. She noticed suddenly a thin, longitudinal gleam of silver upon -the road before her, like a bright sword half embedded in the mud. As -she came closer she gave a little cry of satisfaction--it was a -wagon-rut full of water, and glancing heavenward she saw a light rift of -sky and knew that the moon was out. - -"Gloria!" - -She started violently. Anthony was not two hundred feet behind her. - -"Gloria, wait for me!" - -She shut her lips tightly to keep from screaming, and increased her -gait. Before she had gone another hundred yards the woods disappeared, -rolling back like a dark stocking from the leg of the road. Three -minutes' walk ahead of her, suspended in the now high and limitless air, -she saw a thin interlacing of attenuated gleams and glitters, centred in -a regular undulation on some one invisible point. Abruptly she knew -where she would go. That was the great cascade of wires that rose high -over the river, like the legs of a gigantic spider whose eye was the -little green light in the switch-house, and ran with the railroad bridge -in the direction of the station. The station! There would be the train -to take her away. - -"Gloria, it's me! It's Anthony! Gloria, I won't try to stop you! For -God's sake, where are you?" - -She made no answer but began to run, keeping on the high side of the -road and leaping the gleaming puddles--dimensionless pools of thin, -unsubstantial gold. Turning sharply to the left, she followed a narrow -wagon road, serving to avoid a dark body on the ground. She looked up as -an owl hooted mournfully from a solitary tree. Just ahead of her she -could see the trestle that led to the railroad bridge and the steps -mounting up to it. The station lay across the river. - -Another sounds startled her, the melancholy siren of an approaching -train, and almost simultaneously, a repeated call, thin now and -far away. - -"Gloria! Gloria!" - -Anthony must have followed the main road. She laughed with a sort of -malicious cunning at having eluded him; she could spare the time to wait -until the train went by. - -The siren soared again, closer at hand, and then, with no anticipatory -roar and clamor, a dark and sinuous body curved into view against the -shadows far down the high-banked track, and with no sound but the rush -of the cleft wind and the clocklike tick of the rails, moved toward the -bridge--it was an electric train. Above the engine two vivid blurs of -blue light formed incessantly a radiant crackling bar between them, -which, like a spluttering flame in a lamp beside a corpse, lit for an -instant the successive rows of trees and caused Gloria to draw back -instinctively to the far side of the road. The light was tepid, the -temperature of warm blood.... The clicking blended suddenly with itself -in a rush of even sound, and then, elongating in sombre elasticity, the -thing roared blindly by her and thundered onto the bridge, racing the -lurid shaft of fire it cast into the solemn river alongside. Then it -contracted swiftly, sucking in its sound until it left only a -reverberant echo, which died upon the farther bank. - -Silence crept down again over the wet country; the faint dripping -resumed, and suddenly a great shower of drops tumbled upon Gloria -stirring her out of the trance-like torpor which the passage of the -train had wrought. She ran swiftly down a descending level to the bank -and began climbing the iron stairway to the bridge, remembering that it -was something she had always wanted to do, and that she would have the -added excitement of traversing the yard-wide plank that ran beside the -tracks over the river. - -There! This was better. She was at the top now and could see the lands -about her as successive sweeps of open country, cold under the moon, -coarsely patched and seamed with thin rows and heavy clumps of trees. To -her right, half a mile down the river, which trailed away behind the -light like the shiny, slimy path of a snail, winked the scattered lights -of Marietta. Not two hundred yards away at the end of the bridge -squatted the station, marked by a sullen lantern. The oppression was -lifted now--the tree-tops below her were rocking the young starlight to -a haunted doze. She stretched out her arms with a gesture of freedom. -This was what she had wanted, to stand alone where it was high and cool. - -"Gloria!" - -Like a startled child she scurried along the plank, hopping, skipping, -jumping, with an ecstatic sense of her own physical lightness. Let him -come now--she no longer feared that, only she must first reach the -station, because that was part of the game. She was happy. Her hat, -snatched off, was clutched tightly in her hand, and her short curled -hair bobbed up and down about her ears. She had thought she would never -feel so young again, but this was her night, her world. Triumphantly she -laughed as she left the plank, and reaching the wooden platform flung -herself down happily beside an iron roof-post. - -"Here I am!" she called, gay as the dawn in her elation. "Here I am, -Anthony, dear--old, worried Anthony." - -"Gloria!" He reached the platform, ran toward her. "Are you all right?" -Coming up he knelt and took her in his arms. - -"Yes." - -"What was the matter? Why did you leave?" he queried anxiously. - -"I had to--there was something"--she paused and a flicker of uneasiness -lashed at her mind--"there was something sitting on me--here." She put -her hand on her breast. "I had to go out and get away from it." - -"What do you mean by 'something'?" - -"I don't know--that man Hull--" - -"Did he bother you?" - -"He came to my door, drunk. I think I'd gotten sort of crazy by that -time." - -"Gloria, dearest--" - -Wearily she laid her head upon his shoulder. - -"Let's go back," he suggested. - -She shivered. - -"Uh! No, I couldn't. It'd come and sit on me again." Her voice rose to a -cry that hung plaintive on the darkness. "That thing--" - -"There--there," he soothed her, pulling her close to him. "We won't do -anything you don't want to do. What do you want to do? Just sit here?" - -"I want--I want to go away." - -"Where?" - -"Oh--anywhere." - -"By golly, Gloria," he cried, "you're still tight!" - -"No, I'm not. I haven't been, all evening. I went up-stairs about, oh, I -don't know, about half an hour after dinner ...Ouch!" - -He had inadvertently touched her right shoulder. - -"It hurts me. I hurt it some way. I don't know--somebody picked me up -and dropped me." - -"Gloria, come home. It's late and damp." - -"I can't," she wailed. "Oh, Anthony, don't ask me to! I will to-morrow. -You go home and I'll wait here for a train. I'll go to a hotel--" - -"I'll go with you." - -"No, I don't want you with me. I want to be alone. I want to sleep--oh, -I want to sleep. And then to-morrow, when you've got all the smell of -whiskey and cigarettes out of the house, and everything straight, and -Hull is gone, then I'll come home. If I went now, that thing--oh--!" She -covered her eyes with her hand; Anthony saw the futility of trying to -persuade her. - -"I was all sober when you left," he said. "Dick was asleep on the lounge -and Maury and I were having a discussion. That fellow Hull had wandered -off somewhere. Then I began to realize I hadn't seen you for several -hours, so I went up-stairs--" - -He broke off as a salutatory "Hello, there!" boomed suddenly out of the -darkness. Gloria sprang to her feet and he did likewise. - -"It's Maury's voice," she cried excitedly. "If it's Hull with him, keep -them away, keep them away!" - -"Who's there?" Anthony called. - -"Just Dick and Maury," returned two voices reassuringly. - -"Where's Hull?" - -"He's in bed. Passed out." - -Their figures appeared dimly on the platform. - -"What the devil are you and Gloria doing here?" inquired Richard Caramel -with sleepy bewilderment. - -"What are _you_ two doing here?" - -Maury laughed. - -"Damned if I know. We followed you, and had the deuce of a time doing -it. I heard you out on the porch yelling for Gloria, so I woke up the -Caramel here and got it through his head, with some difficulty, that if -there was a search-party we'd better be on it. He slowed me up by -sitting down in the road at intervals and asking me what it was all -about. We tracked you by the pleasant scent of Canadian Club." - -There was a rattle of nervous laughter under the low train-shed. - -"How did you track us, really?" - -"Well, we followed along down the road and then we suddenly lost you. -Seems you turned off at a wagontrail. After a while somebody hailed us -and asked us if we were looking for a young girl. Well, we came up and -found it was a little shivering old man, sitting on a fallen tree like -somebody in a fairy tale. 'She turned down here,' he said, 'and most -steppud on me, goin' somewhere in an awful hustle, and then a fella in -short golfin' pants come runnin' along and went after her. He throwed me -this.' The old fellow had a dollar bill he was waving around--" - -"Oh, the poor old man!" ejaculated Gloria, moved. - -"I threw him another and we went on, though he asked us to stay and tell -him what it was all about." - -"Poor old man," repeated Gloria dismally. - -Dick sat down sleepily on a box. - -"And now what?" he inquired in the tone of stoic resignation. - -"Gloria's upset," explained Anthony. "She and I are going to the city by -the next train." - -Maury in the darkness had pulled a time-table from his pocket. - -"Strike a match." - -A tiny flare leaped out of the opaque background illuminating the four -faces, grotesque and unfamiliar here in the open night. - -"Let's see. Two, two-thirty--no, that's evening. By gad, you won't get a -train till five-thirty." - -Anthony hesitated. - -"Well," he muttered uncertainly, "we've decided to stay here and wait -for it. You two might as well go back and sleep." - -"You go, too, Anthony," urged Gloria; "I want you to have some sleep, -dear. You've been as pale as a ghost all day." - -"Why, you little idiot!" - -Dick yawned. - -"Very well. You stay, we stay." - -He walked out from under the shed and surveyed the heavens. - -"Rather a nice night, after all. Stars are out and everything. -Exceptionally tasty assortment of them." - -"Let's see." Gloria moved after him and the other two followed her. -"Let's sit out here," she suggested. "I like it much better." - -Anthony and Dick converted a long box into a backrest and found a board -dry enough for Gloria to sit on. Anthony dropped down beside her and -with some effort Dick hoisted himself onto an apple-barrel near them. - -"Tana went to sleep in the porch hammock," he remarked. "We carried him -in and left him next to the kitchen stove to dry. He was drenched to -the skin." - -"That awful little man!" sighed Gloria. - -"How do you do!" The voice, sonorous and funereal, had come from above, -and they looked up startled to find that in some manner Maury had -climbed to the roof of the shed, where he sat dangling his feet over the -edge, outlined as a shadowy and fantastic gargoyle against the now -brilliant sky. - -"It must be for such occasions as this," he began softly, his words -having the effect of floating down from an immense height and settling -softly upon his auditors, "that the righteous of the land decorate the -railroads with bill-boards asserting in red and yellow that 'Jesus -Christ is God,' placing them, appropriately enough, next to -announcements that 'Gunter's Whiskey is Good.'" - -There was gentle laughter and the three below kept their heads tilted -upward. - -"I think I shall tell you the story of my education," continued Maury, -"under these sardonic constellations." - -"Do! Please!" - -"Shall I, really?" - -They waited expectantly while he directed a ruminative yawn toward the -white smiling moon. - -"Well," he began, "as an infant I prayed. I stored up prayers against -future wickedness. One year I stored up nineteen hundred 'Now I -lay me's.'" - -"Throw down a cigarette," murmured some one. - -A small package reached the platform simultaneously with the stentorian -command: - -"Silence! I am about to unburden myself of many memorable remarks -reserved for the darkness of such earths and the brilliance of -such skies." - -Below, a lighted match was passed from cigarette to cigarette. The voice -resumed: - -"I was adept at fooling the deity. I prayed immediately after all crimes -until eventually prayer and crime became indistinguishable to me. I -believed that because a man cried out 'My God!' when a safe fell on him, -it proved that belief was rooted deep in the human breast. Then I went -to school. For fourteen years half a hundred earnest men pointed to -ancient flint-locks and cried to me: 'There's the real thing. These new -rifles are only shallow, superficial imitations.' They damned the books -I read and the things I thought by calling them immoral; later the -fashion changed, and they damned things by calling them 'clever'. - -"And so I turned, canny for my years, from the professors to the poets, -listening--to the lyric tenor of Swinburne and the tenor robusto of -Shelley, to Shakespeare with his first bass and his fine range, to -Tennyson with his second bass and his occasional falsetto, to Milton and -Marlow, bassos profundo. I gave ear to Browning chatting, Byron -declaiming, and Wordsworth droning. This, at least, did me no harm. I -learned a little of beauty--enough to know that it had nothing to do -with truth--and I found, moreover, that there was no great literary -tradition; there was only the tradition of the eventful death of every -literary tradition.... - -"Then I grew up, and the beauty of succulent illusions fell away from -me. The fibre of my mind coarsened and my eyes grew miserably keen. Life -rose around my island like a sea, and presently I was swimming. - -"The transition was subtle--the thing had lain in wait for me for some -time. It has its insidious, seemingly innocuous trap for every one. With -me? No--I didn't try to seduce the janitor's wife--nor did I run through -the streets unclothed, proclaiming my virility. It is never quite -passion that does the business--it is the dress that passion wears. I -became bored--that was all. Boredom, which is another name and a -frequent disguise for vitality, became the unconscious motive of all my -acts. Beauty was behind me, do you understand?--I was grown." He paused. -"End of school and college period. Opening of Part Two." - -Three quietly active points of light showed the location of his -listeners. Gloria was now half sitting, half lying, in Anthony's lap. -His arm was around her so tightly that she could hear the beating of his -heart. Richard Caramel, perched on the apple-barrel, from time to time -stirred and gave off a faint grunt. - -"I grew up then, into this land of jazz, and fell immediately into a -state of almost audible confusion. Life stood over me like an immoral -schoolmistress, editing my ordered thoughts. But, with a mistaken faith -in intelligence, I plodded on. I read Smith, who laughed at charity and -insisted that the sneer was the highest form of self-expression--but -Smith himself replaced charity as an obscurer of the light. I read -Jones, who neatly disposed of individualism--and behold! Jones was still -in my way. I did not think--I was a battle-ground for the thoughts of -many men; rather was I one of those desirable but impotent countries -over which the great powers surge back and forth. - -"I reached maturity under the impression that I was gathering the -experience to order my life for happiness. Indeed, I accomplished the -not unusual feat of solving each question in my mind long before it -presented itself to me in life--and of being beaten and bewildered -just the same. - -"But after a few tastes of this latter dish I had had enough. Here! I -said, Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens -pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up -against. So I wrapped myself in what I thought was my invulnerable -scepticism and decided that my education was complete. But it was too -late. Protect myself as I might by making no new ties with tragic and -predestined humanity, I was lost with the rest. I had traded the fight -against love for the fight against loneliness, the fight against life -for the fight against death." - -He broke off to give emphasis to his last observation--after a moment he -yawned and resumed. - -"I suppose that the beginning of the second phase of my education was a -ghastly dissatisfaction at being used in spite of myself for some -inscrutable purpose of whose ultimate goal I was unaware--if, indeed, -there _was_ an ultimate goal. It was a difficult choice. The -schoolmistress seemed to be saying, 'We're going to play football and -nothing but football. If you don't want to play football you can't -play at all--' - -"What was I to do--the playtime was so short! - -"You see, I felt that we were even denied what consolation there might -have been in being a figment of a corporate man rising from his knees. -Do you think that I leaped at this pessimism, grasped it as a sweetly -smug superior thing, no more depressing really than, say, a gray autumn -day before a fire?--I don't think I did that. I was a great deal too -warm for that, and too alive. - -"For it seemed to me that there was no ultimate goal for man. Man was -beginning a grotesque and bewildered fight with nature--nature, that by -the divine and magnificent accident had brought us to where we could fly -in her face. She had invented ways to rid the race of the inferior and -thus give the remainder strength to fill her higher--or, let us say, her -more amusing--though still unconscious and accidental intentions. And, -actuated by the highest gifts of the enlightenment, we were seeking to -circumvent her. In this republic I saw the black beginning to mingle -with the white--in Europe there was taking place an economic catastrophe -to save three or four diseased and wretchedly governed races from the -one mastery that might organize them for material prosperity. - -"We produce a Christ who can raise up the leper--and presently the breed -of the leper is the salt of the earth. If any one can find any lesson in -that, let him stand forth." - -"There's only one lesson to be learned from life, anyway," interrupted -Gloria, not in contradiction but in a sort of melancholy agreement. - -"What's that?" demanded Maury sharply. - -"That there's no lesson to be learned from life." - -After a short silence Maury said: - -"Young Gloria, the beautiful and merciless lady, first looked at the -world with the fundamental sophistication I have struggled to attain, -that Anthony never will attain, that Dick will never fully understand." - -There was a disgusted groan from the apple-barrel. Anthony, grown -accustomed to the dark, could see plainly the flash of Richard Caramel's -yellow eye and the look of resentment on his face as he cried: - -"You're crazy! By your own statement I should have attained some -experience by trying." - -"Trying what?" cried Maury fiercely. "Trying to pierce the darkness of -political idealism with some wild, despairing urge toward truth? Sitting -day after day supine in a rigid chair and infinitely removed from life -staring at the tip of a steeple through the trees, trying to separate, -definitely and for all time, the knowable from the unknowable? Trying to -take a piece of actuality and give it glamour from your own soul to make -for that inexpressible quality it possessed in life and lost in transit -to paper or canvas? Struggling in a laboratory through weary years for -one iota of relative truth in a mass of wheels or a test tube--" - -"Have you?" - -Maury paused, and in his answer, when it came, there was a measure of -weariness, a bitter overnote that lingered for a moment in those three -minds before it floated up and off like a bubble bound for the moon. - -"Not I," he said softly. "I was born tired--but with the quality of -mother wit, the gift of women like Gloria--to that, for all my talking -and listening, my waiting in vain for the eternal generality that seems -to lie just beyond every argument and every speculation, to that I have -added not one jot." - -In the distance a deep sound that had been audible for some moments -identified itself by a plaintive mooing like that of a gigantic cow and -by the pearly spot of a headlight apparent half a mile away. It was a -steam-driven train this time, rumbling and groaning, and as it tumbled -by with a monstrous complaint it sent a shower of sparks and cinders -over the platform. - -"Not one jot!" Again Maury's voice dropped down to them as from a great -height. "What a feeble thing intelligence is, with its short steps, its -waverings, its pacings back and forth, its disastrous retreats! -Intelligence is a mere instrument of circumstances. There are people who -say that intelligence must have built the universe--why, intelligence -never built a steam engine! Circumstances built a steam engine. -Intelligence is little more than a short foot-rule by which we measure -the infinite achievements of Circumstances. - -"I could quote you the philosophy of the hour--but, for all we know, -fifty years may see a complete reversal of this abnegation that's -absorbing the intellectuals to-day, the triumph of Christ over Anatole -France--" He hesitated, and then added: "But all I know--the tremendous -importance of myself to me, and the necessity of acknowledging that -importance to myself--these things the wise and lovely Gloria was born -knowing these things and the painful futility of trying to know -anything else. - -"Well, I started to tell you of my education, didn't I? But I learned -nothing, you see, very little even about myself. And if I had I should -die with my lips shut and the guard on my fountain pen--as the wisest -men have done since--oh, since the failure of a certain matter--a -strange matter, by the way. It concerned some sceptics who thought they -were far-sighted, just as you and I. Let me tell you about them by way -of an evening prayer before you all drop off to sleep. - -"Once upon a time all the men of mind and genius in the world became of -one belief--that is to say, of no belief. But it wearied them to think -that within a few years after their death many cults and systems and -prognostications would be ascribed to them which they had never -meditated nor intended. So they said to one another: - -"'Let's join together and make a great book that will last forever to -mock the credulity of man. Let's persuade our more erotic poets to write -about the delights of the flesh, and induce some of our robust -journalists to contribute stories of famous amours. We'll include all -the most preposterous old wives' tales now current. We'll choose the -keenest satirist alive to compile a deity from all the deities -worshipped by mankind, a deity who will be more magnificent than any of -them, and yet so weakly human that he'll become a byword for laughter -the world over--and we'll ascribe to him all sorts of jokes and vanities -and rages, in which he'll be supposed to indulge for his own diversion, -so that the people will read our book and ponder it, and there'll be no -more nonsense in the world. - -"'Finally, let us take care that the book possesses all the virtues of -style, so that it may last forever as a witness to our profound -scepticism and our universal irony.' - -"So the men did, and they died. - -"But the book lived always, so beautifully had it been written, and so -astounding the quality of imagination with which these men of mind and -genius had endowed it. They had neglected to give it a name, but after -they were dead it became known as the Bible." - -When he concluded there was no comment. Some damp languor sleeping on -the air of night seemed to have bewitched them all. - -"As I said, I started on the story of my education. But my high-balls -are dead and the night's almost over, and soon there'll be an awful -jabbering going on everywhere, in the trees and the houses, and the two -little stores over there behind the station, and there'll be a great -running up and down upon the earth for a few hours--Well," he concluded -with a laugh, "thank God we four can all pass to our eternal rest -knowing we've left the world a little better for having lived in it." - -A breeze sprang up, blowing with it faint wisps of life which flattened -against the sky. - -"Your remarks grow rambling and inconclusive," said Anthony sleepily. -"You expected one of those miracles of illumination by which you say -your most brilliant and pregnant things in exactly the setting that -should provoke the ideal symposium. Meanwhile Gloria has shown her -far-sighted detachment by falling asleep--I can tell that by the fact -that she has managed to concentrate her entire weight upon my -broken body." - -"Have I bored you?" inquired Maury, looking down with some concern. - -"No, you have disappointed us. You've shot a lot of arrows but did you -shoot any birds?" - -"I leave the birds to Dick," said Maury hurriedly. "I speak erratically, -in disassociated fragments." - -"You can get no rise from me," muttered Dick. "My mind is full of any -number of material things. I want a warm bath too much to worry about -the importance of my work or what proportion of us are pathetic figures." - -Dawn made itself felt in a gathering whiteness eastward over the river -and an intermittent cheeping in the near-by trees. - -"Quarter to five," sighed Dick; "almost another hour to wait. Look! Two -gone." He was pointing to Anthony, whose lids had sagged over his eyes. -"Sleep of the Patch family--" - -But in another five minutes, despite the amplifying cheeps and chirrups, -his own head had fallen forward, nodded down twice, thrice.... - -Only Maury Noble remained awake, seated upon the station roof, his eyes -wide open and fixed with fatigued intensity upon the distant nucleus of -morning. He was wondering at the unreality of ideas, at the fading -radiance of existence, and at the little absorptions that were creeping -avidly into his life, like rats into a ruined house. He was sorry for no -one now--on Monday morning there would be his business, and later there -would be a girl of another class whose whole life he was; these were the -things nearest his heart. In the strangeness of the brightening day it -seemed presumptuous that with this feeble, broken instrument of his mind -he had ever tried to think. - -There was the sun, letting down great glowing masses of heat; there was -life, active and snarling, moving about them like a fly swarm--the dark -pants of smoke from the engine, a crisp "all aboard!" and a bell -ringing. Confusedly Maury saw eyes in the milk train staring curiously -up at him, heard Gloria and Anthony in quick controversy as to whether -he should go to the city with her, then another clamor and she was gone -and the three men, pale as ghosts, were standing alone upon the platform -while a grimy coal-heaver went down the road on top of a motor truck, -carolling hoarsely at the summer morning. - - - -CHAPTER III - - -THE BROKEN LUTE - -_It is seven-thirty of an August evening. The windows in the living room -of the gray house are wide open, patiently exchanging the tainted inner -atmosphere of liquor and smoke for the fresh drowsiness of the late hot -dusk. There are dying flower scents upon the air, so thin, so fragile, -as to hint already of a summer laid away in time. But August is still -proclaimed relentlessly by a thousand crickets around the side-porch, -and by one who has broken into the house and concealed himself -confidently behind a bookcase, from time to time shrieking of his -cleverness and his indomitable will._ - -_The room itself is in messy disorder. On the table is a dish of fruit, -which is real but appears artificial. Around it are grouped an ominous -assortment of decanters, glasses, and heaped ash-trays, the latter still -raising wavy smoke-ladders into the stale air, the effect on the whole -needing but a skull to resemble that venerable chromo, once a fixture in -every "den," which presents the appendages to the life of pleasure with -delightful and awe-inspiring sentiment._ - -_After a while the sprightly solo of the supercricket is interrupted -rather than joined by a new sound--the melancholy wail of an erratically -fingered flute. It is obvious that the musician is practising rather -than performing, for from time to time the gnarled strain breaks off -and, after an interval of indistinct mutterings, recommences._ - -_Just prior to the seventh false start a third sound contributes to the -subdued discord. It is a taxi outside. A minute's silence, then the taxi -again, its boisterous retreat almost obliterating the scrape of -footsteps on the cinder walk. The door-bell shrieks alarmingly through -the house._ - -_From the kitchen enters a small, fatigued Japanese, hastily buttoning a -servant's coat of white duck. He opens the front screen-door and admits -a handsome young man of thirty, clad in the sort of well-intentioned -clothes peculiar to those who serve mankind. To his whole personality -clings a well-intentioned air: his glance about the room is compounded -of curiosity and a determined optimism; when he looks at Tana the entire -burden of uplifting the godless Oriental is in his eyes. His name is_ -FREDERICK E. PARAMORE. _He was at Harvard with_ ANTHONY, _where because -of the initials of their surnames they were constantly placed next to -each other in classes. A fragmentary acquaintance developed--but since -that time they have never met._ - -_Nevertheless,_ PARAMORE _enters the room with a certain air of arriving -for the evening._ - -_Tana is answering a question._ - -TANA: (_Grinning with ingratiation_) Gone to Inn for dinnah. Be back -half-hour. Gone since ha' past six. - -PARAMORE: (_Regarding the glasses on the table_) Have they company? - -TANA: Yes. Company. Mistah Caramel, Mistah and Missays Barnes, Miss -Kane, all stay here. - -PARAMORE: I see. (_Kindly_) They've been having a spree, I see. - -TANA: I no un'stan'. - -PARAMORE: They've been having a fling. - -TANA: Yes, they have drink. Oh, many, many, many drink. - -PARAMORE: (_Receding delicately from the subject_) "Didn't I hear the -sounds of music as I approached the house"? - -TANA:(_With a spasmodic giggle_)Yes, I play. - -PARAMORE: One of the Japanese instruments. - -(_He is quite obviously a subscriber to the "National Geographic -Magazine_.") - -TANA: I play flu-u-ute, Japanese flu-u-ute. - -PARAMORE: What song were you playing? One of your Japanese melodies? - -TANA:(_His brow undergoing preposterous contraction_) I play train song. -How you call?--railroad song. So call in my countree. Like train. It go -so-o-o; that mean whistle; train start. Then go so-o-o; that mean train -go. Go like that. Vera nice song in my countree. Children song. - -PARAMORE: It sounded very nice. (_It is apparent at this point that only -a gigantic effort at control restrains Tana from rushing up-stairs for -his post cards, including the six made in America_.) - -TANA: I fix high-ball for gentleman? - -PARAMORE: "No, thanks. I don't use it". (_He smiles_.) - -(TANA _withdraws into the kitchen, leaving the intervening door slightly -ajar. From the crevice there suddenly issues again the melody of the -Japanese train song--this time not a practice, surely, but a -performance, a lusty, spirited performance._ - -_The phone rings._ TANA, _absorbed in his harmonics, gives no heed, so_ -PARAMORE _takes up the receiver_.) - -PARAMORE: Hello.... Yes.... No, he's not here now, but he'll be back any -moment.... Butterworth? Hello, I didn't quite catch the name.... Hello, -hello, hello. Hello! ... Huh! - -(_The phone obstinately refuses to yield up any more sound. Paramore -replaces the receiver._ - -_At this point the taxi motif re-enters, wafting with it a second young -man; he carries a suitcase and opens the front door without ringing -the bell._) - -MAURY: (_In the hall_) "Oh, Anthony! Yoho"! (_He comes into the large -room and sees_ PARAMORE) How do? - -PARAMORE: (_Gazing at him with gathering intensity_) Is this--is this -Maury Noble? - -MAURY: "That's it". (_He advances, smiling, and holding out his hand_) -How are you, old boy? Haven't seen you for years. - -(_He has vaguely associated the face with Harvard, but is not even -positive about that. The name, if he ever knew it, he has long since -forgotten. However, with a fine sensitiveness and an equally commendable -charity_ PARAMORE _recognizes the fact and tactfully relieves the -situation_.) - -PARAMORE: You've forgotten Fred Paramore? We were both in old Unc -Robert's history class. - -MAURY: No, I haven't, Unc--I mean Fred. Fred was--I mean Unc was a great -old fellow, wasn't he? - -PARAMORE: (_Nodding his head humorously several times_) Great old -character. Great old character. - -MAURY: (_After a short pause_) Yes--he was. Where's Anthony? - -PARAMORE: The Japanese servant told me he was at some inn. Having -dinner, I suppose. - -MAURY: (_Looking at his watch_) Gone long? - -PARAMORE: I guess so. The Japanese told me they'd be back shortly. - -MAURY: Suppose we have a drink. - -PARAMORE: No, thanks. I don't use it. (_He smiles_.) - -MAURY: Mind if I do? (_Yawning as he helps himself from a bottle_) What -have you been doing since you left college? - -PARAMORE: Oh, many things. I've led a very active life. Knocked about -here and there. (_His tone implies anything front lion-stalking to -organized crime._) - -MAURY: Oh, been over to Europe? - -PARAMORE: No, I haven't--unfortunately. - -MAURY: I guess we'll all go over before long. - -PARAMORE: Do you really think so? - -MAURY: Sure! Country's been fed on sensationalism for more than two -years. Everybody getting restless. Want to have some fun. - -PARAMORE: Then you don't believe any ideals are at stake? - -MAURY: Nothing of much importance. People want excitement every so -often. - -PARAMORE: (_Intently_) It's very interesting to hear you say that. Now I -was talking to a man who'd been over there---- - -(_During the ensuing testament, left to be filled in by the reader with -such phrases as "Saw with his own eyes," "Splendid spirit of France," -and "Salvation of civilization,"_ MAURY _sits with lowered eyelids, -dispassionately bored._) - -MAURY: (_At the first available opportunity_) By the way, do you happen -to know that there's a German agent in this very house? - -PARAMORE: (_Smiling cautiously_) Are you serious? - -MAURY: Absolutely. Feel it my duty to warn you. - -PARAMORE: (_Convinced_) A governess? - -MAURY: (_In a whisper, indicating the kitchen with his thumb_) _Tana!_ -That's not his real name. I understand he constantly gets mail addressed -to Lieutenant Emile Tannenbaum. - -PARAMORE: (_Laughing with hearty tolerance_) You were kidding me. - -MAURY: I may be accusing him falsely. But, you haven't told me what -you've been doing. - -PARAMORE: For one thing--writing. - -MAURY: Fiction? - -PARAMORE: No. Non-fiction. - -MAURY: What's that? A sort of literature that's half fiction and half -fact? - -PARAMORE: Oh, I've confined myself to fact. I've been doing a good deal -of social-service work. - -MAURY: Oh! - -(_An immediate glow of suspicion leaps into his eyes. It is as though_ -PARAMORE _had announced himself as an amateur pickpocket._) - -PARAMORE: At present I'm doing service work in Stamford. Only last week -some one told me that Anthony Patch lived so near. - -(_They are interrupted by a clamor outside, unmistakable as that of two -sexes in conversation and laughter. Then there enter the room in a body_ -ANTHONY, GLORIA, RICHARD CARAMEL, MURIEL KANE, RACHAEL BARNES _and_ -RODMAN BARNES, _her husband. They surge about_ MAURY, _illogically -replying_ "Fine!" _to his general_ "Hello." ... ANTHONY, _meanwhile, -approaches his other guest._) - -ANTHONY: Well, I'll be darned. How are you? Mighty glad to see you. - -PARAMORE: It's good to see you, Anthony. I'm stationed in Stamford, so I -thought I'd run over. (_Roguishly_) We have to work to beat the devil -most of the time, so we're entitled to a few hours' vacation. - -(_In an agony of concentration_ ANTHONY _tries to recall the name. After -a struggle of parturition his memory gives up the fragment "Fred," -around which he hastily builds the sentence "Glad you did, Fred!" -Meanwhile the slight hush prefatory to an introduction has fallen upon -the company._ MAURY, _who could help, prefers to look on in malicious -enjoyment._) - -ANTHONY: (_In desperation_) Ladies and gentlemen, this is--this is Fred. - -MURIEL: (_With obliging levity_) Hello, Fred! - -(RICHARD CARAMEL _and_ PARAMORE _greet each other intimately by their -first names, the latter recollecting that_ DICK _was one of the men in -his class who had never before troubled to speak to him._ DICK -_fatuously imagines that_ PARAMORE _is some one he has previously met -in_ ANTHONY'S _house._ - -_The three young women go up-stairs._) - -MAURY: (_In an undertone to_ DICK) Haven't seen Muriel since Anthony's -wedding. - -DICK: She's now in her prime. Her latest is "I'll say so!" - -(ANTHONY _struggles for a while with_ PARAMORE _and at length attempts -to make the conversation general by asking every one to have a drink._) - -MAURY: I've done pretty well on this bottle. I've gone from "Proof" down -to "Distillery." (_He indicates the words on the label._) - -ANTHONY: (_To_ PARAMORE) Never can tell when these two will turn up. -Said good-by to them one afternoon at five and darned if they didn't -appear about two in the morning. A big hired touring-car from New York -drove up to the door and out they stepped, drunk as lords, of course. - -(_In an ecstasy of consideration_ PARAMORE _regards the cover of a book -which he holds in his hand._ MAURY _and_ DICK _exchange a glance._) - -DICK: (_Innocently, to_ PARAMORE) You work here in town? - -PARAMORE: No, I'm in the Laird Street Settlement in Stamford. (_To_ -ANTHONY) You have no idea of the amount of poverty in these small -Connecticut towns. Italians and other immigrants. Catholics mostly, you -know, so it's very hard to reach them. - -ANTHONY: (_Politely_) Lot of crime? - -PARAMORE: Not so much crime as ignorance and dirt. - -MAURY: That's my theory: immediate electrocution of all ignorant and -dirty people. I'm all for the criminals--give color to life. Trouble is -if you started to punish ignorance you'd have to begin in the first -families, then you could take up the moving picture people, and finally -Congress and the clergy. - -PARAMORE: (_Smiling uneasily_) I was speaking of the more fundamental -ignorance--of even our language. - -MAURY: (_Thoughtfully_) I suppose it is rather hard. Can't even keep up -with the new poetry. - -PARAMORE: It's only when the settlement work has gone on for months that -one realizes how bad things are. As our secretary said to me, your -finger-nails never seem dirty until you wash your hands. Of course we're -already attracting much attention. - -MAURY: (_Rudely_) As your secretary might say, if you stuff paper into a -grate it'll burn brightly for a moment. - -(_At this point_ GLORIA, _freshly tinted and lustful of admiration and -entertainment, rejoins the party, followed by her two friends. For -several moments the conversation becomes entirely fragmentary._ GLORIA -_calls_ ANTHONY _aside._) - -GLORIA: Please don't drink much, Anthony. - -ANTHONY: Why? - -GLORIA: Because you're so simple when you're drunk. - -ANTHONY: Good Lord! What's the matter now? - -GLORIA: (_After a pause during which her eyes gaze coolly into his_) -Several things. In the first place, why do you insist on paying for -everything? Both those men have more money than you! - -ANTHONY: Why, Gloria! They're my guests! - -GLORIA: That's no reason why you should pay for a bottle of champagne -Rachael Barnes smashed. Dick tried to fix that second taxi bill, and you -wouldn't let him. - -ANTHONY: Why, Gloria-- - -GLORIA: When we have to keep selling bonds to even pay our bills, it's -time to cut down on excess generosities. Moreover, I wouldn't be quite -so attentive to Rachael Barnes. Her husband doesn't like it any more -than I do! - -ANTHONY: Why, Gloria-- - -GLORIA: (_Mimicking him sharply_) "Why, Gloria!" But that's happened a -little too often this summer--with every pretty woman you meet. It's -grown to be a sort of habit, and I'm _not_ going to stand it! If you can -play around, I can, too. (_Then, as an afterthought_) By the way, this -Fred person isn't a second Joe Hull, is he? - -ANTHONY: Heavens, no! He probably came up to get me to wheedle some -money out of grandfather for his flock. - -(GLORIA _turns away from a very depressed_ ANTHONY _and returns to her -guests._ - -_By nine o'clock these can be divided into two classes--those who have -been drinking consistently and those who have taken little or nothing. -In the second group are the_ BARNESES, MURIEL, _and_ FREDERICK E. -PARAMORE.) - -MURIEL: I wish I could write. I get these ideas but I never seem to be -able to put them in words. - -DICK: As Goliath said, he understood how David felt, but he couldn't -express himself. The remark was immediately adopted for a motto by the -Philistines. - -MURIEL: I don't get you. I must be getting stupid in my old age. - -GLORIA: (_Weaving unsteadily among the company like an exhilarated -angel_) If any one's hungry there's some French pastry on the dining -room table. - -MAURY: Can't tolerate those Victorian designs it comes in. - -MURIEL: (_Violently amused_) _I'll_ say you're tight, Maury. - -(_Her bosom is still a pavement that she offers to the hoofs of many -passing stallions, hoping that their iron shoes may strike even a spark -of romance in the darkness ..._ - -_Messrs._ BARNES _and_ PARAMORE _have been engaged in conversation upon -some wholesome subject, a subject so wholesome that_ MR. BARNES _has -been trying for several moments to creep into the more tainted air -around the central lounge. Whether_ PARAMORE _is lingering in the gray -house out of politeness or curiosity, or in order at some future time to -make a sociological report on the decadence of American life, is -problematical._) - -MAURY: Fred, I imagined you were very broad-minded. - -PARAMORE: I am. - -MURIEL: Me, too. I believe one religion's as good as another and -everything. - -PARAMORE: There's some good in all religions. - -MURIEL: I'm a Catholic but, as I always say, I'm not working at it. - -PARAMORE: (_With a tremendous burst of tolerance_) The Catholic religion -is a very--a very powerful religion. - -MAURY: Well, such a broad-minded man should consider the raised plane of -sensation and the stimulated optimism contained in this cocktail. - -PARAMORE: (_Taking the drink, rather defiantly_) Thanks, I'll try--one. - -MAURY: One? Outrageous! Here we have a class of 'nineteen ten reunion, -and you refuse to be even a little pickled. Come on! - -"_Here's a health to King Charles, Here's a health to King Charles, -Bring the bowl that you boast_----" - -(PARAMORE _joins in with a hearty voice_.) - -MAURY: Fill the cup, Frederick. You know everything's subordinated to -nature's purposes with us, and her purpose with you is to make you a -rip-roaring tippler. - -PARAMORE: If a fellow can drink like a gentleman-- - -MAURY: What is a gentleman, anyway? - -ANTHONY: A man who never has pins under his coat lapel. - -MAURY: Nonsense! A man's social rank is determined by the amount of -bread he eats in a sandwich. - -DICK: He's a man who prefers the first edition of a book to the last -edition of a newspaper. - -RACHAEL: A man who never gives an impersonation of a dope-fiend. - -MAURY: An American who can fool an English butler into thinking he's -one. - -MURIEL: A man who comes from a good family and went to Yale or Harvard -or Princeton, and has money and dances well, and all that. - -MAURY: At last--the perfect definition! Cardinal Newman's is now a back -number. - -PARAMORE: I think we ought to look on the question more broad-mindedly. -Was it Abraham Lincoln who said that a gentleman is one who never -inflicts pain? - -MAURY: It's attributed, I believe, to General Ludendorff. - -PARAMORE: Surely you're joking. - -MAURY: Have another drink. - -PARAMORE: I oughtn't to. (_Lowering his voice for_ MAURY'S _ear alone_) -What if I were to tell you this is the third drink I've ever taken in -my life? - -(DICK _starts the phonograph, which provokes_ MURIEL _to rise and sway -from side to side, her elbows against her ribs, her forearms -perpendicular to her body and out like fins._) - -MURIEL: Oh, let's take up the rugs and dance! - -(_This suggestion is received by_ ANTHONY _and_ GLORIA _with interior -groans and sickly smiles of acquiescence._) - -MURIEL: Come on, you lazy-bones. Get up and move the furniture back. - -DICK: Wait till I finish my drink. - -MAURY: (_Intent on his purpose toward_ PARAMORE) I'll tell you what. -Let's each fill one glass, drink it off and then we'll dance. - -(_A wave of protest which breaks against the rock of_ MAURY'S -_insistence._) - -MURIEL: My head is simply going _round_ now. - -RACHAEL: (_In an undertone to_ ANTHONY) Did Gloria tell you to stay away -from me? - -ANTHONY: (_Confused_) Why, certainly not. Of course not. - -(RACHAEL _smiles at him inscrutably. Two years have given her a sort of -hard, well-groomed beauty._) - -MAURY: (_Holding up his glass_) Here's to the defeat of democracy and -the fall of Christianity. - -MURIEL: Now really! - -(_She flashes a mock-reproachful glance at_ MAURY _and then drinks._ - -_They all drink, with varying degrees of difficulty._) - -MURIEL: Clear the floor! - -(_It seems inevitable that this process is to be gone through, so_ -ANTHONY _and_ GLORIA _join in the great moving of tables, piling of -chairs, rolling of carpets, and breaking of lamps. When the furniture -has been stacked in ugly masses at the sides, there appears a space -about eight feet square._) - -MURIEL: Oh, let's have music! - -MAURY: Tana will render the love song of an eye, ear, nose, and throat -specialist. - -(_Amid some confusion due to the fact that_ TANA _has retired for the -night, preparations are made for the performance. The pajamaed Japanese, -flute in hand, is wrapped in a comforter and placed in a chair atop one -of the tables, where he makes a ludicrous and grotesque spectacle._ -PARAMORE _is perceptibly drunk and so enraptured with the notion that he -increases the effect by simulating funny-paper staggers and even -venturing on an occasional hiccough._) - -PARAMORE: (_To_ GLORIA) Want to dance with me? - -GLORIA: No, sir! Want to do the swan dance. Can you do it? - -PARAMORE: Sure. Do them all. - -GLORIA: All right. You start from that side of the room and I'll start -from this. - -MURIEL: Let's go! - -(_Then Bedlam creeps screaming out of the bottles:_ TANA _plunges into -the recondite mazes of the train song, the plaintive "tootle toot-toot" -blending its melancholy cadences with the_ "Poor Butter-fly -(tink-atink), by the blossoms wait-ing" _of the phonograph._ MURIEL _is -too weak with laughter to do more than cling desperately to_ BARNES, -_who, dancing with the ominous rigidity of an army officer, tramps -without humor around the small space._ ANTHONY _is trying to hear_ -RACHAEL'S _whisper--without attracting_ GLORIA's _attention...._ - -_But the grotesque, the unbelievable, the histrionic incident is about -to occur, one of those incidents in which life seems set upon the -passionate imitation of the lowest forms of literature._ PARAMORE _has -been trying to emulate_ GLORIA, _and as the commotion reaches its height -he begins to spin round and round, more and more dizzily--he staggers, -recovers, staggers again and then falls in the direction of the hall ... -almost into the arms of old_ ADAM PATCH, _whose approach has been -rendered inaudible by the pandemonium in the room._ - -ADAM PATCH _is very white. He leans upon a stick. The man with him is_ -EDWARD SHUTTLEWORTH, _and it is he who seizes_ PARAMORE _by the shoulder -and deflects the course of his fall away from the venerable -philanthropist._ - -_The time required for quiet to descend upon the room like a monstrous -pall may be estimated at two minutes, though for a short period after -that the phonograph gags and the notes of the Japanese train song -dribble from the end of_ TANA'S _flute. Of the nine people only_ BARNES, -PARAMORE, _and_ TANA _are unaware of the late-comer's identity. Of the -nine not one is aware that_ ADAM PATCH _has that morning made a -contribution of fifty thousand dollars to the cause of national -prohibition._ - -_It is given to_ PARAMORE _to break the gathering silence; the high tide -of his life's depravity is reached in his incredible remark._) - -PARAMORE: (_Crawling rapidly toward the kitchen on his hands and knees_) -I'm not a guest here--I work here. - -(_Again silence falls--so deep now, so weighted with intolerably -contagious apprehension, that_ RACHAEL _gives a nervous little giggle, -and_ DICK _finds himself telling over and over a line from Swinburne, -grotesquely appropriate to the scene:_ - -"One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath." - -... _Out of the hush the voice of_ ANTHONY, _sober and strained, saying -something to_ ADAM PATCH; _then this, too, dies away._) - -SHUTTLEWORTH: (_Passionately_) Your grandfather thought he would motor -over to see your house. I phoned from Rye and left a message. - -(_A series of little gasps, emanating, apparently, from nowhere, from no -one, fall into the next pause._ ANTHONY _is the color of chalk._ -GLORIA'S _lips are parted and her level gaze at the old man is tense and -frightened. There is not one smile in the room. Not one? Or does_ CROSS -PATCH'S _drawn mouth tremble slightly open, to expose the even rows of -his thin teeth? He speaks--five mild and simple words._) - -ADAM PATCH: We'll go back now, Shuttleworth--(_And that is all. He -turns, and assisted by his cane goes out through the hall, through the -front door, and with hellish portentousness his uncertain footsteps -crunch on the gravel path under the August moon._) - - -RETROSPECT - -In this extremity they were like two goldfish in a bowl from which all -the water had been drawn; they could not even swim across to each other. - -Gloria would be twenty-six in May. There was nothing, she had said, that -she wanted, except to be young and beautiful for a long time, to be gay -and happy, and to have money and love. She wanted what most women want, -but she wanted it much more fiercely and passionately. She had been -married over two years. At first there had been days of serene -understanding, rising to ecstasies of proprietorship and pride. -Alternating with these periods had occurred sporadic hates, enduring a -short hour, and forgetfulnesses lasting no longer than an afternoon. -That had been for half a year. - -Then the serenity, the content, had become less jubilant, had become, -gray--very rarely, with the spur of jealousy or forced separation, the -ancient ecstasies returned, the apparent communion of soul and soul, the -emotional excitement. It was possible for her to hate Anthony for as -much as a full day, to be carelessly incensed at him for as long as a -week. Recrimination had displaced affection as an indulgence, almost as -an entertainment, and there were nights when they would go to sleep -trying to remember who was angry and who should be reserved next -morning. And as the second year waned there had entered two new -elements. Gloria realized that Anthony had become capable of utter -indifference toward her, a temporary indifference, more than half -lethargic, but one from which she could no longer stir him by a -whispered word, or a certain intimate smile. There were days when her -caresses affected him as a sort of suffocation. She was conscious of -these things; she never entirely admitted them to herself. - -It was only recently that she perceived that in spite of her adoration -of him, her jealousy, her servitude, her pride, she fundamentally -despised him--and her contempt blended indistinguishably with her other -emotions.... All this was her love--the vital and feminine illusion that -had directed itself toward him one April night, many months before. - -On Anthony's part she was, in spite of these qualifications, his sole -preoccupation. Had he lost her he would have been a broken man, -wretchedly and sentimentally absorbed in her memory for the remainder of -life. He seldom took pleasure in an entire day spent alone with -her--except on occasions he preferred to have a third person with them. -There were times when he felt that if he were not left absolutely alone -he would go mad--there were a few times when he definitely hated her. In -his cups he was capable of short attractions toward other women, the -hitherto-suppressed outcroppings of an experimental temperament. - -That spring, that summer, they had speculated upon future happiness--how -they were to travel from summer land to summer land, returning -eventually to a gorgeous estate and possible idyllic children, then -entering diplomacy or politics, to accomplish, for a while, beautiful -and important things, until finally as a white-haired (beautifully, -silkily, white-haired) couple they were to loll about in serene glory, -worshipped by the bourgeoisie of the land.... These times were to begin -"when we get our money"; it was on such dreams rather than on any -satisfaction with their increasingly irregular, increasingly dissipated -life that their hope rested. On gray mornings when the jests of the -night before had shrunk to ribaldries without wit or dignity, they -could, after a fashion, bring out this batch of common hopes and count -them over, then smile at each other and repeat, by way of clinching the -matter, the terse yet sincere Nietzscheanism of Gloria's defiant "I -don't care!" - -Things had been slipping perceptibly. There was the money question, -increasingly annoying, increasingly ominous; there was the realization -that liquor had become a practical necessity to their amusement--not an -uncommon phenomenon in the British aristocracy of a hundred years ago, -but a somewhat alarming one in a civilization steadily becoming more -temperate and more circumspect. Moreover, both of them seemed vaguely -weaker in fibre, not so much in what they did as in their subtle -reactions to the civilization about them. In Gloria had been born -something that she had hitherto never needed--the skeleton, incomplete -but nevertheless unmistakable, of her ancient abhorrence, a conscience. -This admission to herself was coincidental with the slow decline of her -physical courage. - -Then, on the August morning after Adam Patch's unexpected call, they -awoke, nauseated and tired, dispirited with life, capable only of one -pervasive emotion--fear. - - -PANIC - -"Well?" Anthony sat up in bed and looked down at her. The corners of his -lips were drooping with depression, his voice was strained and hollow. - -Her reply was to raise her hand to her mouth and begin a slow, precise -nibbling at her finger. - -"We've done it," he said after a pause; then, as she was still silent, -he became exasperated. "Why don't you say something?" - -"What on earth do you want me to say?" - -"What are you thinking?" - -"Nothing." - -"Then stop biting your finger!" - -Ensued a short confused discussion of whether or not she had been -thinking. It seemed essential to Anthony that she should muse aloud upon -last night's disaster. Her silence was a method of settling the -responsibility on him. For her part she saw no necessity for speech--the -moment required that she should gnaw at her finger like a nervous child. - -"I've got to fix up this damn mess with my grandfather," he said with -uneasy conviction. A faint newborn respect was indicated by his use of -"my grandfather" instead of "grampa." - -"You can't," she affirmed abruptly. "You can't--_ever_. He'll never -forgive you as long as he lives." - -"Perhaps not," agreed Anthony miserably. "Still--I might possibly square -myself by some sort of reformation and all that sort of thing--" - -"He looked sick," she interrupted, "pale as flour." - -"He _is_ sick. I told you that three months ago." - -"I wish he'd died last week!" she said petulantly. "Inconsiderate old -fool!" - -Neither of them laughed. - -"But just let me say," she added quietly, "the next time I see you -acting with any woman like you did with Rachael Barnes last night, I'll -leave you--_just--like--that!_ I'm simply _not_ going to stand it!" - -Anthony quailed. - -"Oh, don't be absurd," he protested. "You know there's no woman in the -world for me except you--none, dearest." - -His attempt at a tender note failed miserably--the more imminent danger -stalked back into the foreground. - -"If I went to him," suggested Anthony, "and said with appropriate -biblical quotations that I'd walked too long in the way of -unrighteousness and at last seen the light--" He broke off and glanced -with a whimsical expression at his wife. "I wonder what he'd do?" - -"I don't know." - -She was speculating as to whether or not their guests would have the -acumen to leave directly after breakfast. - -Not for a week did Anthony muster the courage to go to Tarrytown. The -prospect was revolting and left alone he would have been incapable of -making the trip--but if his will had deteriorated in these past three -years, so had his power to resist urging. Gloria compelled him to go. It -was all very well to wait a week, she said, for that would give his -grandfather's violent animosity time to cool--but to wait longer would -be an error--it would give it a chance to harden. - -He went, in trepidation ... and vainly. Adam Patch was not well, said -Shuttleworth indignantly. Positive instructions had been given that no -one was to see him. Before the ex-"gin-physician's" vindictive eye -Anthony's front wilted. He walked out to his taxicab with what was -almost a slink--recovering only a little of his self-respect as he -boarded the train; glad to escape, boylike, to the wonder palaces of -consolation that still rose and glittered in his own mind. - -Gloria was scornful when he returned to Marietta. Why had he not forced -his way in? That was what she would have done! - -Between them they drafted a letter to the old man, and after -considerable revision sent it off. It was half an apology, half a -manufactured explanation. The letter was not answered. - -Came a day in September, a day slashed with alternate sun and rain, sun -without warmth, rain without freshness. On that day they left the gray -house, which had seen the flower of their love. Four trunks and three -monstrous crates were piled in the dismantled room where, two years -before, they had sprawled lazily, thinking in terms of dreams, remote, -languorous, content. The room echoed with emptiness. Gloria, in a new -brown dress edged with fur, sat upon a trunk in silence, and Anthony -walked nervously to and fro smoking, as they waited for the truck that -would take their things to the city. - -"What are those?" she demanded, pointing to some books piled upon one of -the crates. - -"That's my old stamp collection," he confessed sheepishly. "I forgot to -pack it." - -"Anthony, it's so silly to carry it around." - -"Well, I was looking through it the day we left the apartment last -spring, and I decided not to store it." - -"Can't you sell it? Haven't we enough junk?" - -"I'm sorry," he said humbly. - -With a thunderous rattling the truck rolled up to the door. Gloria shook -her fist defiantly at the four walls. - -"I'm so glad to go!" she cried, "so glad. Oh, my God, how I hate this -house!" - -So the brilliant and beautiful lady went up with her husband to New -York. On the very train that bore them away they quarrelled--her bitter -words had the frequency, the regularity, the inevitability of the -stations they passed. - -"Don't be cross," begged Anthony piteously. "We've got nothing but each -other, after all." - -"We haven't even that, most of the time," cried Gloria. - -"When haven't we?" - -"A lot of times--beginning with one occasion on the station platform at -Redgate." - -"You don't mean to say that--" - -"No," she interrupted coolly, "I don't brood over it. It came and -went--and when it went it took something with it." - -She finished abruptly. Anthony sat in silence, confused, depressed. The -drab visions of train-side Mamaroneck, Larchmont, Rye, Pelham Manor, -succeeded each other with intervals of bleak and shoddy wastes posing -ineffectually as country. He found himself remembering how on one summer -morning they two had started from New York in search of happiness. They -had never expected to find it, perhaps, yet in itself that quest had -been happier than anything he expected forevermore. Life, it seemed, -must be a setting up of props around one--otherwise it was disaster. -There was no rest, no quiet. He had been futile in longing to drift and -dream; no one drifted except to maelstroms, no one dreamed, without his -dreams becoming fantastic nightmares of indecision and regret. - -Pelham! They had quarrelled in Pelham because Gloria must drive. And -when she set her little foot on the accelerator the car had jumped off -spunkily, and their two heads had jerked back like marionettes worked by -a single string. - -The Bronx--the houses gathering and gleaming in the sun, which was -falling now through wide refulgent skies and tumbling caravans of light -down into the streets. New York, he supposed, was home--the city of -luxury and mystery, of preposterous hopes and exotic dreams. Here on the -outskirts absurd stucco palaces reared themselves in the cool sunset, -poised for an instant in cool unreality, glided off far away, succeeded -by the mazed confusion of the Harlem River. The train moved in through -the deepening twilight, above and past half a hundred cheerful sweating -streets of the upper East Side, each one passing the car window like the -space between the spokes of a gigantic wheel, each one with its vigorous -colorful revelation of poor children swarming in feverish activity like -vivid ants in alleys of red sand. From the tenement windows leaned -rotund, moon-shaped mothers, as constellations of this sordid heaven; -women like dark imperfect jewels, women like vegetables, women like -great bags of abominably dirty laundry. - -"I like these streets," observed Anthony aloud. "I always feel as though -it's a performance being staged for me; as though the second I've passed -they'll all stop leaping and laughing and, instead, grow very sad, -remembering how poor they are, and retreat with bowed heads into their -houses. You often get that effect abroad, but seldom in this country." - -Down in a tall busy street he read a dozen Jewish names on a line of -stores; in the door of each stood a dark little man watching the passers -from intent eyes--eyes gleaming with suspicion, with pride, with -clarity, with cupidity, with comprehension. New York--he could not -dissociate it now from the slow, upward creep of this people--the little -stores, growing, expanding, consolidating, moving, watched over with -hawk's eyes and a bee's attention to detail--they slathered out on all -sides. It was impressive--in perspective it was tremendous. - -Gloria's voice broke in with strange appropriateness upon his thoughts. - -"I wonder where Bloeckman's been this summer." - - -THE APARTMENT - -After the sureties of youth there sets in a period of intense and -intolerable complexity. With the soda-jerker this period is so short as -to be almost negligible. Men higher in the scale hold out longer in the -attempt to preserve the ultimate niceties of relationship, to retain -"impractical" ideas of integrity. But by the late twenties the business -has grown too intricate, and what has hitherto been imminent and -confusing has become gradually remote and dim. Routine comes down like -twilight on a harsh landscape, softening it until it is tolerable. The -complexity is too subtle, too varied; the values are changing utterly -with each lesion of vitality; it has begun to appear that we can learn -nothing from the past with which to face the future--so we cease to be -impulsive, convincible men, interested in what is ethically true by fine -margins, we substitute rules of conduct for ideas of integrity, we value -safety above romance, we become, quite unconsciously, pragmatic. It is -left to the few to be persistently concerned with the nuances of -relationships--and even this few only in certain hours especially set -aside for the task. - -Anthony Patch had ceased to be an individual of mental adventure, of -curiosity, and had become an individual of bias and prejudice, with a -longing to be emotionally undisturbed. This gradual change had taken -place through the past several years, accelerated by a succession of -anxieties preying on his mind. There was, first of all, the sense of -waste, always dormant in his heart, now awakened by the circumstances of -his position. In his moments of insecurity he was haunted by the -suggestion that life might be, after all, significant. In his early -twenties the conviction of the futility of effort, of the wisdom of -abnegation, had been confirmed by the philosophies he had admired as -well as by his association with Maury Noble, and later with his wife. -Yet there had been occasions--just before his first meeting with Gloria, -for example, and when his grandfather had suggested that he should go -abroad as a war correspondent--upon which his dissatisfaction had driven -him almost to a positive step. - -One day just before they left Marietta for the last time, in carelessly -turning over the pages of a Harvard Alumni Bulletin, he had found a -column which told him what his contemporaries had been about in this six -years since graduation. Most of them were in business, it was true, and -several were converting the heathen of China or America to a nebulous -protestantism; but a few, he found, were working constructively at jobs -that were neither sinecures nor routines. There was Calvin Boyd, for -instance, who, though barely out of medical school, had discovered a new -treatment for typhus, had shipped abroad and was mitigating some of the -civilization that the Great Powers had brought to Servia; there was -Eugene Bronson, whose articles in The New Democracy were stamping him as -a man with ideas transcending both vulgar timeliness and popular -hysteria; there was a man named Daly who had been suspended from the -faculty of a righteous university for preaching Marxian doctrines in the -classroom: in art, science, politics, he saw the authentic personalities -of his time emerging--there was even Severance, the quarter-back, who -had given up his life rather neatly and gracefully with the Foreign -Legion on the Aisne. - -He laid down the magazine and thought for a while about these diverse -men. In the days of his integrity he would have defended his attitude to -the last--an Epicurus in Nirvana, he would have cried that to struggle -was to believe, to believe was to limit. He would as soon have become a -churchgoer because the prospect of immortality gratified him as he would -have considered entering the leather business because the intensity of -the competition would have kept him from unhappiness. But at present he -had no such delicate scruples. This autumn, as his twenty-ninth year -began, he was inclined to close his mind to many things, to avoid prying -deeply into motive and first causes, and mostly to long passionately for -security from the world and from himself. He hated to be alone, as has -been said he often dreaded being alone with Gloria. - -Because of the chasm which his grandfather's visit had opened before -him, and the consequent revulsion from his late mode of life, it was -inevitable that he should look around in this suddenly hostile city for -the friends and environments that had once seemed the warmest and most -secure. His first step was a desperate attempt to get back his old -apartment. - -In the spring of 1912 he had signed a four-year lease at seventeen -hundred a year, with an option of renewal. This lease had expired the -previous May. When he had first rented the rooms they had been mere -potentialities, scarcely to be discerned as that, but Anthony had seen -into these potentialities and arranged in the lease that he and the -landlord should each spend a certain amount in improvements. Rents had -gone up in the past four years, and last spring when Anthony had waived -his option the landlord, a Mr. Sohenberg, had realized that he could get -a much bigger price for what was now a prepossessing apartment. -Accordingly, when Anthony approached him on the subject in September he -was met with Sohenberg's offer of a three-year lease at twenty-five -hundred a year. This, it seemed to Anthony, was outrageous. It meant -that well over a third of their income would be consumed in rent. In -vain he argued that his own money, his own ideas on the repartitioning, -had made the rooms attractive. - -In vain he offered two thousand dollars--twenty-two hundred, though they -could ill afford it: Mr. Sohenberg was obdurate. It seemed that two -other gentlemen were considering it; just that sort of an apartment was -in demand for the moment, and it would scarcely be business to _give_ it -to Mr. Patch. Besides, though he had never mentioned it before, several -of the other tenants had complained of noise during the previous -winter--singing and dancing late at night, that sort of thing. - -Internally raging Anthony hurried back to the Ritz to report his -discomfiture to Gloria. - -"I can just see you," she stormed, "letting him back you down!" - -"What could I say?" - -"You could have told him what he _was_. I wouldn't have _stood_ it. No -other man in the world would have stood it! You just let people order -you around and cheat you and bully you and take advantage of you as if -you were a silly little boy. It's absurd!" - -"Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't lose your temper." - -"I know, Anthony, but you _are_ such an ass!" - -"Well, possibly. Anyway, we can't afford that apartment. But we can -afford it better than living here at the Ritz." - -"You were the one who insisted on coming here." - -"Yes, because I knew you'd be miserable in a cheap hotel." - -"Of course I would!" - -"At any rate we've got to find a place to live." - -"How much can we pay?" she demanded. - -"Well, we can pay even his price if we sell more bonds, but we agreed -last night that until I had gotten something definite to do we-" - -"Oh, I know all that. I asked you how much we can pay out of just our -income." - -"They say you ought not to pay more than a fourth." - -"How much is a fourth?" - -"One hundred and fifty a month." - -"Do you mean to say we've got only six hundred dollars coming in every -month?" A subdued note crept into her voice. - -"Of course!" he answered angrily. "Do you think we've gone on spending -more than twelve thousand a year without cutting way into our capital?" - -"I knew we'd sold bonds, but--have we spent that much a year? How did -we?" Her awe increased. - -"Oh, I'll look in those careful account-books we kept," he remarked -ironically, and then added: "Two rents a good part of the time, clothes, -travel--why, each of those springs in California cost about four -thousand dollars. That darn car was an expense from start to finish. And -parties and amusements and--oh, one thing or another." - -They were both excited now and inordinately depressed. The situation -seemed worse in the actual telling Gloria than it had when he had first -made the discovery himself. - -"You've got to make some money," she said suddenly. - -"I know it." - -"And you've got to make another attempt to see your grandfather." - -"I will." - -"When?" - -"When we get settled." - -This eventuality occurred a week later. They rented a small apartment on -Fifty-seventh Street at one hundred and fifty a month. It included -bedroom, living-room, kitchenette, and bath, in a thin, white-stone -apartment house, and though the rooms were too small to display -Anthony's best furniture, they were clean, new, and, in a blonde and -sanitary way, not unattractive. Bounds had gone abroad to enlist in the -British army, and in his place they tolerated rather than enjoyed the -services of a gaunt, big-boned Irishwoman, whom Gloria loathed because -she discussed the glories of Sinn Fein as she served breakfast. But they -vowed they would have no more Japanese, and English servants were for -the present hard to obtain. Like Bounds, the woman prepared only -breakfast. Their other meals they took at restaurants and hotels. - -What finally drove Anthony post-haste up to Tarrytown was an -announcement in several New York papers that Adam Patch, the -multimillionaire, the philanthropist, the venerable uplifter, was -seriously ill and not expected to recover. - - -THE KITTEN - -Anthony could not see him. The doctors' instructions were that he was to -talk to no one, said Mr. Shuttleworth--who offered kindly to take any -message that Anthony might care to intrust with him, and deliver it to -Adam Patch when his condition permitted. But by obvious innuendo he -confirmed Anthony's melancholy inference that the prodigal grandson -would be particularly unwelcome at the bedside. At one point in the -conversation Anthony, with Gloria's positive instructions in mind, made -a move as though to brush by the secretary, but Shuttleworth with a -smile squared his brawny shoulders, and Anthony saw how futile such an -attempt would be. - -Miserably intimidated, he returned to New York, where husband and wife -passed a restless week. A little incident that occurred one evening -indicated to what tension their nerves were drawn. - -Walking home along a cross-street after dinner, Anthony noticed a -night-bound cat prowling near a railing. - -"I always have an instinct to kick a cat," he said idly. - -"I like them." - -"I yielded to it once." - -"When?" - -"Oh, years ago; before I met you. One night between the acts of a show. -Cold night, like this, and I was a little tight--one of the first times -I was ever tight," he added. "The poor little beggar was looking for a -place to sleep, I guess, and I was in a mean mood, so it took my fancy -to kick it--" - -"Oh, the poor kitty!" cried Gloria, sincerely moved. Inspired with the -narrative instinct, Anthony enlarged on the theme. - -"It was pretty bad," he admitted. "The poor little beast turned around -and looked at me rather plaintively as though hoping I'd pick him up and -be kind to him--he was really just a kitten--and before he knew it a big -foot launched out at him and caught his little back" - -"Oh!" Gloria's cry was full of anguish. - -"It was such a cold night," he continued, perversely, keeping his voice -upon a melancholy note. "I guess it expected kindness from somebody, and -it got only pain--" - -He broke off suddenly--Gloria was sobbing. They had reached home, and -when they entered the apartment she threw herself upon the lounge, -crying as though he had struck at her very soul. - -"Oh, the poor little kitty!" she repeated piteously, "the poor little -kitty. So cold--" - -"Gloria" - -"Don't come near me! Please, don't come near me. You killed the soft -little kitty." - -Touched, Anthony knelt beside her. - -"Dear," he said. "Oh, Gloria, darling. It isn't true. I invented -it--every word of it." - -But she would not believe him. There had been something in the details -he had chosen to describe that made her cry herself asleep that night, -for the kitten, for Anthony for herself, for the pain and bitterness and -cruelty of all the world. - - -THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MORALIST - -Old Adam died on a midnight of late November with a pious compliment to -his God on his thin lips. He, who had been flattered so much, faded out -flattering the Omnipotent Abstraction which he fancied he might have -angered in the more lascivious moments of his youth. It was announced -that he had arranged some sort of an armistice with the deity, the terms -of which were not made public, though they were thought to have included -a large cash payment. All the newspapers printed his biography, and two -of them ran short editorials on his sterling worth, and his part in the -drama of industrialism, with which he had grown up. They referred -guardedly to the reforms he had sponsored and financed. The memories of -Comstock and Cato the Censor were resuscitated and paraded like gaunt -ghosts through the columns. - -Every newspaper remarked that he was survived by a single grandson, -Anthony Comstock Patch, of New York. - -The burial took place in the family plot at Tarrytown. Anthony and -Gloria rode in the first carriage, too worried to feel grotesque, both -trying desperately to glean presage of fortune from the faces of -retainers who had been with him at the end. - -They waited a frantic week for decency, and then, having received no -notification of any kind, Anthony called up his grandfather's lawyer. -Mr. Brett was not he was expected back in an hour. Anthony left his -telephone number. - -It was the last day of November, cool and crackling outside, with a -lustreless sun peering bleakly in at the windows. While they waited for -the call, ostensibly engaged in reading, the atmosphere, within and -without, seemed pervaded with a deliberate rendition of the pathetic -fallacy. After an interminable while, the bell jingled, and Anthony, -starting violently, took up the receiver. - -"Hello ..." His voice was strained and hollow. "Yes--I did leave word. -Who is this, please? ... Yes.... Why, it was about the estate. Naturally -I'm interested, and I've received no word about the reading of the -will--I thought you might not have my address.... What? ... Yes ..." - -Gloria fell on her knees. The intervals between Anthony's speeches were -like tourniquets winding on her heart. She found herself helplessly -twisting the large buttons from a velvet cushion. Then: - -"That's--that's very, very odd--that's very odd--that's very odd. Not -even any--ah--mention or any--ah--reason?" - -His voice sounded faint and far away. She uttered a little sound, half -gasp, half cry. - -"Yes, I'll see.... All right, thanks ... thanks...." - -The phone clicked. Her eyes looking along the floor saw his feet cut the -pattern of a patch of sunlight on the carpet. She arose and faced him -with a gray, level glance just as his arms folded about her. - -"My dearest," he whispered huskily. "He did it, God damn him!" - -NEXT DAY - -"Who are the heirs?" asked Mr. Haight. "You see when you can tell me so -little about it--" - -Mr. Haight was tall and bent and beetle-browed. He had been recommended -to Anthony as an astute and tenacious lawyer. - -"I only know vaguely," answered Anthony. "A man named Shuttleworth, who -was a sort of pet of his, has the whole thing in charge as administrator -or trustee or something--all except the direct bequests to charity and -the provisions for servants and for those two cousins in Idaho." - -"How distant are the cousins?" - -"Oh, third or fourth, anyway. I never even heard of them." - -Mr. Haight nodded comprehensively. - -"And you want to contest a provision of the will?" - -"I guess so," admitted Anthony helplessly. "I want to do what sounds -most hopeful--that's what I want you to tell me." - -"You want them to refuse probate to the will?" - -Anthony shook his head. - -"You've got me. I haven't any idea what 'probate' is. I want a share of -the estate." - -"Suppose you tell me some more details. For instance, do you know why -the testator disinherited you?" - -"Why--yes," began Anthony. "You see he was always a sucker for moral -reform, and all that--" - -"I know," interjected Mr. Haight humorlessly. - -"--and I don't suppose he ever thought I was much good. I didn't go into -business, you see. But I feel certain that up to last summer I was one -of the beneficiaries. We had a house out in Marietta, and one night -grandfather got the notion he'd come over and see us. It just happened -that there was a rather gay party going on and he arrived without any -warning. Well, he took one look, he and this fellow Shuttleworth, and -then turned around and tore right back to Tarrytown. After that he never -answered my letters or even let me see him." - -"He was a prohibitionist, wasn't he?" - -"He was everything--regular religious maniac." - -"How long before his death was the will made that disinherited you?" - -"Recently--I mean since August." - -"And you think that the direct reason for his not leaving you the -majority of the estate was his displeasure with your recent actions?" - -"Yes." - -Mr. Haight considered. Upon what grounds was Anthony thinking of -contesting the will? - -"Why, isn't there something about evil influence?" - -"Undue influence is one ground--but it's the most difficult. You would -have to show that such pressure was brought to bear so that the deceased -was in a condition where he disposed of his property contrary to his -intentions--" - -"Well, suppose this fellow Shuttleworth dragged him over to Marietta -just when he thought some sort of a celebration was probably going on?" - -"That wouldn't have any bearing on the case. There's a strong division -between advice and influence. You'd have to prove that the secretary had -a sinister intention. I'd suggest some other grounds. A will is -automatically refused probate in case of insanity, drunkenness"--here -Anthony smiled--"or feeble-mindedness through premature old age." - -"But," objected Anthony, "his private physician, being one of the -beneficiaries, would testify that he wasn't feeble-minded. And he -wasn't. As a matter of fact he probably did just what he intended to -with his money--it was perfectly consistent with everything he'd ever -done in his life--" - -"Well, you see, feeble-mindedness is a great deal like undue -influence--it implies that the property wasn't disposed of as originally -intended. The most common ground is duress--physical pressure." - -Anthony shook his head. - -"Not much chance on that, I'm afraid. Undue influence sounds best to -me." - -After more discussion, so technical as to be largely unintelligible to -Anthony, he retained Mr. Haight as counsel. The lawyer proposed an -interview with Shuttleworth, who, jointly with Wilson, Hiemer and Hardy, -was executor of the will. Anthony was to come back later in the week. - -It transpired that the estate consisted of approximately forty million -dollars. The largest bequest to an individual was of one million, to -Edward Shuttleworth, who received in addition thirty thousand a year -salary as administrator of the thirty-million-dollar trust fund, left to -be doled out to various charities and reform societies practically at -his own discretion. The remaining nine millions were proportioned among -the two cousins in Idaho and about twenty-five other beneficiaries: -friends, secretaries, servants, and employees, who had, at one time or -another, earned the seal of Adam Patch's approval. - -At the end of another fortnight Mr. Haight, on a retainer's fee of -fifteen thousand dollars, had begun preparations for contesting -the will. - - -THE WINTER OF DISCONTENT - -Before they had been two months in the little apartment on Fifty-seventh -Street, it had assumed for both of them the same indefinable but almost -material taint that had impregnated the gray house in Marietta. There -was the odor of tobacco always--both of them smoked incessantly; it was -in their clothes, their blankets, the curtains, and the ash-littered -carpets. Added to this was the wretched aura of stale wine, with its -inevitable suggestion of beauty gone foul and revelry remembered in -disgust. About a particular set of glass goblets on the sideboard the -odor was particularly noticeable, and in the main room the mahogany -table was ringed with white circles where glasses had been set down upon -it. There had been many parties--people broke things; people became sick -in Gloria's bathroom; people spilled wine; people made unbelievable -messes of the kitchenette. - -These things were a regular part of their existence. Despite the -resolutions of many Mondays it was tacitly understood as the week end -approached that it should be observed with some sort of unholy -excitement. When Saturday came they would not discuss the matter, but -would call up this person or that from among their circle of -sufficiently irresponsible friends, and suggest a rendezvous. Only after -the friends had gathered and Anthony had set out decanters, would he -murmur casually "I guess I'll have just one high-ball myself--" - -Then they were off for two days--realizing on a wintry dawn that they -had been the noisiest and most conspicuous members of the noisiest and -most conspicuous party at the Boul' Mich', or the Club Ramee, or at -other resorts much less particular about the hilarity of their -clientele. They would find that they had, somehow, squandered eighty or -ninety dollars, how, they never knew; they customarily attributed it to -the general penury of the "friends" who had accompanied them. - -It began to be not unusual for the more sincere of their friends to -remonstrate with them, in the very course of a party, and to predict a -sombre end for them in the loss of Gloria's "looks" and Anthony's -"constitution." - -The story of the summarily interrupted revel in Marietta had, of course, -leaked out in detail--"Muriel doesn't mean to tell every one she knows," -said Gloria to Anthony, "but she thinks every one she tells is the only -one she's going to tell"--and, diaphanously veiled, the tale had been -given a conspicuous place in Town Tattle. When the terms of Adam Patch's -will were made public and the newspapers printed items concerning -Anthony's suit, the story was beautifully rounded out--to Anthony's -infinite disparagement. They began to hear rumors about themselves from -all quarters, rumors founded usually on a soupcon of truth, but overlaid -with preposterous and sinister detail. - -Outwardly they showed no signs of deterioration. Gloria at twenty-six -was still the Gloria of twenty; her complexion a fresh damp setting for -her candid eyes; her hair still a childish glory, darkening slowly from -corn color to a deep russet gold; her slender body suggesting ever a -nymph running and dancing through Orphic groves. Masculine eyes, dozens -of them, followed her with a fascinated stare when she walked through a -hotel lobby or down the aisle of a theatre. Men asked to be introduced -to her, fell into prolonged states of sincere admiration, made definite -love to her--for she was still a thing of exquisite and unbelievable -beauty. And for his part Anthony had rather gained than lost in -appearance; his face had taken on a certain intangible air of tragedy, -romantically contrasted with his trim and immaculate person. - -Early in the winter, when all conversation turned on the probability of -America's going into the war, when Anthony was making a desperate and -sincere attempt to write, Muriel Kane arrived in New York and came -immediately to see them. Like Gloria, she seemed never to change. She -knew the latest slang, danced the latest dances, and talked of the -latest songs and plays with all the fervor of her first season as a New -York drifter. Her coyness was eternally new, eternally ineffectual; her -clothes were extreme; her black hair was bobbed, now, like Gloria's. - -"I've come up for the midwinter prom at New Haven," she announced, -imparting her delightful secret. Though she must have been older then -than any of the boys in college, she managed always to secure some sort -of invitation, imagining vaguely that at the next party would occur the -flirtation which was to end at the romantic altar. - -"Where've you been?" inquired Anthony, unfailingly amused. - -"I've been at Hot Springs. It's been slick and peppy this fall--more -_men!_" - -"Are you in love, Muriel?" - -"What do you mean 'love'?" This was the rhetorical question of the year. -"I'm going to tell you something," she said, switching the subject -abruptly. "I suppose it's none of my business, but I think it's time for -you two to settle down." - -"Why, we are settled down." - -"Yes, you are!" she scoffed archly. "Everywhere I go I hear stories of -your escapades. Let me tell you, I have an awful time sticking up -for you." - -"You needn't bother," said Gloria coldly. - -"Now, Gloria," she protested, "you know I'm one of your best friends." - -Gloria was silent. Muriel continued: - -"It's not so much the idea of a woman drinking, but Gloria's so pretty, -and so many people know her by sight all around, that it's naturally -conspicuous--" - -"What have you heard recently?" demanded Gloria, her dignity going down -before her curiosity. - -"Well, for instance, that that party in Marietta _killed_ Anthony's -grandfather." - -Instantly husband and wife were tense with annoyance. - -"Why, I think that's outrageous." - -"That's what they say," persisted Muriel stubbornly. - -Anthony paced the room. "It's preposterous!" he declared. "The very -people we take on parties shout the story around as a great joke--and -eventually it gets back to us in some such form as this." - -Gloria began running her finger through a stray red-dish curl. Muriel -licked her veil as she considered her next remark. - -"You ought to have a baby." - -Gloria looked up wearily. - -"We can't afford it." - -"All the people in the slums have them," said Muriel triumphantly. - -Anthony and Gloria exchanged a smile. They had reached the stage of -violent quarrels that were never made up, quarrels that smouldered and -broke out again at intervals or died away from sheer indifference--but -this visit of Muriel's drew them temporarily together. When the -discomfort under which they were living was remarked upon by a third -party, it gave them the impetus to face this hostile world together. It -was very seldom, now, that the impulse toward reunion sprang -from within. - -Anthony found himself associating his own existence with that of the -apartment's night elevator man, a pale, scraggly bearded person of about -sixty, with an air of being somewhat above his station. It was probably -because of this quality that he had secured the position; it made him a -pathetic and memorable figure of failure. Anthony recollected, without -humor, a hoary jest about the elevator man's career being a matter of -ups and downs--it was, at any rate, an enclosed life of infinite -dreariness. Each time Anthony stepped into the car he waited -breathlessly for the old man's "Well, I guess we're going to have some -sunshine to-day." Anthony thought how little rain or sunshine he would -enjoy shut into that close little cage in the smoke-colored, -windowless hall. - -A darkling figure, he attained tragedy in leaving the life that had used -him so shabbily. Three young gunmen came in one night, tied him up and -left him on a pile of coal in the cellar while they went through the -trunk room. When the janitor found him next morning he had collapsed -from chill. He died of pneumonia four days later. - -He was replaced by a glib Martinique negro, with an incongruous British -accent and a tendency to be surly, whom Anthony detested. The passing of -the old man had approximately the same effect on him that the kitten -story had had on Gloria. He was reminded of the cruelty of all life and, -in consequence, of the increasing bitterness of his own. - -He was writing--and in earnest at last. He had gone to Dick and listened -for a tense hour to an elucidation of those minutiae of procedure which -hitherto he had rather scornfully looked down upon. He needed money -immediately--he was selling bonds every month to pay their bills. Dick -was frank and explicit: - -"So far as articles on literary subjects in these obscure magazines go, -you couldn't make enough to pay your rent. Of course if a man has the -gift of humor, or a chance at a big biography, or some specialized -knowledge, he may strike it rich. But for you, fiction's the only thing. -You say you need money right away?" - -"I certainly do." - -"Well, it'd be a year and a half before you'd make any money out of a -novel. Try some popular short stories. And, by the way, unless they're -exceptionally brilliant they have to be cheerful and on the side of the -heaviest artillery to make you any money." - -Anthony thought of Dick's recent output, which had been appearing in a -well-known monthly. It was concerned chiefly with the preposterous -actions of a class of sawdust effigies who, one was assured, were New -York society people, and it turned, as a rule, upon questions of the -heroine's technical purity, with mock-sociological overtones about the -"mad antics of the four hundred." - -"But your stories--" exclaimed Anthony aloud, almost involuntarily. - -"Oh, that's different," Dick asserted astoundingly. "I have a -reputation, you see, so I'm expected to deal with strong themes." - -Anthony gave an interior start, realizing with this remark how much -Richard Caramel had fallen off. Did he actually think that these amazing -latter productions were as good as his first novel? - -Anthony went back to the apartment and set to work. He found that the -business of optimism was no mean task. After half a dozen futile starts -he went to the public library and for a week investigated the files of a -popular magazine. Then, better equipped, he accomplished his first -story, "The Dictaphone of Fate." It was founded upon one of his few -remaining impressions of that six weeks in Wall Street the year before. -It purported to be the sunny tale of an office boy who, quite by -accident, hummed a wonderful melody into the dictaphone. The cylinder -was discovered by the boss's brother, a well-known producer of musical -comedy--and then immediately lost. The body of the story was concerned -with the pursuit of the missing cylinder and the eventual marriage of -the noble office boy (now a successful composer) to Miss Rooney, the -virtuous stenographer, who was half Joan of Arc and half Florence -Nightingale. - -He had gathered that this was what the magazines wanted. He offered, in -his protagonists, the customary denizens of the pink-and-blue literary -world, immersing them in a saccharine plot that would offend not a -single stomach in Marietta. He had it typed in double space--this last -as advised by a booklet, "Success as a Writer Made Easy," by R. Meggs -Widdlestien, which assured the ambitious plumber of the futility of -perspiration, since after a six-lesson course he could make at least a -thousand dollars a month. - -After reading it to a bored Gloria and coaxing from her the immemorial -remark that it was "better than a lot of stuff that gets published," he -satirically affixed the nom de plume of "Gilles de Sade," enclosed the -proper return envelope, and sent it off. - -Following the gigantic labor of conception he decided to wait until he -heard from the first story before beginning another. Dick had told him -that he might get as much as two hundred dollars. If by any chance it -did happen to be unsuited, the editor's letter would, no doubt, give him -an idea of what changes should be made. - -"It is, without question, the most abominable piece of writing in -existence," said Anthony. - -The editor quite conceivably agreed with him. He returned the manuscript -with a rejection slip. Anthony sent it off elsewhere and began another -story. The second one was called "The Little Open Doors"; it was written -in three days. It concerned the occult: an estranged couple were brought -together by a medium in a vaudeville show. - -There were six altogether, six wretched and pitiable efforts to "write -down" by a man who had never before made a consistent effort to write at -all. Not one of them contained a spark of vitality, and their total -yield of grace and felicity was less than that of an average newspaper -column. During their circulation they collected, all told, thirty-one -rejection slips, headstones for the packages that he would find lying -like dead bodies at his door. - -In mid-January Gloria's father died, and they went again to Kansas -City--a miserable trip, for Gloria brooded interminably, not upon her -father's death, but on her mother's. Russel Gilbert's affairs having -been cleared up they came into possession of about three thousand -dollars, and a great amount of furniture. This was in storage, for he -had spent his last days in a small hotel. It was due to his death that -Anthony made a new discovery concerning Gloria. On the journey East she -disclosed herself, astonishingly, as a Bilphist. - -"Why, Gloria," he cried, "you don't mean to tell me you believe that -stuff." - -"Well," she said defiantly, "why not?" - -"Because it's--it's fantastic. You know that in every sense of the word -you're an agnostic. You'd laugh at any orthodox form of -Christianity--and then you come out with the statement that you believe -in some silly rule of reincarnation." - -"What if I do? I've heard you and Maury, and every one else for whose -intellect I have the slightest respect, agree that life as it appears is -utterly meaningless. But it's always seemed to me that if I were -unconsciously learning something here it might not be so meaningless." - -"You're not learning anything--you're just getting tired. And if you -must have a faith to soften things, take up one that appeals to the -reason of some one beside a lot of hysterical women. A person like you -oughtn't to accept anything unless it's decently demonstrable." - -"I don't care about truth. I want some happiness." - -"Well, if you've got a decent mind the second has got to be qualified by -the first. Any simple soul can delude himself with mental garbage." - -"I don't care," she held out stoutly, "and, what's more, I'm not -propounding any doctrine." - -The argument faded off, but reoccurred to Anthony several times -thereafter. It was disturbing to find this old belief, evidently -assimilated from her mother, inserting itself again under its immemorial -disguise as an innate idea. - -They reached New York in March after an expensive and ill-advised week -spent in Hot Springs, and Anthony resumed his abortive attempts at -fiction. As it became plainer to both of them that escape did not lie in -the way of popular literature, there was a further slipping of their -mutual confidence and courage. A complicated struggle went on -incessantly between them. All efforts to keep down expenses died away -from sheer inertia, and by March they were again using any pretext as an -excuse for a "party." With an assumption of recklessness Gloria tossed -out the suggestion that they should take all their money and go on a -real spree while it lasted--anything seemed better than to see it go in -unsatisfactory driblets. - -"Gloria, you want parties as much as I do." - -"It doesn't matter about me. Everything I do is in accordance with my -ideas: to use every minute of these years, when I'm young, in having the -best time I possibly can." - -"How about after that?" - -"After that I won't care." - -"Yes, you will." - -"Well, I may--but I won't be able to do anything about it. And I'll have -had my good time." - -"You'll be the same then. After a fashion, we _have_ had our good time, -raised the devil, and we're in the state of paying for it." - -Nevertheless, the money kept going. There would be two days of gaiety, -two days of moroseness--an endless, almost invariable round. The sharp -pull-ups, when they occurred, resulted usually in a spurt of work for -Anthony, while Gloria, nervous and bored, remained in bed or else chewed -abstractedly at her fingers. After a day or so of this, they would make -an engagement, and then--Oh, what did it matter? This night, this glow, -the cessation of anxiety and the sense that if living was not purposeful -it was, at any rate, essentially romantic! Wine gave a sort of gallantry -to their own failure. - -Meanwhile the suit progressed slowly, with interminable examinations of -witnesses and marshallings of evidence. The preliminary proceedings of -settling the estate were finished. Mr. Haight saw no reason why the case -should not come up for trial before summer. - -Bloeckman appeared in New York late in March; he had been in England for -nearly a year on matters concerned with "Films Par Excellence." The -process of general refinement was still in progress--always he dressed a -little better, his intonation was mellower, and in his manner there was -perceptibly more assurance that the fine things of the world were his by -a natural and inalienable right. He called at the apartment, remained -only an hour, during which he talked chiefly of the war, and left -telling them he was coming again. On his second visit Anthony was not at -home, but an absorbed and excited Gloria greeted her husband later in -the afternoon. - -"Anthony," she began, "would you still object if I went in the movies?" - -His whole heart hardened against the idea. As she seemed to recede from -him, if only in threat, her presence became again not so much precious -as desperately necessary. - -"Oh, Gloria--!" - -"Blockhead said he'd put me in--only if I'm ever going to do anything -I'll have to start now. They only want young women. Think of the -money, Anthony!" - -"For you--yes. But how about me?" - -"Don't you know that anything I have is yours too?" - -"It's such a hell of a career!" he burst out, the moral, the infinitely -circumspect Anthony, "and such a hell of a bunch. And I'm so utterly -tired of that fellow Bloeckman coming here and interfering. I hate -theatrical things." - -"It isn't theatrical! It's utterly different." - -"What am I supposed to do? Chase you all over the country? Live on your -money?" - -"Then make some yourself." - -The conversation developed into one of the most violent quarrels they -had ever had. After the ensuing reconciliation and the inevitable period -of moral inertia, she realized that he had taken the life out of the -project. Neither of them ever mentioned the probability that Bloeckman -was by no means disinterested, but they both knew that it lay back of -Anthony's objection. - -In April war was declared with Germany. Wilson and his cabinet--a -cabinet that in its lack of distinction was strangely reminiscent of the -twelve apostles--let loose the carefully starved dogs of war, and the -press began to whoop hysterically against the sinister morals, sinister -philosophy, and sinister music produced by the Teutonic temperament. -Those who fancied themselves particularly broad-minded made the -exquisite distinction that it was only the German Government which -aroused them to hysteria; the rest were worked up to a condition of -retching indecency. Any song which contained the word "mother" and the -word "kaiser" was assured of a tremendous success. At last every one had -something to talk about--and almost every one fully enjoyed it, as -though they had been cast for parts in a sombre and romantic play. - -Anthony, Maury, and Dick sent in their applications for officers' -training-camps and the two latter went about feeling strangely exalted -and reproachless; they chattered to each other, like college boys, of -war's being the one excuse for, and justification of, the aristocrat, -and conjured up an impossible caste of officers, to be composed, it -appeared, chiefly of the more attractive alumni of three or four Eastern -colleges. It seemed to Gloria that in this huge red light streaming -across the nation even Anthony took on a new glamour. - -The Tenth Infantry, arriving in New York from Panama, were escorted from -saloon to saloon by patriotic citizens, to their great bewilderment. -West Pointers began to be noticed for the first time in years, and the -general impression was that everything was glorious, but not half so -glorious as it was going to be pretty soon, and that everybody was a -fine fellow, and every race a great race--always excepting the -Germans--and in every strata of society outcasts and scapegoats had but -to appear in uniform to be forgiven, cheered, and wept over by -relatives, ex-friends, and utter strangers. - -Unfortunately, a small and precise doctor decided that there was -something the matter with Anthony's blood-pressure. He could not -conscientiously pass him for an officers' training-camp. - - -THE BROKEN LUTE - -Their third anniversary passed, uncelebrated, unnoticed. The season -warmed in thaw, melted into hotter summer, simmered and boiled away. In -July the will was offered for probate, and upon the contestation was -assigned by the surrogate to trial term for trial. The matter was -prolonged into September--there was difficulty in empanelling an -unbiassed jury because of the moral sentiments involved. To Anthony's -disappointment a verdict was finally returned in favor of the testator, -whereupon Mr. Haight caused a notice of appeal to be served upon Edward -Shuttleworth. - -As the summer waned Anthony and Gloria talked of the things they were to -do when the money was theirs, and of the places they were to go to after -the war, when they would "agree on things again," for both of them -looked forward to a time when love, springing like the phoenix from its -own ashes, should be born again in its mysterious and unfathomable haunts. - -He was drafted early in the fall, and the examining doctor made no -mention of low blood-pressure. It was all very purposeless and sad when -Anthony told Gloria one night that he wanted, above all things, to be -killed. But, as always, they were sorry for each other for the wrong -things at the wrong times.... - -They decided that for the present she was not to go with him to the -Southern camp where his contingent was ordered. She would remain in New -York to "use the apartment," to save money, and to watch the progress of -the case--which was pending now in the Appellate Division, of which the -calendar, Mr. Haight told them, was far behind. - -Almost their last conversation was a senseless quarrel about the proper -division of the income--at a word either would have given it all to the -other. It was typical of the muddle and confusion of their lives that on -the October night when Anthony reported at the Grand Central Station for -the journey to camp, she arrived only in time to catch his eye over the -anxious heads of a gathered crowd. Through the dark light of the -enclosed train-sheds their glances stretched across a hysterical area, -foul with yellow sobbing and the smells of poor women. They must have -pondered upon what they had done to one another, and each must have -accused himself of drawing this sombre pattern through which they were -tracing tragically and obscurely. At the last they were too far away for -either to see the other's tears. - - - - - -BOOK THREE - - - - -CHAPTER I - - -A MATTER OF CIVILIZATION - -At a frantic command from some invisible source, Anthony groped his way -inside. He was thinking that for the first time in more than three years -he was to remain longer than a night away from Gloria. The finality of -it appealed to him drearily. It was his clean and lovely girl that he -was leaving. - -They had arrived, he thought, at the most practical financial -settlement: she was to have three hundred and seventy-five dollars a -month--not too much considering that over half of that would go in -rent--and he was taking fifty to supplement his pay. He saw no need for -more: food, clothes, and quarters would be provided--there were no -social obligations for a private. - -The car was crowded and already thick with breath. It was one of the -type known as "tourist" cars, a sort of brummagem Pullman, with a bare -floor, and straw seats that needed cleaning. Nevertheless, Anthony -greeted it with relief. He had vaguely expected that the trip South -would be made in a freight-car, in one end of which would stand eight -horses and in the other forty men. He had heard the "hommes 40, chevaux -8" story so often that it had become confused and ominous. - -As he rocked down the aisle with his barrack-bag slung at his shoulder -like a monstrous blue sausage, he saw no vacant seats, but after a -moment his eye fell on a single space at present occupied by the feet of -a short swarthy Sicilian, who, with his hat drawn over his eyes, hunched -defiantly in the corner. As Anthony stopped beside him he stared up with -a scowl, evidently intended to be intimidating; he must have adopted it -as a defense against this entire gigantic equation. At Anthony's sharp -"That seat taken?" he very slowly lifted the feet as though they were a -breakable package, and placed them with some care upon the floor. His -eyes remained on Anthony, who meanwhile sat down and unbuttoned the -uniform coat issued him at Camp Upton the day before. It chafed him -under the arms. - -Before Anthony could scrutinize the other occupants of the section a -young second lieutenant blew in at the upper end of the car and wafted -airily down the aisle, announcing in a voice of appalling acerbity: - -"There will be no smoking in this car! No smoking! Don't smoke, men, in -this car!" - -As he sailed out at the other end a dozen little clouds of expostulation -arose on all sides. - -"Oh, cripe!" - -"Jeese!" - -"No _smokin'_?" - -"Hey, come back here, fella!" - -"What's 'ee idea?" - -Two or three cigarettes were shot out through the open windows. Others -were retained inside, though kept sketchily away from view. From here -and there in accents of bravado, of mockery, of submissive humor, a few -remarks were dropped that soon melted into the listless and -pervasive silence. - -The fourth occupant of Anthony's section spoke up suddenly. - -"G'by, liberty," he said sullenly. "G'by, everything except bein' an -officer's dog." - -Anthony looked at him. He was a tall Irishman with an expression moulded -of indifference and utter disdain. His eyes fell on Anthony, as though -he expected an answer, and then upon the others. Receiving only a -defiant stare from the Italian he groaned and spat noisily on the floor -by way of a dignified transition back into taciturnity. - -A few minutes later the door opened again and the second lieutenant was -borne in upon his customary official zephyr, this time singing out a -different tiding: - -"All right, men, smoke if you want to! My mistake, men! It's all right, -men! Go on and smoke--my mistake!" - -This time Anthony had a good look at him. He was young, thin, already -faded; he was like his own mustache; he was like a great piece of shiny -straw. His chin receded, faintly; this was offset by a magnificent and -unconvincing scowl, a scowl that Anthony was to connect with the faces -of many young officers during the ensuing year. - -Immediately every one smoked--whether they had previously desired to or -not. Anthony's cigarette contributed to the hazy oxidation which seemed -to roll back and forth in opalescent clouds with every motion of the -train. The conversation, which had lapsed between the two impressive -visits of the young officer, now revived tepidly; the men across the -aisle began making clumsy experiments with their straw seats' capacity -for comparative comfort; two card games, half-heartedly begun, soon drew -several spectators to sitting positions on the arms of seats. In a few -minutes Anthony became aware of a persistently obnoxious sound--the -small, defiant Sicilian had fallen audibly asleep. It was wearisome to -contemplate that animate protoplasm, reasonable by courtesy only, shut -up in a car by an incomprehensible civilization, taken somewhere, to do -a vague something without aim or significance or consequence. Anthony -sighed, opened a newspaper which he had no recollection of buying, and -began to read by the dim yellow light. - -Ten o'clock bumped stuffily into eleven; the hours clogged and caught -and slowed down. Amazingly the train halted along the dark countryside, -from time to time indulging in short, deceitful movements backward or -forward, and whistling harsh paeans into the high October night. Having -read his newspaper through, editorials, cartoons, and war-poems, his eye -fell on a half-column headed _Shakespeareville, Kansas_. It seemed that -the Shakespeareville Chamber of Commerce had recently held an -enthusiastic debate as to whether the American soldiers should be known -as "Sammies" or "Battling Christians." The thought gagged him. He -dropped the newspaper, yawned, and let his mind drift off at a tangent. -He wondered why Gloria had been late. It seemed so long ago already--he -had a pang of illusive loneliness. He tried to imagine from what angle -she would regard her new position, what place in her considerations he -would continue to hold. The thought acted as a further depressant--he -opened his paper and began to read again. - -The members of the Chamber of Commerce in Shakespeareville had decided -upon "Liberty Lads." - -For two nights and two days they rattled southward, making mysterious -inexplicable stops in what were apparently arid wastes, and then rushing -through large cities with a pompous air of hurry. The whimsicalities of -this train foreshadowed for Anthony the whimsicalities of all army -administration. - -In the arid wastes they were served from the baggage-car with beans and -bacon that at first he was unable to eat--he dined scantily on some milk -chocolate distributed by a village canteen. But on the second day the -baggage-car's output began to appear surprisingly palatable. On the -third morning the rumor was passed along that within the hour they would -arrive at their destination, Camp Hooker. - -It had become intolerably hot in the car, and the men were all in shirt -sleeves. The sun came in through the windows, a tired and ancient sun, -yellow as parchment and stretched out of shape in transit. It tried to -enter in triumphant squares and produced only warped splotches--but it -was appallingly steady; so much so that it disturbed Anthony not to be -the pivot of all the inconsequential sawmills and trees and telegraph -poles that were turning around him so fast. Outside it played its heavy -tremolo over olive roads and fallow cotton-fields, back of which ran a -ragged line of woods broken with eminences of gray rock. The foreground -was dotted sparsely with wretched, ill-patched shanties, among which -there would flash by, now and then, a specimen of the languid yokelry of -South Carolina, or else a strolling darky with sullen and -bewildered eyes. - -Then the woods moved off and they rolled into a broad space like the -baked top of a gigantic cake, sugared with an infinity of tents arranged -in geometric figures over its surface. The train came to an uncertain -stop, and the sun and the poles and the trees faded, and his universe -rocked itself slowly back to its old usualness, with Anthony Patch in -the centre. As the men, weary and perspiring, crowded out of the car, he -smelt that unforgetable aroma that impregnates all permanent camps--the -odor of garbage. - -Camp Hooker was an astonishing and spectacular growth, suggesting "A -Mining Town in 1870--The Second Week." It was a thing of wooden shacks -and whitish-gray tents, connected by a pattern of roads, with hard tan -drill-grounds fringed with trees. Here and there stood green Y.M.C.A. -houses, unpromising oases, with their muggy odor of wet flannels and -closed telephone-booths--and across from each of them there was usually -a canteen, swarming with life, presided over indolently by an officer -who, with the aid of a side-car, usually managed to make his detail a -pleasant and chatty sinecure. - -Up and down the dusty roads sped the soldiers of the quartermaster -corps, also in side-cars. Up and down drove the generals in their -government automobiles, stopping now and then to bring unalert details -to attention, to frown heavily upon captains marching at the heads of -companies, to set the pompous pace in that gorgeous game of showing off -which was taking place triumphantly over the entire area. - -The first week after the arrival of Anthony's draft was filled with a -series of interminable inoculations and physical examinations, and with -the preliminary drilling. The days left him desperately tired. He had -been issued the wrong size shoes by a popular, easy-going -supply-sergeant, and in consequence his feet were so swollen that the -last hours of the afternoon were an acute torture. For the first time in -his life he could throw himself down on his cot between dinner and -afternoon drill-call, and seeming to sink with each moment deeper into a -bottomless bed, drop off immediately to sleep, while the noise and -laughter around him faded to a pleasant drone of drowsy summer sound. In -the morning he awoke stiff and aching, hollow as a ghost, and hurried -forth to meet the other ghostly figures who swarmed in the wan company -streets, while a harsh bugle shrieked and spluttered at the -gray heavens. - -He was in a skeleton infantry company of about a hundred men. After the -invariable breakfast of fatty bacon, cold toast, and cereal, the entire -hundred would rush for the latrines, which, however well-policed, seemed -always intolerable, like the lavatories in cheap hotels. Out on the -field, then, in ragged order--the lame man on his left grotesquely -marring Anthony's listless efforts to keep in step, the platoon -sergeants either showing off violently to impress the officers and -recruits, or else quietly lurking in close to the line of march, -avoiding both labor and unnecessary visibility. - -When they reached the field, work began immediately--they peeled off -their shirts for calisthenics. This was the only part of the day that -Anthony enjoyed. Lieutenant Kretching, who presided at the antics, was -sinewy and muscular, and Anthony, followed his movements faithfully, -with a feeling that he was doing something of positive value to himself. -The other officers and sergeants walked about among the men with the -malice of schoolboys, grouping here and there around some unfortunate -who lacked muscular control, giving him confused instructions and -commands. When they discovered a particularly forlorn, ill-nourished -specimen, they would linger the full half-hour making cutting remarks -and snickering among themselves. - -One little officer named Hopkins, who had been a sergeant in the regular -army, was particularly annoying. He took the war as a gift of revenge -from the high gods to himself, and the constant burden of his harangues -was that these rookies did not appreciate the full gravity and -responsibility of "the service." He considered that by a combination of -foresight and dauntless efficiency he had raised himself to his current -magnificence. He aped the particular tyrannies of every officer under -whom he had served in times gone by. His frown was frozen on his -brow--before giving a private a pass to go to town he would ponderously -weigh the effect of such an absence upon the company, the army, and the -welfare of the military profession the world over. - -Lieutenant Kretching, blond, dull and phlegmatic, introduced Anthony -ponderously to the problems of attention, right face, about face, and at -ease. His principal defect was his forgetfulness. He often kept the -company straining and aching at attention for five minutes while he -stood out in front and explained a new movement--as a result only the men -in the centre knew what it was all about--those on both flanks had been -too emphatically impressed with the necessity of staring straight ahead. - -The drill continued until noon. It consisted of stressing a succession -of infinitely remote details, and though Anthony perceived that this was -consistent with the logic of war, it none the less irritated him. That -the same faulty blood-pressure which would have been indecent in an -officer did not interfere with the duties of a private was a -preposterous incongruity. Sometimes, after listening to a sustained -invective concerned with a dull and, on the face of it, absurd subject -known as military "courtesy," he suspected that the dim purpose of the -war was to let the regular army officers--men with the mentality and -aspirations of schoolboys--have their fling with some real slaughter. He -was being grotesquely sacrificed to the twenty-year patience of -a Hopkins! - -Of his three tent-mates--a flat-faced, conscientious objector from -Tennessee, a big, scared Pole, and the disdainful Celt whom he had sat -beside on the train--the two former spent the evenings in writing -eternal letters home, while the Irishman sat in the tent door whistling -over and over to himself half a dozen shrill and monotonous bird-calls. -It was rather to avoid an hour of their company than with any hope of -diversion that, when the quarantine was lifted at the end of the week, -he went into town. He caught one of the swarm of jitneys that overran -the camp each evening, and in half an hour was set down in front of the -Stonewall Hotel on the hot and drowsy main street. - -Under the gathering twilight the town was unexpectedly attractive. The -sidewalks were peopled by vividly dressed, overpainted girls, who -chattered volubly in low, lazy voices, by dozens of taxi-drivers who -assailed passing officers with "Take y' anywheh, _Lieu_tenant," and by -an intermittent procession of ragged, shuffling, subservient negroes. -Anthony, loitering along through the warm dusk, felt for the first time -in years the slow, erotic breath of the South, imminent in the hot -softness of the air, in the pervasive lull, of thought and time. - -He had gone about a block when he was arrested suddenly by a harsh -command at his elbow. - -"Haven't you been taught to salute officers?" - -He looked dumbly at the man who addressed him, a stout, black-haired -captain, who fixed him menacingly with brown pop-eyes. - -"_Come to attention!_" The words were literally thundered. A few -pedestrians near by stopped and stared. A soft-eyed girl in a lilac -dress tittered to her companion. - -Anthony came to attention. - -"What's your regiment and company?" - -Anthony told him. - -"After this when you pass an officer on the street you straighten up and -salute!" - -"All right!" - -"Say 'Yes, sir!'" - -"Yes, sir." - -The stout officer grunted, turned sharply, and marched down the street. -After a moment Anthony moved on; the town was no longer indolent and -exotic; the magic was suddenly gone out of the dusk. His eyes were -turned precipitately inward upon the indignity of his position. He hated -that officer, every officer--life was unendurable. - -After he had gone half a block he realized that the girl in the lilac -dress who had giggled at his discomfiture was walking with her friend -about ten paces ahead of him. Several times she had turned and stared at -Anthony, with cheerful laughter in the large eyes that seemed the same -color as her gown. - -At the corner she and her companion visibly slackened their pace--he -must make his choice between joining them and passing obliviously by. He -passed, hesitated, then slowed down. In a moment the pair were abreast -of him again, dissolved in laughter now--not such strident mirth as he -would have expected in the North from actresses in this familiar comedy, -but a soft, low rippling, like the overflow from some subtle joke, into -which he had inadvertently blundered. - -"How do you do?" he said. - -Her eyes were soft as shadows. Were they violet, or was it their blue -darkness mingling with the gray hues of dusk? - -"Pleasant evening," ventured Anthony uncertainly. - -"Sure is," said the second girl. - -"Hasn't been a very pleasant evening for you," sighed the girl in lilac. -Her voice seemed as much a part of the night as the drowsy breeze -stirring the wide brim of her hat. - -"He had to have a chance to show off," said Anthony with a scornful -laugh. - -"Reckon so," she agreed. - -They turned the corner and moved lackadaisically up a side street, as if -following a drifting cable to which they were attached. In this town it -seemed entirely natural to turn corners like that, it seemed natural to -be bound nowhere in particular, to be thinking nothing.... The side -street was dark, a sudden offshoot into a district of wild rose hedges -and little quiet houses set far back from the street. - -"Where're you going?" he inquired politely. - -"Just goin'." The answer was an apology, a question, an explanation. - -"Can I stroll along with you?" - -"Reckon so." - -It was an advantage that her accent was different. He could not have -determined the social status of a Southerner from her talk--in New York -a girl of a lower class would have been raucous, unendurable--except -through the rosy spectacles of intoxication. - -Dark was creeping down. Talking little--Anthony in careless, casual -questions, the other two with provincial economy of phrase and -burden--they sauntered past another corner, and another. In the middle -of a block they stopped beneath a lamp-post. - -"I live near here," explained the other girl. - -"I live around the block," said the girl in lilac. - -"Can I see you home?" - -"To the corner, if you want to." - -The other girl took a few steps backward. Anthony removed his hat. - -"You're supposed to salute," said the girl in lilac with a laugh. "All -the soldiers salute." - -"I'll learn," he responded soberly. - -The other girl said, "Well--" hesitated, then added, "call me up -to-morrow, Dot," and retreated from the yellow circle of the -street-lamp. Then, in silence, Anthony and the girl in lilac walked the -three blocks to the small rickety house which was her home. Outside the -wooden gate she hesitated. - -"Well--thanks." - -"Must you go in so soon?" - -"I ought to." - -"Can't you stroll around a little longer?" She regarded him -dispassionately. - -"I don't even know you." - -Anthony laughed. - -"It's not too late." - -"I reckon I better go in." - -"I thought we might walk down and see a movie." - -"I'd like to." - -"Then I could bring you home. I'd have just enough time. I've got to be -in camp by eleven." - -It was so dark that he could scarcely see her now. She was a dress -swayed infinitesimally by the wind, two limpid, reckless eyes ... - -"Why don't you come--Dot? Don't you like movies? Better come." - -She shook her head. - -"I oughtn't to." - -He liked her, realizing that she was temporizing for the effect on him. -He came closer and took her hand. - -"If we get back by ten, can't you? just to the movies?" - -"Well--I reckon so--" - -Hand in hand they walked back toward down-town, along a hazy, dusky -street where a negro newsboy was calling an extra in the cadence of the -local venders' tradition, a cadence that was as musical as song. - -Dot - -Anthony's affair with Dorothy Raycroft was an inevitable result of his -increasing carelessness about himself. He did not go to her desiring to -possess the desirable, nor did he fall before a personality more vital, -more compelling than his own, as he had done with Gloria four years -before. He merely slid into the matter through his inability to make -definite judgments. He could say "No!" neither to man nor woman; -borrower and temptress alike found him tender-minded and pliable. Indeed -he seldom made decisions at all, and when he did they were but -half-hysterical resolves formed in the panic of some aghast and -irreparable awakening. - -The particular weakness he indulged on this occasion was his need of -excitement and stimulus from without. He felt that for the first time in -four years he could express and interpret himself anew. The girl -promised rest; the hours in her company each evening alleviated the -morbid and inevitably futile poundings of his imagination. He had become -a coward in earnest--completely the slave of a hundred disordered and -prowling thoughts which were released by the collapse of the authentic -devotion to Gloria that had been the chief jailer of his insufficiency. - -On that first night, as they stood by the gate, he kissed Dorothy and -made an engagement to meet her the following Saturday. Then he went out -to camp, and with the light burning lawlessly in his tent, he wrote a -long letter to Gloria, a glowing letter, full of the sentimental dark, -full of the remembered breath of flowers, full of a true and exceeding -tenderness--these things he had learned again for a moment in a kiss -given and taken under a rich warm moonlight just an hour before. - -When Saturday night came he found Dot waiting at the entrance of the -Bijou Moving Picture Theatre. She was dressed as on the preceding -Wednesday in her lilac gown of frailest organdy, but it had evidently -been washed and starched since then, for it was fresh and unrumpled. -Daylight confirmed the impression he had received that in a sketchy, -faulty way she was lovely. She was clean, her features were small, -irregular, but eloquent and appropriate to each other. She was a dark, -unenduring little flower--yet he thought he detected in her some quality -of spiritual reticence, of strength drawn from her passive acceptance of -all things. In this he was mistaken. - -Dorothy Raycroft was nineteen. Her father had kept a small, unprosperous -corner store, and she had graduated from high school in the lowest -fourth of her class two days before he died. At high school she had -enjoyed a rather unsavory reputation. As a matter of fact her behavior -at the class picnic, where the rumors started, had been merely -indiscreet--she had retained her technical purity until over a year -later. The boy had been a clerk in a store on Jackson Street, and on the -day after the incident he departed unexpectedly to New York. He had been -intending to leave for some time, but had tarried for the consummation -of his amorous enterprise. - -After a while she confided the adventure to a girl friend, and later, as -she watched her friend disappear down the sleepy street of dusty -sunshine she knew in a flash of intuition that her story was going out -into the world. Yet after telling it she felt much better, and a little -bitter, and made as near an approach to character as she was capable of -by walking in another direction and meeting another man with the honest -intention of gratifying herself again. As a rule things happened to Dot. -She was not weak, because there was nothing in her to tell her she was -being weak. She was not strong, because she never knew that some of the -things she did were brave. She neither defied nor conformed nor -compromised. - -She had no sense of humor, but, to take its place, a happy disposition -that made her laugh at the proper times when she was with men. She had -no definite intentions--sometimes she regretted vaguely that her -reputation precluded what chance she had ever had for security. There -had been no open discovery: her mother was interested only in starting -her off on time each morning for the jewelry store where she earned -fourteen dollars a week. But some of the boys she had known in high -school now looked the other way when they were walking with "nice -girls," and these incidents hurt her feelings. When they occurred she -went home and cried. - -Besides the Jackson Street clerk there had been two other men, of whom -the first was a naval officer, who passed through town during the early -days of the war. He had stayed over a night to make a connection, and -was leaning idly against one of the pillars of the Stonewall Hotel when -she passed by. He remained in town four days. She thought she loved -him--lavished on him that first hysteria of passion that would have gone -to the pusillanimous clerk. The naval officer's uniform--there were few -of them in those days--had made the magic. He left with vague promises -on his lips, and, once on the train, rejoiced that he had not told her -his real name. - -Her resultant depression had thrown her into the arms of Cyrus Fielding, -the son of a local clothier, who had hailed her from his roadster one -day as she passed along the sidewalk. She had always known him by name. -Had she been born to a higher stratum he would have known her before. -She had descended a little lower--so he met her after all. After a month -he had gone away to training-camp, a little afraid of the intimacy, a -little relieved in perceiving that she had not cared deeply for him, and -that she was not the sort who would ever make trouble. Dot romanticized -this affair and conceded to her vanity that the war had taken these men -away from her. She told herself that she could have married the naval -officer. Nevertheless, it worried her that within eight months there had -been three men in her life. She thought with more fear than wonder in -her heart that she would soon be like those "bad girls" on Jackson -Street at whom she and her gum-chewing, giggling friends had stared with -fascinated glances three years before. - -For a while she attempted to be more careful. She let men "pick her up"; -she let them kiss her, and even allowed certain other liberties to be -forced upon her, but she did not add to her trio. After several months -the strength of her resolution--or rather the poignant expediency of her -fears--was worn away. She grew restless drowsing there out of life and -time while the summer months faded. The soldiers she met were either -obviously below her or, less obviously, above her--in which case they -desired only to use her; they were Yankees, harsh and ungracious; they -swarmed in large crowds.... And then she met Anthony. - -On that first evening he had been little more than a pleasantly unhappy -face, a voice, the means with which to pass an hour, but when she kept -her engagement with him on Saturday she regarded him with consideration. -She liked him. Unknowingly she saw her own tragedies mirrored in -his face. - -Again they went to the movies, again they wandered along the shadowy, -scented streets, hand in hand this time, speaking a little in hushed -voices. They passed through the gate--up toward the little porch-- - -"I can stay a while, can't I?" - -"Sh!" she whispered, "we've got to be very quiet. Mother sits up reading -Snappy Stories." In confirmation he heard the faint crackling inside as -a page was turned. The open-shutter slits emitted horizontal rods of -light that fell in thin parallels across Dorothy's skirt. The street was -silent save for a group on the steps of a house across the way, who, -from time to time, raised their voices in a soft, bantering song. - -"--_When you wa-ake -You shall ha-ave -All the pretty little hawsiz_--" - -Then, as though it had been waiting on a near-by roof for their arrival, -the moon came slanting suddenly through the vines and turned the girl's -face to the color of white roses. - -Anthony had a start of memory, so vivid that before his closed eyes -there formed a picture, distinct as a flashback on a screen--a spring -night of thaw set out of time in a half-forgotten winter five years -before--another face, radiant, flower-like, upturned to lights as -transforming as the stars-- - -Ah, _la belle dame sans merci_ who lived in his heart, made known to him -in transitory fading splendor by dark eyes in the Ritz-Carlton, by a -shadowy glance from a passing carriage in the Bois de Boulogne! But -those nights were only part of a song, a remembered glory--here again -were the faint winds, the illusions, the eternal present with its -promise of romance. - -"Oh," she whispered, "do you love me? Do you love me?" - -The spell was broken--the drifted fragments of the stars became only -light, the singing down the street diminished to a monotone, to the -whimper of locusts in the grass. With almost a sigh he kissed her -fervent mouth, while her arms crept up about his shoulders. - - -THE MAN-AT-ARMS - -As the weeks dried up and blew away, the range of Anthony's travels -extended until he grew to comprehend the camp and its environment. For -the first time in his life he was in constant personal contact with the -waiters to whom he had given tips, the chauffeurs who had touched their -hats to him, the carpenters, plumbers, barbers, and farmers who had -previously been remarkable only in the subservience of their -professional genuflections. During his first two months in camp he did -not hold ten minutes' consecutive conversation with a single man. - -On the service record his occupation stood as "student"; on the original -questionnaire he had prematurely written "author"; but when men in his -company asked his business he commonly gave it as bank clerk--had he -told the truth, that he did no work, they would have been suspicious of -him as a member of the leisure class. - -His platoon sergeant, Pop Donnelly, was a scraggly "old soldier," worn -thin with drink. In the past he had spent unnumbered weeks in the -guard-house, but recently, thanks to the drill-master famine, he had -been elevated to his present pinnacle. His complexion was full of -shell-holes--it bore an unmistakable resemblance to those aerial -photographs of "the battle-field at Blank." Once a week he got drunk -down-town on white liquor, returned quietly to camp and collapsed upon -his bunk, joining the company at reveille looking more than ever like a -white mask of death. - -He nursed the astounding delusion that he was astutely "slipping it -over" on the government--he had spent eighteen years in its service at a -minute wage, and he was soon to retire (here he usually winked) on the -impressive income of fifty-five dollars a month. He looked upon it as a -gorgeous joke that he had played upon the dozens who had bullied and -scorned him since he was a Georgia country boy of nineteen. - -At present there were but two lieutenants--Hopkins and the popular -Kretching. The latter was considered a good fellow and a fine leader, -until a year later, when he disappeared with a mess fund of eleven -hundred dollars and, like so many leaders, proved exceedingly difficult -to follow. - -Eventually there was Captain Dunning, god of this brief but -self-sufficing microcosm. He was a reserve officer, nervous, energetic, -and enthusiastic. This latter quality, indeed, often took material form -and was visible as fine froth in the corners of his mouth. Like most -executives he saw his charges strictly from the front, and to his -hopeful eyes his command seemed just such an excellent unit as such an -excellent war deserved. For all his anxiety and absorption he was having -the time of his life. - -Baptiste, the little Sicilian of the train, fell foul of him the second -week of drill. The captain had several times ordered the men to be -clean-shaven when they fell in each morning. One day there was disclosed -an alarming breech of this rule, surely a case of Teutonic -connivance--during the night four men had grown hair upon their faces. -The fact that three of the four understood a minimum of English made a -practical object-lesson only the more necessary, so Captain Dunning -resolutely sent a volunteer barber back to the company street for a -razor. Whereupon for the safety of democracy a half-ounce of hair was -scraped dry from the cheeks of three Italians and one Pole. - -Outside the world of the company there appeared, from time to time, the -colonel, a heavy man with snarling teeth, who circumnavigated the -battalion drill-field upon a handsome black horse. He was a West -Pointer, and, mimetically, a gentleman. He had a dowdy wife and a dowdy -mind, and spent much of his time in town taking advantage of the army's -lately exalted social position. Last of all was the general, who -traversed the roads of the camp preceded by his flag--a figure so -austere, so removed, so magnificent, as to be scarcely comprehensible. - -December. Cool winds at night now, and damp, chilly mornings on the -drill-grounds. As the heat faded, Anthony found himself increasingly -glad to be alive. Renewed strangely through his body, he worried little -and existed in the present with a sort of animal content. It was not -that Gloria or the life that Gloria represented was less often in his -thoughts--it was simply that she became, day by day, less real, less -vivid. For a week they had corresponded passionately, almost -hysterically--then by an unwritten agreement they had ceased to write -more than twice, and then once, a week. She was bored, she said; if his -brigade was to be there a long time she was coming down to join him. Mr. -Haight was going to be able to submit a stronger brief than he had -expected, but doubted that the appealed case would come up until late -spring. Muriel was in the city doing Red Cross work, and they went out -together rather often. What would Anthony think if _she_ went into the -Red Cross? Trouble was she had heard that she might have to bathe -negroes in alcohol, and after that she hadn't felt so patriotic. The -city was full of soldiers and she'd seen a lot of boys she hadn't laid -eyes on for years.... - -Anthony did not want her to come South. He told himself that this was -for many reasons--he needed a rest from her and she from him. She would -be bored beyond measure in town, and she would be able to see Anthony -for only a few hours each day. But in his heart he feared that it was -because he was attracted to Dorothy. As a matter of fact he lived in -terror that Gloria should learn by some chance or intention of the -relation he had formed. By the end of a fortnight the entanglement began -to give him moments of misery at his own faithlessness. Nevertheless, as -each day ended he was unable to withstand the lure that would draw him -irresistibly out of his tent and over to the telephone at the Y.M.C.A. - -"Dot." - -"Yes?" - -"I may be able to get in to-night." - -"I'm so glad." - -"Do you want to listen to my splendid eloquence for a few starry hours?" - -"Oh, you funny--" For an instant he had a memory of five years -before--of Geraldine. Then-- - -"I'll arrive about eight." - -At seven he would be in a jitney bound for the city, where hundreds of -little Southern girls were waiting on moonlit porches for their lovers. -He would be excited already for her warm retarded kisses, for the amazed -quietude of the glances she gave him--glances nearer to worship than any -he had ever inspired. Gloria and he had been equals, giving without -thought of thanks or obligation. To this girl his very caresses were an -inestimable boon. Crying quietly she had confessed to him that he was -not the first man in her life; there had been one other--he gathered -that the affair had no sooner commenced than it had been over. - -Indeed, so far as she was concerned, she spoke the truth. She had -forgotten the clerk, the naval officer, the clothier's son, forgotten -her vividness of emotion, which is true forgetting. She knew that in -some opaque and shadowy existence some one had taken her--it was as -though it had occurred in sleep. - -Almost every night Anthony came to town. It was too cool now for the -porch, so her mother surrendered to them the tiny sitting room, with its -dozens of cheaply framed chromos, its yard upon yard of decorative -fringe, and its thick atmosphere of several decades in the proximity of -the kitchen. They would build a fire--then, happily, inexhaustibly, she -would go about the business of love. Each evening at ten she would walk -with him to the door, her black hair in disarray, her face pale without -cosmetics, paler still under the whiteness of the moon. As a rule it -would be bright and silver outside; now and then there was a slow warm -rain, too indolent, almost, to reach the ground. - -"Say you love me," she would whisper. - -"Why, of course, you sweet baby." - -"Am I a baby?" This almost wistfully. - -"Just a little baby." - -She knew vaguely of Gloria. It gave her pain to think of it, so she -imagined her to be haughty and proud and cold. She had decided that -Gloria must be older than Anthony, and that there was no love between -husband and wife. Sometimes she let herself dream that after the war -Anthony would get a divorce and they would be married--but she never -mentioned this to Anthony, she scarcely knew why. She shared his -company's idea that he was a sort of bank clerk--she thought that he was -respectable and poor. She would say: - -"If I had some money, darlin', I'd give ev'y bit of it to you.... I'd -like to have about fifty thousand dollars." - -"I suppose that'd be plenty," agreed Anthony. - ---In her letter that day Gloria had written: "I suppose if we _could_ -settle for a million it would be better to tell Mr. Haight to go ahead -and settle. But it'd seem a pity...." - -... "We could have an automobile," exclaimed Dot, in a final burst of -triumph. - - -AN IMPRESSIVE OCCASION - -Captain Dunning prided himself on being a great reader of character. -Half an hour after meeting a man he was accustomed to place him in one -of a number of astonishing categories--fine man, good man, smart fellow, -theorizer, poet, and "worthless." One day early in February he caused -Anthony to be summoned to his presence in the orderly tent. - -"Patch," he said sententiously, "I've had my eye on you for several -weeks." - -Anthony stood erect and motionless. - -"And I think you've got the makings of a good soldier." - -He waited for the warm glow, which this would naturally arouse, to -cool--and then continued: - -"This is no child's play," he said, narrowing his brows. - -Anthony agreed with a melancholy "No, sir." - -"It's a man's game--and we need leaders." Then the climax, swift, sure, -and electric: "Patch, I'm going to make you a corporal." - -At this point Anthony should have staggered slightly backward, -overwhelmed. He was to be one of the quarter million selected for that -consummate trust. He was going to be able to shout the technical phrase, -"Follow me!" to seven other frightened men. - -"You seem to be a man of some education," said Captain Dunning. - -"Yes, Sir." - -"That's good, that's good. Education's a great thing, but don't let it -go to your head. Keep on the way you're doing and you'll be a -good soldier." - -With these parting words lingering in his ears, Corporal Patch saluted, -executed a right about face, and left the tent. - -Though the conversation amused Anthony, it did generate the idea that -life would be more amusing as a sergeant or, should he find a less -exacting medical examiner, as an officer. He was little interested in -the work, which seemed to belie the army's boasted gallantry. At the -inspections one did not dress up to look well, one dressed up to keep -from looking badly. - -But as winter wore away--the short, snowless winter marked by damp -nights and cool, rainy days--he marvelled at how quickly the system had -grasped him. He was a soldier--all who were not soldiers were civilians. -The world was divided primarily into those two classifications. - -It occurred to him that all strongly accentuated classes, such as the -military, divided men into two kinds: their own kind--and those without. -To the clergyman there were clergy and laity, to the Catholic there were -Catholics and non-Catholics, to the negro there were blacks and whites, -to the prisoner there were the imprisoned and the free, and to the sick -man there were the sick and the well.... So, without thinking of it once -in his lifetime, he had been a civilian, a layman, a non-Catholic, a -Gentile, white, free, and well.... - -As the American troops were poured into the French and British trenches -he began to find the names of many Harvard men among the casualties -recorded in the Army and Navy Journal. But for all the sweat and blood -the situation appeared unchanged, and he saw no prospect of the war's -ending in the perceptible future. In the old chronicles the right wing -of one army always defeated the left wing of the other, the left wing -being, meanwhile, vanquished by the enemy's right. After that the -mercenaries fled. It had been so simple, in those days, almost as if -prearranged.... - -Gloria wrote that she was reading a great deal. What a mess they had -made of their affairs, she said. She had so little to do now that she -spent her time imagining how differently things might have turned out. -Her whole environment appeared insecure--and a few years back she had -seemed to hold all the strings in her own little hand.... - -In June her letters grew hurried and less frequent. She suddenly ceased -to write about coming South. - - -DEFEAT - -March in the country around was rare with jasmine and jonquils and -patches of violets in the warming grass. Afterward he remembered -especially one afternoon of such a fresh and magic glamour that as he -stood in the rifle-pit marking targets he recited "Atalanta in Calydon" -to an uncomprehending Pole, his voice mingling with the rip, sing, and -splatter of the bullets overhead. - -"When the hounds of spring ..." - -_Spang!_ - -"Are on winter's traces ..." - -_Whirr-r-r-r!_ ... - -"The mother of months ..." - -_"Hey!_ Come to! Mark three-e-e! ..." - -In town the streets were in a sleepy dream again, and together Anthony -and Dot idled in their own tracks of the previous autumn until he began -to feel a drowsy attachment for this South--a South, it seemed, more of -Algiers than of Italy, with faded aspirations pointing back over -innumerable generations to some warm, primitive Nirvana, without hope or -care. Here there was an inflection of cordiality, of comprehension, in -every voice. "Life plays the same lovely and agonizing joke on all of -us," they seemed to say in their plaintive pleasant cadence, in the -rising inflection terminating on an unresolved minor. - -He liked his barber shop where he was "Hi, corporal!" to a pale, -emaciated young man, who shaved him and pushed a cool vibrating machine -endlessly over his insatiable head. He liked "Johnston's Gardens" where -they danced, where a tragic negro made yearning, aching music on a -saxophone until the garish hall became an enchanted jungle of barbaric -rhythms and smoky laughter, where to forget the uneventful passage of -time upon Dorothy's soft sighs and tender whisperings was the -consummation of all aspiration, of all content. - -There was an undertone of sadness in her character, a conscious evasion -of all except the pleasurable minutiae of life. Her violet eyes would -remain for hours apparently insensate as, thoughtless and reckless, she -basked like a cat in the sun. He wondered what the tired, spiritless -mother thought of them, and whether in her moments of uttermost cynicism -she ever guessed at their relationship. - -On Sunday afternoons they walked along the countryside, resting at -intervals on the dry moss in the outskirts of a wood. Here the birds had -gathered and the clusters of violets and white dogwood; here the hoar -trees shone crystalline and cool, oblivious to the intoxicating heat -that waited outside; here he would talk, intermittently, in a sleepy -monologue, in a conversation of no significance, of no replies. - -July came scorching down. Captain Dunning was ordered to detail one of -his men to learn blacksmithing. The regiment was filling up to war -strength, and he needed most of his veterans for drill-masters, so he -selected the little Italian, Baptiste, whom he could most easily spare. -Little Baptiste had never had anything to do with horses. His fear made -matters worse. He reappeared in the orderly room one day and told -Captain Dunning that he wanted to die if he couldn't be relieved. The -horses kicked at him, he said; he was no good at the work. Finally he -fell on his knees and besought Captain Dunning, in a mixture of broken -English and scriptural Italian, to get him out of it. He had not slept -for three days; monstrous stallions reared and cavorted through -his dreams. - -Captain Dunning reproved the company clerk (who had burst out laughing), -and told Baptiste he would do what he could. But when he thought it over -he decided that he couldn't spare a better man. Little Baptiste went -from bad to worse. The horses seemed to divine his fear and take every -advantage of it. Two weeks later a great black mare crushed his skull in -with her hoofs while he was trying to lead her from her stall. - -In mid-July came rumors, and then orders, that concerned a change of -camp. The brigade was to move to an empty cantonment, a hundred miles -farther south, there to be expanded into a division. At first the men -thought they were departing for the trenches, and all evening little -groups jabbered in the company street, shouting to each other in -swaggering exclamations: "Su-u-ure we are!" When the truth leaked out, -it was rejected indignantly as a blind to conceal their real -destination. They revelled in their own importance. That night they told -their girls in town that they were "going to get the Germans." Anthony -circulated for a while among the groups--then, stopping a jitney, rode -down to tell Dot that he was going away. - -She was waiting on the dark veranda in a cheap white dress that -accentuated the youth and softness of her face. - -"Oh," she whispered, "I've wanted you so, honey. All this day." - -"I have something to tell you." - -She drew him down beside her on the swinging seat, not noticing his -ominous tone. - -"Tell me." - -"We're leaving next week." - -Her arms seeking his shoulders remained poised upon the dark air, her -chin tipped up. When she spoke the softness was gone from her voice. - -"Leaving for France?" - -"No. Less luck than that. Leaving for some darn camp in Mississippi." - -She shut her eyes and he could see that the lids were trembling. - -"Dear little Dot, life is so damned hard." - -She was crying upon his shoulder. - -"So damned hard, so damned hard," he repeated aimlessly; "it just hurts -people and hurts people, until finally it hurts them so that they can't -be hurt ever any more. That's the last and worst thing it does." - -Frantic, wild with anguish, she strained him to her breast. - -"Oh, God!" she whispered brokenly, "you can't go way from me. I'd die." - -He was finding it impossible to pass off his departure as a common, -impersonal blow. He was too near to her to do more than repeat "Poor -little Dot. Poor little Dot." - -"And then what?" she demanded wearily. - -"What do you mean?" - -"You're my whole life, that's all. I'd die for you right now if you said -so. I'd get a knife and kill myself. You can't leave me here." - -Her tone frightened him. - -"These things happen," he said evenly. - -"Then I'm going with you." Tears were streaming down her checks. Her -mouth was trembling in an ecstasy of grief and fear. - -"Sweet," he muttered sentimentally, "sweet little girl. Don't you see -we'd just be putting off what's bound to happen? I'll be going to France -in a few months--" - -She leaned away from him and clinching her fists lifted her face toward -the sky. - -"I want to die," she said, as if moulding each word carefully in her -heart. - -"Dot," he whispered uncomfortably, "you'll forget. Things are sweeter -when they're lost. I know--because once I wanted something and got it. -It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot. And when I got it it -turned to dust in my hands." - -"All right." - -Absorbed in himself, he continued: - -"I've often thought that if I hadn't got what I wanted things might have -been different with me. I might have found something in my mind and -enjoyed putting it in circulation. I might have been content with the -work of it, and had some sweet vanity out of the success. I suppose that -at one time I could have had anything I wanted, within reason, but that -was the only thing I ever wanted with any fervor. God! And that taught -me you can't have _any_thing, you can't have anything at _all_. Because -desire just cheats you. It's like a sunbeam skipping here and there -about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we -poor fools try to grasp it--but when we do the sunbeam moves on to -something else, and you've got the inconsequential part, but the glitter -that made you want it is gone--" He broke off uneasily. She had risen -and was standing, dry-eyed, picking little leaves from a dark vine. - -"Dot--" - -"Go way," she said coldly. "What? Why?" - -"I don't want just words. If that's all you have for me you'd better -go." - -"Why, Dot--" - -"What's death to me is just a lot of words to you. You put 'em together -so pretty." - -"I'm sorry. I was talking about you, Dot." - -"Go way from here." - -He approached her with arms outstretched, but she held him away. - -"You don't want me to go with you," she said evenly; "maybe you're going -to meet that--that girl--" She could not bring herself to say wife. "How -do I know? Well, then, I reckon you're not my fellow any more. So -go way." - -For a moment, while conflicting warnings and desires prompted Anthony, -it seemed one of those rare times when he would take a step prompted -from within. He hesitated. Then a wave of weariness broke against him. -It was too late--everything was too late. For years now he had dreamed -the world away, basing his decisions upon emotions unstable as water. -The little girl in the white dress dominated him, as she approached -beauty in the hard symmetry of her desire. The fire blazing in her dark -and injured heart seemed to glow around her like a flame. With some -profound and uncharted pride she had made herself remote and so achieved -her purpose. - -"I didn't--mean to seem so callous, Dot." - -"It don't matter." - -The fire rolled over Anthony. Something wrenched at his bowels, and he -stood there helpless and beaten. - -"Come with me, Dot--little loving Dot. Oh, come with me. I couldn't -leave you now--" - -With a sob she wound her arms around him and let him support her weight -while the moon, at its perennial labor of covering the bad complexion of -the world, showered its illicit honey over the drowsy street. - - -THE CATASTROPHE - -Early September in Camp Boone, Mississippi. The darkness, alive with -insects, beat in upon the mosquito-netting, beneath the shelter of which -Anthony was trying to write a letter. An intermittent chatter over a -poker game was going on in the next tent, and outside a man was -strolling up the company street singing a current bit of doggerel about -"K-K-K-Katy." - -With an effort Anthony hoisted himself to his elbow and, pencil in hand, -looked down at his blank sheet of paper. Then, omitting any heading, -he began: - -_I can't imagine what the matter is, Gloria. I haven't had a line from -you for two weeks and it's only natural to be worried--_ - -He threw this away with a disturbed grunt and began again: - -_I don't know what to think, Gloria. Your last letter, short, cold, -without a word of affection or even a decent account of what you've been -doing, came two weeks ago. It's only natural that I should wonder. If -your love for me isn't absolutely dead it seems that you'd at least keep -me from worry--_ - -Again he crumpled the page and tossed it angrily through a tear in the -tent wall, realizing simultaneously that he would have to pick it up in -the morning. He felt disinclined to try again. He could get no warmth -into the lines--only a persistent jealousy and suspicion. Since -midsummer these discrepancies in Gloria's correspondence had grown more -and more noticeable. At first he had scarcely perceived them. He was so -inured to the perfunctory "dearest" and "darlings" scattered through her -letters that he was oblivious to their presence or absence. But in this -last fortnight he had become increasingly aware that there was -something amiss. - -He had sent her a night-letter saying that he had passed his -examinations for an officers' training-camp, and expected to leave for -Georgia shortly. She had not answered. He had wired again--when he -received no word he imagined that she might be out of town. But it -occurred and recurred to him that she was not out of town, and a series -of distraught imaginings began to plague him. Supposing Gloria, bored -and restless, had found some one, even as he had. The thought terrified -him with its possibility--it was chiefly because he had been so sure of -her personal integrity that he had considered her so sparingly during -the year. And now, as a doubt was born, the old angers, the rages of -possession, swarmed back a thousandfold. What more natural than that she -should be in love again? - -He remembered the Gloria who promised that should she ever want -anything, she would take it, insisting that since she would act entirely -for her own satisfaction she could go through such an affair -unsmirched--it was only the effect on a person's mind that counted, -anyhow, she said, and her reaction would be the masculine one, of -satiation and faint dislike. - -But that had been when they were first married. Later, with the -discovery that she could be jealous of Anthony, she had, outwardly at -least, changed her mind. There were no other men in the world for her. -This he had known only too surely. Perceiving that a certain -fastidiousness would restrain her, he had grown lax in preserving the -completeness of her love--which, after all, was the keystone of the -entire structure. - -Meanwhile all through the summer he had been maintaining Dot in a -boarding-house down-town. To do this it had been necessary to write to -his broker for money. Dot had covered her journey south by leaving her -house a day before the brigade broke camp, informing her mother in a -note that she had gone to New York. On the evening following Anthony had -called as though to see her. Mrs. Raycroft was in a state of collapse -and there was a policeman in the parlor. A questionnaire had ensued, -from which Anthony had extricated himself with some difficulty. - -In September, with his suspicions of Gloria, the company of Dot had -become tedious, then almost intolerable. He was nervous and irritable -from lack of sleep; his heart was sick and afraid. Three days ago he had -gone to Captain Dunning and asked for a furlough, only to be met with -benignant procrastination. The division was starting overseas, while -Anthony was going to an officers' training-camp; what furloughs could be -given must go to the men who were leaving the country. - -Upon this refusal Anthony had started to the telegraph office intending -to wire Gloria to come South--he reached the door and receded -despairingly, seeing the utter impracticability of such a move. Then he -had spent the evening quarrelling irritably with Dot, and returned to -camp morose and angry with the world. There had been a disagreeable -scene, in the midst of which he had precipitately departed. What was to -be done with her did not seem to concern him vitally at present--he was -completely absorbed in the disheartening silence of his wife.... - -The flap of the tent made a sudden triangle back upon itself, and a dark -head appeared against the night. - -"Sergeant Patch?" The accent was Italian, and Anthony saw by the belt -that the man was a headquarters orderly. - -"Want me?" - -"Lady call up headquarters ten minutes ago. Say she have speak with you. -Ver' important." - -Anthony swept aside the mosquito-netting and stood up. It might be a -wire from Gloria telephoned over. - -"She say to get you. She call again ten o'clock." - -"All right, thanks." He picked up his hat and in a moment was striding -beside the orderly through the hot, almost suffocating, darkness. Over -in the headquarters shack he saluted a dozing night-service officer. - -"Sit down and wait," suggested the lieutenant nonchalantly. "Girl seemed -awful anxious to speak to you." - -Anthony's hopes fell away. - -"Thank you very much, sir." And as the phone squeaked on the side-wall -he knew who was calling. - -"This is Dot," came an unsteady voice, "I've got to see you." - -"Dot, I told you I couldn't get down for several days." - -"I've got to see you to-night. It's important." - -"It's too late," he said coldly; "it's ten o'clock, and I have to be in -camp at eleven." - -"All right." There was so much wretchedness compressed into the two -words that Anthony felt a measure of compunction. - -"What's the matter?" - -"I want to tell you good-by. - -"Oh, don't be a little idiot!" he exclaimed. But his spirits rose. What -luck if she should leave town this very night! What a burden from his -soul. But he said: "You can't possibly leave before to-morrow." - -Out of the corner of his eye he saw the night-service officer regarding -him quizzically. Then, startlingly, came Dot's next words: - -"I don't mean 'leave' that way." - -Anthony's hand clutched the receiver fiercely. He felt his nerves -turning cold as if the heat was leaving his body. - -"What?" - -Then quickly in a wild broken voice he heard: - -"Good-by--oh, good-by!" - -Cul-_lup!_ She had hung up the receiver. With a sound that was half a -gasp, half a cry, Anthony hurried from the headquarters building. -Outside, under the stars that dripped like silver tassels through the -trees of the little grove, he stood motionless, hesitating. Had she -meant to kill herself?--oh, the little fool! He was filled with bitter -hate toward her. In this denouement he found it impossible to realize -that he had ever begun such an entanglement, such a mess, a sordid -melange of worry and pain. - -He found himself walking slowly away, repeating over and over that it -was futile to worry. He had best go back to his tent and sleep. He -needed sleep. God! Would he ever sleep again? His mind was in a vast -clamor and confusion; as he reached the road he turned around in a panic -and began running, not toward his company but away from it. Men were -returning now--he could find a taxicab. After a minute two yellow eyes -appeared around a bend. Desperately he ran toward them. - -"Jitney! Jitney!" ... It was an empty Ford.... "I want to go to town." - -"Cost you a dollar." - -"All right. If you'll just hurry--" - -After an interminable time he ran up the steps of a dark ramshackle -little house, and through the door, almost knocking over an immense -negress who was walking, candle in hand, along the hall. - -"Where's my wife?" he cried wildly. - -"She gone to bed." - -Up the stairs three at a time, down the creaking passage. The room was -dark and silent, and with trembling fingers he struck a match. Two wide -eyes looked up at him from a wretched ball of clothes on the bed. - -"Ah, I knew you'd come," she murmured brokenly. - -Anthony grew cold with anger. - -"So it was just a plan to get me down here, get me in trouble!" he said. -"God damn it, you've shouted 'wolf' once too often!" - -She regarded him pitifully. - -"I had to see you. I couldn't have lived. Oh, I had to see you--" - -He sat down on the side of the bed and slowly shook his head. - -"You're no good," he said decisively, talking unconsciously as Gloria -might have talked to him. "This sort of thing isn't fair to me, -you know." - -"Come closer." Whatever he might say Dot was happy now. He cared for -her. She had brought him to her side. - -"Oh, God," said Anthony hopelessly. As weariness rolled along its -inevitable wave his anger subsided, receded, vanished. He collapsed -suddenly, fell sobbing beside her on the bed. - -"Oh, my darling," she begged him, "don't cry! Oh, don't cry!" - -She took his head upon her breast and soothed him, mingled her happy -tears with the bitterness of his. Her hand played gently with his -dark hair. - -"I'm such a little fool," she murmured brokenly, "but I love you, and -when you're cold to me it seems as if it isn't worth while to go -on livin'." - -After all, this was peace--the quiet room with the mingled scent of -women's powder and perfume, Dot's hand soft as a warm wind upon his -hair, the rise and fall of her bosom as she took breath--for a moment it -was as though it were Gloria there, as though he were at rest in some -sweeter and safer home than he had ever known. - -An hour passed. A clock began to chime in the hall. He jumped to his -feet and looked at the phosphorescent hands of his wrist watch. It was -twelve o'clock. - -He had trouble in finding a taxi that would take him out at that hour. -As he urged the driver faster along the road he speculated on the best -method of entering camp. He had been late several times recently, and he -knew that were he caught again his name would probably be stricken from -the list of officer candidates. He wondered if he had not better dismiss -the taxi and take a chance on passing the sentry in the dark. Still, -officers often rode past the sentries after midnight.... - -"Halt!" The monosyllable came from the yellow glare that the headlights -dropped upon the changing road. The taxi-driver threw out his clutch and -a sentry walked up, carrying his rifle at the port. With him, by an ill -chance, was the officer of the guard. - -"Out late, sergeant." - -"Yes, sir. Got delayed." - -"Too bad. Have to take your name." - -As the officer waited, note-book and pencil in hand, something not fully -intended crowded to Anthony's lips, something born of panic, of muddle, -of despair. - -"Sergeant R.A. Foley," he answered breathlessly. - -"And the outfit?" - -"Company Q, Eighty-third Infantry." - -"All right. You'll have to walk from here, sergeant." - -Anthony saluted, quickly paid his taxi-driver, and set off for a run -toward the regiment he had named. When he was out of sight he changed -his course, and with his heart beating wildly, hurried to his company, -feeling that he had made a fatal error of judgment. - -Two days later the officer who had been in command of the guard -recognized him in a barber shop down-town. In charge of a military -policeman he was taken back to the camp, where he was reduced to the -ranks without trial, and confined for a month to the limits of his -company street. - -With this blow a spell of utter depression overtook him, and within a -week he was again caught down-town, wandering around in a drunken daze, -with a pint of bootleg whiskey in his hip pocket. It was because of a -sort of craziness in his behavior at the trial that his sentence to the -guard-house was for only three weeks. - - -NIGHTMARE - -Early in his confinement the conviction took root in him that he was -going mad. It was as though there were a quantity of dark yet vivid -personalities in his mind, some of them familiar, some of them strange -and terrible, held in check by a little monitor, who sat aloft somewhere -and looked on. The thing that worried him was that the monitor was sick, -and holding out with difficulty. Should he give up, should he falter for -a moment, out would rush these intolerable things--only Anthony could -know what a state of blackness there would be if the worst of him could -roam his consciousness unchecked. - -The heat of the day had changed, somehow, until it was a burnished -darkness crushing down upon a devastated land. Over his head the blue -circles of ominous uncharted suns, of unnumbered centres of fire, -revolved interminably before his eyes as though he were lying constantly -exposed to the hot light and in a state of feverish coma. At seven in -the morning something phantasmal, something almost absurdly unreal that -he knew was his mortal body, went out with seven other prisoners and two -guards to work on the camp roads. One day they loaded and unloaded -quantities of gravel, spread it, raked it--the next day they worked with -huge barrels of red-hot tar, flooding the gravel with black, shining -pools of molten heat. At night, locked up in the guard-house, he would -lie without thought, without courage to compass thought, staring at the -irregular beams of the ceiling overhead until about three o'clock, when -he would slip into a broken, troubled sleep. - -During the work hours he labored with uneasy haste, attempting, as the -day bore toward the sultry Mississippi sunset, to tire himself -physically so that in the evening he might sleep deeply from utter -exhaustion.... Then one afternoon in the second week he had a feeling -that two eyes were watching him from a place a few feet beyond one of -the guards. This aroused him to a sort of terror. He turned his back on -the eyes and shovelled feverishly, until it became necessary for him to -face about and go for more gravel. Then they entered his vision again, -and his already taut nerves tightened up to the breaking-point. The eyes -were leering at him. Out of a hot silence he heard his name called in a -tragic voice, and the earth tipped absurdly back and forth to a babel of -shouting and confusion. - -When next he became conscious he was back in the guard-house, and the -other prisoners were throwing him curious glances. The eyes returned no -more. It was many days before he realized that the voice must have been -Dot's, that she had called out to him and made some sort of disturbance. -He decided this just previous to the expiration of his sentence, when -the cloud that oppressed him had lifted, leaving him in a deep, -dispirited lethargy. As the conscious mediator, the monitor who kept -that fearsome menage of horror, grew stronger, Anthony became physically -weaker. He was scarcely able to get through the two days of toil, and -when he was released, one rainy afternoon, and returned to his company, -he reached his tent only to fall into a heavy doze, from which he awoke -before dawn, aching and unrefreshed. Beside his cot were two letters -that had been awaiting him in the orderly tent for some time. The first -was from Gloria; it was short and cool: - - * * * * * - -_The case is coming to trial late in November. Can you possibly get -leave?_ - -_I've tried to write you again and again but it just seems to make -things worse. I want to see you about several matters, but you know that -you have once prevented me from coming and I am disinclined to try -again. In view of a number of things it seems necessary that we have a -conference. I'm very glad about your appointment._ - -GLORIA. - - * * * * * - -He was too tired to try to understand--or to care. Her phrases, her -intentions, were all very far away in an incomprehensible past. At the -second letter he scarcely glanced; it was from Dot--an incoherent, -tear-swollen scrawl, a flood of protest, endearment, and grief. After a -page he let it slip from his inert hand and drowsed back into a nebulous -hinterland of his own. At drill-call he awoke with a high fever and -fainted when he tried to leave his tent--at noon he was sent to the base -hospital with influenza. - -He was aware that this sickness was providential. It saved him from a -hysterical relapse--and he recovered in time to entrain on a damp -November day for New York, and for the interminable massacre beyond. - -When the regiment reached Camp Mills, Long Island, Anthony's single idea -was to get into the city and see Gloria as soon as possible. It was now -evident that an armistice would be signed within the week, but rumor had -it that in any case troops would continue to be shipped to France until -the last moment. Anthony was appalled at the notion of the long voyage, -of a tedious debarkation at a French port, and of being kept abroad for -a year, possibly, to replace the troops who had seen actual fighting. - -His intention had been to obtain a two-day furlough, but Camp Mills -proved to be under a strict influenza quarantine--it was impossible for -even an officer to leave except on official business. For a private it -was out of the question. - -The camp itself was a dreary muddle, cold, wind-swept, and filthy, with -the accumulated dirt incident to the passage through of many divisions. -Their train came in at seven one night, and they waited in line until -one while a military tangle was straightened out somewhere ahead. -Officers ran up and down ceaselessly, calling orders and making a great -uproar. It turned out that the trouble was due to the colonel, who was -in a righteous temper because he was a West Pointer, and the war was -going to stop before he could get overseas. Had the militant governments -realized the number of broken hearts among the older West Pointers -during that week, they would indubitably have prolonged the slaughter -another month. The thing was pitiable! - -Gazing out at the bleak expanse of tents extending for miles over a -trodden welter of slush and snow, Anthony saw the impracticability of -trudging to a telephone that night. He would call her at the first -opportunity in the morning. - -Aroused in the chill and bitter dawn he stood at reveille and listened -to a passionate harangue from Captain Dunning: - -"You men may think the war is over. Well, let me tell you, it isn't! -Those fellows aren't going to sign the armistice. It's another trick, -and we'd be crazy to let anything slacken up here in the company, -because, let me tell you, we're going to sail from here within a week, -and when we do we're going to see some real fighting." He paused that -they might get the full effect of his pronouncement. And then: "If you -think the war's over, just talk to any one who's been in it and see if -_they_ think the Germans are all in. They don't. Nobody does. I've -talked to the people that _know_, and they say there'll be, anyways, a -year longer of war. _They_ don't think it's over. So you men better not -get any foolish ideas that it is." - -Doubly stressing this final admonition, he ordered the company -dismissed. - -At noon Anthony set off at a run for the nearest canteen telephone. As -he approached what corresponded to the down-town of the camp, he noticed -that many other soldiers were running also, that a man near him had -suddenly leaped into the air and clicked his heels together. The -tendency to run became general, and from little excited groups here and -there came the sounds of cheering. He stopped and listened--over the -cold country whistles were blowing and the chimes of the Garden City -churches broke suddenly into reverberatory sound. - -Anthony began to run again. The cries were clear and distinct now as -they rose with clouds of frosted breath into the chilly air: - -_"Germany's surrendered! Germany's surrendered!"_ - - -THE FALSE ARMISTICE - -That evening in the opaque gloom of six o'clock Anthony slipped between -two freight-cars, and once over the railroad, followed the track along -to Garden City, where he caught an electric train for New York. He stood -some chance of apprehension--he knew that the military police were often -sent through the cars to ask for passes, but he imagined that to-night -the vigilance would be relaxed. But, in any event, he would have tried -to slip through, for he had been unable to locate Gloria by telephone, -and another day of suspense would have been intolerable. - -After inexplicable stops and waits that reminded him of the night he had -left New York, over a year before, they drew into the Pennsylvania -Station, and he followed the familiar way to the taxi-stand, finding it -grotesque and oddly stimulating to give his own address. - -Broadway was a riot of light, thronged as he had never seen it with a -carnival crowd which swept its glittering way through scraps of paper, -piled ankle-deep on the sidewalks. Here and there, elevated upon benches -and boxes, soldiers addressed the heedless mass, each face in which was -clear cut and distinct under the white glare overhead. Anthony picked -out half a dozen figures--a drunken sailor, tipped backward and -supported by two other gobs, was waving his hat and emitting a wild -series of roars; a wounded soldier, crutch in hand, was borne along in -an eddy on the shoulders of some shrieking civilians; a dark-haired girl -sat cross-legged and meditative on top of a parked taxicab. Here surely -the victory had come in time, the climax had been scheduled with the -uttermost celestial foresight. The great rich nation had made triumphant -war, suffered enough for poignancy but not enough for bitterness--hence -the carnival, the feasting, the triumph. Under these bright lights -glittered the faces of peoples whose glory had long since passed away, -whose very civilizations were dead-men whose ancestors had heard the -news of victory in Babylon, in Nineveh, in Bagdad, in Tyre, a hundred -generations before; men whose ancestors had seen a flower-decked, -slave-adorned cortege drift with its wake of captives down the avenues -of Imperial Rome.... - -Past the Rialto, the glittering front of the Astor, the jewelled -magnificence of Times Square ... a gorgeous alley of incandescence -ahead.... Then--was it years later?--he was paying the taxi-driver in -front of a white building on Fifty-seventh Street. He was in the -hall--ah, there was the negro boy from Martinique, lazy, indolent, -unchanged. - -"Is Mrs. Patch in?" - -"I have just came on, sah," the man announced with his incongruous -British accent. - -"Take me up--" - -Then the slow drone of the elevator, the three steps to the door, which -swung open at the impetus of his knock. - -"Gloria!" His voice was trembling. No answer. A faint string of smoke -was rising from a cigarette-tray--a number of Vanity Fair sat astraddle -on the table. - -"Gloria!" - -He ran into the bedroom, the bath. She was not there. A negligee of -robin's-egg blue laid out upon the bed diffused a faint perfume, -illusive and familiar. On a chair were a pair of stockings and a street -dress; an open powder box yawned upon the bureau. She must just -have gone out. - -The telephone rang abruptly and he started--answered it with all the -sensations of an impostor. - -"Hello. Is Mrs. Patch there?" - -"No, I'm looking for her myself. Who is this?" - -"This is Mr. Crawford." - -"This is Mr. Patch speaking. I've just arrived unexpectedly, and I don't -know where to find her." - -"Oh." Mr. Crawford sounded a bit taken aback. "Why, I imagine she's at -the Armistice Ball. I know she intended going, but I didn't think she'd -leave so early." - -"Where's the Armistice Ball?" - -"At the Astor." - -"Thanks." - -Anthony hung up sharply and rose. Who was Mr. Crawford? And who was it -that was taking her to the ball? How long had this been going on? All -these questions asked and answered themselves a dozen times, a dozen -ways. His very proximity to her drove him half frantic. - -In a frenzy of suspicion he rushed here and there about the apartment, -hunting for some sign of masculine occupation, opening the bathroom -cupboard, searching feverishly through the bureau drawers. Then he found -something that made him stop suddenly and sit down on one of the twin -beds, the corners of his mouth drooping as though he were about to weep. -There in a corner of her drawer, tied with a frail blue ribbon, were all -the letters and telegrams he had written her during the year past. He -was suffused with happy and sentimental shame. - -"I'm not fit to touch her," he cried aloud to the four walls. "I'm not -fit to touch her little hand." - -Nevertheless, he went out to look for her. - -In the Astor lobby he was engulfed immediately in a crowd so thick as to -make progress almost impossible. He asked the direction of the ballroom -from half a dozen people before he could get a sober and intelligible -answer. Eventually, after a last long wait, he checked his military -overcoat in the hall. - -It was only nine but the dance was in full blast. The panorama was -incredible. Women, women everywhere--girls gay with wine singing shrilly -above the clamor of the dazzling confetti-covered throng; girls set off -by the uniforms of a dozen nations; fat females collapsing without -dignity upon the floor and retaining self-respect by shouting "Hurraw -for the Allies!"; three women with white hair dancing hand in hand -around a sailor, who revolved in a dizzying spin upon the floor, -clasping to his heart an empty bottle of champagne. - -Breathlessly Anthony scanned the dancers, scanned the muddled lines -trailing in single file in and out among the tables, scanned the -horn-blowing, kissing, coughing, laughing, drinking parties under the -great full-bosomed flags which leaned in glowing color over the -pageantry and the sound. - -Then he saw Gloria. She was sitting at a table for two directly across -the room. Her dress was black, and above it her animated face, tinted -with the most glamourous rose, made, he thought, a spot of poignant -beauty on the room. His heart leaped as though to a new music. He -jostled his way toward her and called her name just as the gray eyes -looked up and found him. For that instant as their bodies met and -melted, the world, the revel, the tumbling whimper of the music faded to -an ecstatic monotone hushed as a song of bees. - -"Oh, my Gloria!" he cried. - -Her kiss was a cool rill flowing from her heart. - - - -CHAPTER II - - -A MATTER OF AESTHETICS - -On the night when Anthony had left for Camp Hooker one year before, all -that was left of the beautiful Gloria Gilbert--her shell, her young and -lovely body--moved up the broad marble steps of the Grand Central -Station with the rhythm of the engine beating in her ears like a dream, -and out onto Vanderbilt Avenue, where the huge bulk of the Biltmore -overhung, the street and, down at its low, gleaming entrance, sucked in -the many-colored opera-cloaks of gorgeously dressed girls. For a moment -she paused by the taxi-stand and watched them--wondering that but a few -years before she had been of their number, ever setting out for a -radiant Somewhere, always just about to have that ultimate passionate -adventure for which the girls' cloaks were delicate and beautifully -furred, for which their cheeks were painted and their hearts higher than -the transitory dome of pleasure that would engulf them, coiffure, -cloak, and all. - -It was growing colder and the men passing had flipped up the collars of -their overcoats. This change was kind to her. It would have been kinder -still had everything changed, weather, streets, and people, and had she -been whisked away, to wake in some high, fresh-scented room, alone, and -statuesque within and without, as in her virginal and colorful past. - -Inside the taxicab she wept impotent tears. That she had not been happy -with Anthony for over a year mattered little. Recently his presence had -been no more than what it would awake in her of that memorable June. The -Anthony of late, irritable, weak, and poor, could do no less than make -her irritable in turn--and bored with everything except the fact that in -a highly imaginative and eloquent youth they had come together in an -ecstatic revel of emotion. Because of this mutually vivid memory she -would have done more for Anthony than for any other human--so when she -got into the taxicab she wept passionately, and wanted to call his -name aloud. - -Miserable, lonesome as a forgotten child, she sat in the quiet apartment -and wrote him a letter full of confused sentiment: - - * * * * * - -... _I can almost look down the tracks and see you going but without -you, dearest, dearest, I can't see or hear or feel or think. Being -apart--whatever has happened or will happen to us--is like begging for -mercy from a storm, Anthony; it's like growing old. I want to kiss you -so--in the back of your neck where your old black hair starts. Because I -love you and whatever we do or say to each other, or have done, or have -said, you've got to feel how much I do, how inanimate I am when you're -gone. I can't even hate the damnable presence of PEOPLE, those people in -the station who haven't any right to live--I can't resent them even -though they're dirtying up our world, because I'm engrossed in -wanting you so._ - -_If you hated me, if you were covered with sores like a leper, if you -ran away with another woman or starved me or beat me--how absurd this -sounds--I'd still want you, I'd still love you. I_ KNOW, _my darling._ - -_It's late--I have all the windows open and the air outside, is just as -soft as spring, yet, somehow, much more young and frail than spring. Why -do they make spring a young girl, why does that illusion dance and yodel -its way for three months through the world's preposterous barrenness. -Spring is a lean old plough horse with its ribs showing--it's a pile of -refuse in a field, parched by the sun and the rain to an ominous -cleanliness._ - -_In a few hours you'll wake up, my darling--and you'll be miserable, and -disgusted with life. You'll be in Delaware or Carolina or somewhere and -so unimportant. I don't believe there's any one alive who can -contemplate themselves as an impermanent institution, as a luxury or an -unnecessary evil. Very few of the people who accentuate the futility of -life remark the futility of themselves. Perhaps they think that in -proclaiming the evil of living they somehow salvage their own worth from -the ruin--but they don't, even you and I...._ - -_ ... Still I can see you. There's blue haze about the trees where -you'll be passing, too beautiful to be predominant. No, the fallow -squares of earth will be most frequent--they'll be along beside the -track like dirty coarse brown sheets drying in the sun, alive, -mechanical, abominable. Nature, slovenly old hag, has been sleeping in -them with every old farmer or negro or immigrant who happened to -covet her...._ - -_So you see that now you're gone I've written a letter all full of -contempt and despair. And that just means that I love you, Anthony, with -all there is to love with in your_ - -GLORIA. - - * * * * * - -When she had addressed the letter she went to her twin bed and lay down -upon it, clasping Anthony's pillow in her arms as though by sheer force -of emotion she could metamorphize it into his warm and living body. Two -o'clock saw her dry-eyed, staring with steady persistent grief into the -darkness, remembering, remembering unmercifully, blaming herself for a -hundred fancied unkindnesses, making a likeness of Anthony akin to some -martyred and transfigured Christ. For a time she thought of him as he, -in his more sentimental moments, probably thought of himself. - -At five she was still awake. A mysterious grinding noise that went on -every morning across the areaway told her the hour. She heard an alarm -clock ring, and saw a light make a yellow square on an illusory blank -wall opposite. With the half-formed resolution of following him South -immediately, her sorrow grew remote and unreal, and moved off from her -as the dark moved westward. She fell asleep. - -When she awoke the sight of the empty bed beside her brought a renewal -of misery, dispelled shortly, however, by the inevitable callousness of -the bright morning. Though she was not conscious of it, there was relief -in eating breakfast without Anthony's tired and worried face opposite -her. Now that she was alone she lost all desire to complain about the -food. She would change her breakfasts, she thought--have a lemonade and -a tomato sandwich instead of the sempiternal bacon and eggs and toast. - -Nevertheless, at noon when she had called up several of her -acquaintances, including the martial Muriel, and found each one engaged -for lunch, she gave way to a quiet pity for herself and her loneliness. -Curled on the bed with pencil and paper she wrote Anthony -another letter. - -Late in the afternoon arrived a special delivery, mailed from some small -New Jersey town, and the familiarity of the phrasing, the almost audible -undertone of worry and discontent, were so familiar that they comforted -her. Who knew? Perhaps army discipline would harden Anthony and accustom -him to the idea of work. She had immutable faith that the war would be -over before he was called upon to fight, and meanwhile the suit would be -won, and they could begin again, this time on a different basis. The -first thing different would be that she would have a child. It was -unbearable that she should be so utterly alone. - -It was a week before she could stay in the apartment with the -probability of remaining dry-eyed. There seemed little in the city that -was amusing. Muriel had been shifted to a hospital in New Jersey, from -which she took a metropolitan holiday only every other week, and with -this defection Gloria grew to realize how few were the friends she had -made in all these years of New York. The men she knew were in the army. -"Men she knew"?--she had conceded vaguely to herself that all the men -who had ever been in love with her were her friends. Each one of them -had at a certain considerable time professed to value her favor above -anything in life. But now--where were they? At least two were dead, half -a dozen or more were married, the rest scattered from France to the -Philippines. She wondered whether any of them thought of her, and how -often, and in what respect. Most of them must still picture the little -girl of seventeen or so, the adolescent siren of nine years before. - -The girls, too, were gone far afield. She had never been popular in -school. She had been too beautiful, too lazy, not sufficiently conscious -of being a Farmover girl and a "Future Wife and Mother" in perpetual -capital letters. And girls who had never been kissed hinted, with -shocked expressions on their plain but not particularly wholesome faces, -that Gloria had. Then these girls had gone east or west or south, -married and become "people," prophesying, if they prophesied about -Gloria, that she would come to a bad end--not knowing that no endings -were bad, and that they, like her, were by no means the mistresses of -their destinies. - -Gloria told over to herself the people who had visited them in the gray -house at Marietta. It had seemed at the time that they were always -having company--she had indulged in an unspoken conviction that each -guest was ever afterward slightly indebted to her. They owed her a sort -of moral ten dollars apiece, and should she ever be in need she might, -so to speak, borrow from them this visionary currency. But they were -gone, scattered like chaff, mysteriously and subtly vanished in essence -or in fact. - -By Christmas, Gloria's conviction that she should join Anthony had -returned, no longer as a sudden emotion, but as a recurrent need. She -decided to write him word of her coming, but postponed the announcement -upon the advice of Mr. Haight, who expected almost weekly that the case -was coming up for trial. - -One day, early in January, as she was walking on Fifth Avenue, bright -now with uniforms and hung with the flags of the virtuous nations, she -met Rachael Barnes, whom she had not seen for nearly a year. Even -Rachael, whom she had grown to dislike, was a relief from ennui, and -together they went to the Ritz for tea. - -After a second cocktail they became enthusiastic. They liked each other. -They talked about their husbands, Rachael in that tone of public -vainglory, with private reservations, in which wives are wont to speak. - -"Rodman's abroad in the Quartermaster Corps. He's a captain. He was -bound he would go, and he didn't think he could get into anything else." - -"Anthony's in the Infantry." The words in their relation to the cocktail -gave Gloria a sort of glow. With each sip she approached a warm and -comforting patriotism. - -"By the way," said Rachael half an hour later, as they were leaving, -"can't you come up to dinner to-morrow night? I'm having two awfully -sweet officers who are just going overseas. I think we ought to do all -we can to make it attractive for them." - -Gloria accepted gladly. She took down the address--recognizing by its -number a fashionable apartment building on Park Avenue. - -"It's been awfully good to have seen you, Rachael." - -"It's been wonderful. I've wanted to." - -With these three sentences a certain night in Marietta two summers -before, when Anthony and Rachael had been unnecessarily attentive to -each other, was forgiven--Gloria forgave Rachael, Rachael forgave -Gloria. Also it was forgiven that Rachael had been witness to the -greatest disaster in the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Patch-- - -Compromising with events time moves along. - - -THE WILES OF CAPTAIN COLLINS - -The two officers were captains of the popular craft, machine gunnery. At -dinner they referred to themselves with conscious boredom as members of -the "Suicide Club"--in those days every recondite branch of the service -referred to itself as the Suicide Club. One of the captains--Rachael's -captain, Gloria observed--was a tall horsy man of thirty with a pleasant -mustache and ugly teeth. The other, Captain Collins, was chubby, -pink-faced, and inclined to laugh with abandon every time he caught -Gloria's eye. He took an immediate fancy to her, and throughout dinner -showered her with inane compliments. With her second glass of champagne -Gloria decided that for the first time in months she was thoroughly -enjoying herself. - -After dinner it was suggested that they all go somewhere and dance. The -two officers supplied themselves with bottles of liquor from Rachael's -sideboard--a law forbade service to the military--and so equipped they -went through innumerable fox trots in several glittering caravanseries -along Broadway, faithfully alternating partners--while Gloria became -more and more uproarious and more and more amusing to the pink-faced -captain, who seldom bothered to remove his genial smile at all. - -At eleven o'clock to her great surprise she was in the minority for -staying out. The others wanted to return to Rachael's apartment--to get -some more liquor, they said. Gloria argued persistently that Captain -Collins's flask was half full--she had just seen it--then catching -Rachael's eye she received an unmistakable wink. She deduced, -confusedly, that her hostess wanted to get rid of the officers and -assented to being bundled into a taxicab outside. - -Captain Wolf sat on the left with Rachael on his knees. Captain Collins -sat in the middle, and as he settled himself he slipped his arm about -Gloria's shoulder. It rested there lifelessly for a moment and then -tightened like a vise. He leaned over her. - -"You're awfully pretty," he whispered. - -"Thank you kindly, sir." She was neither pleased nor annoyed. Before -Anthony came so many arms had done likewise that it had become little -more than a gesture, sentimental but without significance. - -Up in Rachael's long front room a low fire and two lamps shaded with -orange silk gave all the light, so that the corners were full of deep and -somnolent shadows. The hostess, moving about in a dark-figured gown of -loose chiffon, seemed to accentuate the already sensuous atmosphere. For -a while they were all four together, tasting the sandwiches that waited -on the tea table--then Gloria found herself alone with Captain Collins -on the fireside lounge; Rachael and Captain Wolf had withdrawn to the -other side of the room, where they were conversing in subdued voices. - -"I wish you weren't married," said Collins, his face a ludicrous -travesty of "in all seriousness." - -"Why?" She held out her glass to be filled with a high-ball. - -"Don't drink any more," he urged her, frowning. - -"Why not?" - -"You'd be nicer--if you didn't." - -Gloria caught suddenly the intended suggestion of the remark, the -atmosphere he was attempting to create. She wanted to laugh--yet she -realized that there was nothing to laugh at. She had been enjoying the -evening, and she had no desire to go home--at the same time it hurt her -pride to be flirted with on just that level. - -"Pour me another drink," she insisted. - -"Please--" - -"Oh, don't be ridiculous!" she cried in exasperation. - -"Very well." He yielded with ill grace. - -Then his arm was about her again, and again she made no protest. But -when his pink cheek came close she leaned away. - -"You're awfully sweet," he said with an aimless air. - -She began to sing softly, wishing now that he would take down his arm. -Suddenly her eye fell on an intimate scene across the room--Rachael and -Captain Wolf were engrossed in a long kiss. Gloria shivered -slightly--she knew not why.... Pink face approached again. - -"You shouldn't look at them," he whispered. Almost immediately his other -arm was around her ... his breath was on her cheek. Again absurdity -triumphed over disgust, and her laugh was a weapon that needed no -edge of words. - -"Oh, I thought you were a sport," he was saying. - -"What's a sport?" - -"Why, a person that likes to--to enjoy life." - -"Is kissing you generally considered a joyful affair?" - -They were interrupted as Rachael and Captain Wolf appeared suddenly -before them. - -"It's late, Gloria," said Rachael--she was flushed and her hair was -dishevelled. "You'd better stay here all night." - -For an instant Gloria thought the officers were being dismissed. Then -she understood, and, understanding, got to her feet as casually as -she was able. - -Uncomprehendingly Rachael continued: - -"You can have the room just off this one. I can lend you everything you -need." - -Collins's eyes implored her like a dog's; Captain Wolf's arm had settled -familiarly around Rachael's waist; they were waiting. - -But the lure of promiscuity, colorful, various, labyrinthine, and ever a -little odorous and stale, had no call or promise for Gloria. Had she so -desired she would have remained, without hesitation, without regret; as -it was she could face coolly the six hostile and offended eyes that -followed her out into the hall with forced politeness and hollow words. - -"_He_ wasn't even sport, enough to try to take me home," she thought in -the taxi, and then with a quick surge of resentment: "How -_utterly_ common!" - - -GALLANTRY - -In February she had an experience of quite a different sort. Tudor -Baird, an ancient flame, a young man whom at one time she had fully -intended to marry, came to New York by way of the Aviation Corps, and -called upon her. They went several times to the theatre, and within a -week, to her great enjoyment, he was as much in love with her as ever. -Quite deliberately she brought it about, realizing too late that she had -done a mischief. He reached the point of sitting with her in miserable -silence whenever they went out together. - -A Scroll and Keys man at Yale, he possessed the correct reticences of a -"good egg," the correct notions of chivalry and _noblesse oblige_--and, -of course but unfortunately, the correct biases and the correct lack of -ideas--all those traits which Anthony had taught her to despise, but -which, nevertheless, she rather admired. Unlike the majority of his -type, she found that he was not a bore. He was handsome, witty in a -light way, and when she was with him she felt that because of some -quality he possessed--call it stupidity, loyalty, sentimentality, or -something not quite as definite as any of the three--he would have done -anything in his power to please her. - -He told her this among other things, very correctly and with a ponderous -manliness that masked a real suffering. Loving him not at all she grew -sorry for him and kissed him sentimentally one night because he was so -charming, a relic of a vanishing generation which lived a priggish and -graceful illusion and was being replaced by less gallant fools. -Afterward she was glad she had kissed him, for next day when his plane -fell fifteen hundred feet at Mineola a piece of a gasolene engine -smashed through his heart. - - -GLORIA ALONE - -When Mr. Haight told her that the trial would not take place until -autumn she decided that without telling Anthony she would go into the -movies. When he saw her successful, both histrionically and financially, -when he saw that she could have her will of Joseph Bloeckman, yielding -nothing in return, he would lose his silly prejudices. She lay awake -half one night planning her career and enjoying her successes in -anticipation, and the next morning she called up "Films Par Excellence." -Mr. Bloeckman was in Europe. - -But the idea had gripped her so strongly this time that she decided to -go the rounds of the moving picture employment agencies. As so often had -been the case, her sense of smell worked against her good intentions. -The employment agency smelt as though it had been dead a very long time. -She waited five minutes inspecting her unprepossessing competitors--then -she walked briskly out into the farthest recesses of Central Park and -remained so long that she caught a cold. She was trying to air the -employment agency out of her walking suit. - -In the spring she began to gather from Anthony's letters--not from any -one in particular but from their culminative effect--that he did not -want her to come South. Curiously repeated excuses that seemed to haunt -him by their very insufficiency occurred with Freudian regularity. He -set them down in each letter as though he feared he had forgotten them -the last time, as though it were desperately necessary to impress her -with them. And the dilutions of his letters with affectionate -diminutives began to be mechanical and unspontaneous--almost as though, -having completed the letter, he had looked it over and literally stuck -them in, like epigrams in an Oscar Wilde play. She jumped to the -solution, rejected it, was angry and depressed by turns--finally she -shut her mind to it proudly, and allowed an increasing coolness to creep -into her end of the correspondence. - -Of late she had found a good deal to occupy her attention. Several -aviators whom she had met through Tudor Baird came into New York to see -her and two other ancient beaux turned up, stationed at Camp Dix. As -these men were ordered overseas they, so to speak, handed her down to -their friends. But after another rather disagreeable experience with a -potential Captain Collins she made it plain that when any one was -introduced to her he should be under no misapprehensions as to her -status and personal intentions. - -When summer came she learned, like Anthony, to watch the officers' -casualty list, taking a sort of melancholy pleasure in hearing of the -death of some one with whom she had once danced a german and in -identifying by name the younger brothers of former suitors--thinking, as -the drive toward Paris progressed, that here at length went the world to -inevitable and well-merited destruction. - -She was twenty-seven. Her birthday fled by scarcely noticed. Years -before it had frightened her when she became twenty, to some extent when -she reached twenty-six--but now she looked in the glass with calm -self-approval seeing the British freshness of her complexion and her -figure boyish and slim as of old. - -She tried not to think of Anthony. It was as though she were writing to -a stranger. She told her friends that he had been made a corporal and -was annoyed when they were politely unimpressed. One night she wept -because she was sorry for him--had he been even slightly responsive she -would have gone to him without hesitation on the first train-whatever he -was doing he needed to be taken care of spiritually, and she felt that -now she would be able to do even that. Recently, without his continual -drain upon her moral strength she found herself wonderfully revived. -Before he left she had been inclined through sheer association to brood -on her wasted opportunities--now she returned to her normal state of -mind, strong, disdainful, existing each day for each day's worth. She -bought a doll and dressed it; one week she wept over "Ethan Frome"; the -next she revelled in some novels of Galsworthy's, whom she liked for his -power of recreating, by spring in darkness, that illusion of young -romantic love to which women look forever forward and forever back. - -In October Anthony's letters multiplied, became almost frantic--then -suddenly ceased. For a worried month it needed all her powers of control -to refrain from leaving immediately for Mississippi. Then a telegram -told her that he had been in the hospital and that she could expect him -in New York within ten days. Like a figure in a dream he came back into -her life across the ballroom on that November evening--and all through -long hours that held familiar gladness she took him close to her breast, -nursing an illusion of happiness and security she had not thought that -she would know again. - - -DISCOMFITURE OF THE GENERALS - -After a week Anthony's regiment went back to the Mississippi camp to be -discharged. The officers shut themselves up in the compartments on the -Pullman cars and drank the whiskey they had bought in New York, and in -the coaches the soldiers got as drunk as possible also--and pretended -whenever the train stopped at a village that they were just returned -from France, where they had practically put an end to the German army. -As they all wore overseas caps and claimed that they had not had time to -have their gold service stripes sewed on, the yokelry of the seaboard -were much impressed and asked them how they liked the trenches--to which -they replied "Oh, _boy!_" with great smacking of tongues and shaking of -heads. Some one took a piece of chalk and scrawled on the side of the -train, "We won the war--now we're going home," and the officers laughed -and let it stay. They were all getting what swagger they could out of -this ignominious return. - -As they rumbled on toward camp, Anthony was uneasy lest he should find -Dot awaiting him patiently at the station. To his relief he neither saw -nor heard anything of her and thinking that were she still in town she -would certainly attempt to communicate with him, he concluded that she -had gone--whither he neither knew nor cared. He wanted only to return to -Gloria--Gloria reborn and wonderfully alive. When eventually he was -discharged he left his company on the rear of a great truck with a crowd -who had given tolerant, almost sentimental, cheers for their officers, -especially for Captain Dunning. The captain, on his part, had addressed -them with tears in his eyes as to the pleasure, etc., and the work, -etc., and time not wasted, etc., and duty, etc. It was very dull and -human; having given ear to it Anthony, whose mind was freshened by his -week in New York, renewed his deep loathing for the military profession -and all it connoted. In their childish hearts two out of every three -professional officers considered that wars were made for armies and not -armies for wars. He rejoiced to see general and field-officers riding -desolately about the barren camp deprived of their commands. He rejoiced -to hear the men in his company laugh scornfully at the inducements -tendered them to remain in the army. They were to attend "schools." He -knew what these "schools" were. - -Two days later he was with Gloria in New York. - - -ANOTHER WINTER - -Late one February afternoon Anthony came into the apartment and groping -through the little hall, pitch-dark in the winter dusk, found Gloria -sitting by the window. She turned as he came in. - -"What did Mr. Haight have to say?" she asked listlessly. - -"Nothing," he answered, "usual thing. Next month, perhaps." - -She looked at him closely; her ear attuned to his voice caught the -slightest thickness in the dissyllable. - -"You've been drinking," she remarked dispassionately. - -"Couple glasses." - -"Oh." - -He yawned in the armchair and there was a moment's silence between them. -Then she demanded suddenly: - -"Did you go to Mr. Haight? Tell me the truth." - -"No." He smiled weakly. "As a matter of fact I didn't have time." - -"I thought you didn't go.... He sent for you." - -"I don't give a damn. I'm sick of waiting around his office. You'd think -he was doing _me_ a favor." He glanced at Gloria as though expecting -moral support, but she had turned back to her contemplation of the -dubious and unprepossessing out-of-doors. - -"I feel rather weary of life to-day," he offered tentatively. Still she -was silent. "I met a fellow and we talked in the Biltmore bar." - -The dusk had suddenly deepened but neither of them made any move to turn -on the lights. Lost in heaven knew what contemplation, they sat there -until a flurry of snow drew a languid sigh from Gloria. - -"What've you been doing?" he asked, finding the silence oppressive. - -"Reading a magazine--all full of idiotic articles by prosperous authors -about how terrible it is for poor people to buy silk shirts. And while I -was reading it I could think of nothing except how I wanted a gray -squirrel coat--and how we can't afford one." - -"Yes, we can." - -"Oh, no." - -"Oh, yes! If you want a fur coat you can have one." - -Her voice coming through the dark held an implication of scorn. - -"You mean we can sell another bond?" - -"If necessary. I don't want to go without things. We have spent a lot, -though, since I've been back." - -"Oh, shut up!" she said in irritation. - -"Why?" - -"Because I'm sick and tired of hearing you talk about what we've spent -or what we've done. You came back two months ago and we've been on some -sort of a party practically every night since. We've both wanted to go -out, and we've gone. Well, you haven't heard me complain, have you? But -all you do is whine, whine, whine. I don't care any more what we do or -what becomes of us and at least I'm consistent. But I will _not_ -tolerate your complaining and calamity-howling----" - -"You're not very pleasant yourself sometimes, you know." - -"I'm under no obligations to be. You're not making any attempt to make -things different." - -"But I am--" - -"Huh! Seems to me I've heard that before. This morning you weren't going -to touch another thing to drink until you'd gotten a position. And you -didn't even have the spunk to go to Mr. Haight when he sent for you -about the suit." - -Anthony got to his feet and switched on the lights. - -"See here!" he cried, blinking, "I'm getting sick of that sharp tongue -of yours." - -"Well, what are you going to do about it?" - -"Do you think _I'm_ particularly happy?" he continued, ignoring her -question. "Do you think I don't know we're not living as we ought to?" - -In an instant Gloria stood trembling beside him. - -"I won't _stand_ it!" she burst out. "I won't be lectured to. You and -your suffering! You're just a pitiful weakling and you always -have been!" - -They faced one another idiotically, each of them unable to impress the -other, each of them tremendously, achingly, bored. Then she went into -the bedroom and shut the door behind her. - -His return had brought into the foreground all their pre-bellum -exasperations. Prices had risen alarmingly and in perverse ratio their -income had shrunk to a little over half of its original size. There had -been the large retainer's fee to Mr. Haight; there were stocks bought at -one hundred, now down to thirty and forty and other investments that -were not paying at all. During the previous spring Gloria had been given -the alternative of leaving the apartment or of signing a year's lease at -two hundred and twenty-five a month. She had signed it. Inevitably as -the necessity for economy had increased they found themselves as a pair -quite unable to save. The old policy of prevarication was resorted to. -Weary of their incapabilities they chattered of what they would -do--oh--to-morrow, of how they would "stop going on parties" and of how -Anthony would go to work. But when dark came down Gloria, accustomed to -an engagement every night, would feel the ancient restlessness creeping -over her. She would stand in the doorway of the bedroom, chewing -furiously at her fingers and sometimes meeting Anthony's eyes as he -glanced up from his book. Then the telephone, and her nerves would -relax, she would answer it with ill-concealed eagerness. Some one was -coming up "for just a few minutes"--and oh, the weariness of pretense, -the appearance of the wine table, the revival of their jaded -spirits--and the awakening, like the mid-point of a sleepless night in -which they moved. - -As the winter passed with the march of the returning troops along Fifth -Avenue they became more and more aware that since Anthony's return their -relations had entirely changed. After that reflowering of tenderness and -passion each of them had returned into some solitary dream unshared by -the other and what endearments passed between them passed, it seemed, -from empty heart to empty heart, echoing hollowly the departure of what -they knew at last was gone. - -Anthony had again made the rounds of the metropolitan newspapers and had -again been refused encouragement by a motley of office boys, telephone -girls, and city editors. The word was: "We're keeping any vacancies open -for our own men who are still in France." Then, late in March, his eye -fell on an advertisement in the morning paper and in consequence he -found at last the semblance of an occupation. - - * * * * * - -YOU CAN SELL!!! - -_Why not earn while you learn?_ - -_Our salesmen make $50-$200 weekly_. - - * * * * * - -There followed an address on Madison Avenue, and instructions to appear -at one o'clock that afternoon. Gloria, glancing over his shoulder after -one of their usual late breakfasts, saw him regarding it idly. - -"Why don't you try it?" she suggested. - -"Oh--it's one of these crazy schemes." - -"It might not be. At least it'd be experience." - -At her urging he went at one o'clock to the appointed address, where he -found himself one of a dense miscellany of men waiting in front of the -door. They ranged from a messenger-boy evidently misusing his company's -time to an immemorial individual with a gnarled body and a gnarled cane. -Some of the men were seedy, with sunken cheeks and puffy pink -eyes--others were young; possibly still in high school. After a jostled -fifteen minutes during which they all eyed one another with apathetic -suspicion there appeared a smart young shepherd clad in a "waist-line" -suit and wearing the manner of an assistant rector who herded them -up-stairs into a large room, which resembled a school-room and contained -innumerable desks. Here the prospective salesmen sat down--and again -waited. After an interval a platform at the end of the hall was clouded -with half a dozen sober but sprightly men who, with one exception, took -seats in a semicircle facing the audience. - -The exception was the man who seemed the soberest, the most sprightly -and the youngest of the lot, and who advanced to the front of the -platform. The audience scrutinized him hopefully. He was rather small -and rather pretty, with the commercial rather than the thespian sort of -prettiness. He had straight blond bushy brows and eyes that were almost -preposterously honest, and as he reached the edge of his rostrum he -seemed to throw these eyes out into the audience, simultaneously -extending his arm with two fingers outstretched. Then while he rocked -himself to a state of balance an expectant silence settled over the -hall. With perfect assurance the young man had taken his listeners in -hand and his words when they came were steady and confident and of the -school of "straight from the shoulder." - -"Men!"--he began, and paused. The word died with a prolonged echo at the -end of the hall, the faces regarding him, hopefully, cynically, wearily, -were alike arrested, engrossed. Six hundred eyes were turned slightly -upward. With an even graceless flow that reminded Anthony of the rolling -of bowling balls he launched himself into the sea of exposition. - -"This bright and sunny morning you picked up your favorite newspaper and -you found an advertisement which made the plain, unadorned statement -that _you_ could sell. That was all it said--it didn't say 'what,' it -didn't say 'how,' it didn't say 'why.' It just made one single solitary -assertion that _you_ and _you_ and _you_"--business of pointing--"could -sell. Now my job isn't to make a success of you, because every man is -born a success, he makes himself a failure; it's not to teach you how to -talk, because each man is a natural orator and only makes himself a -clam; my business is to tell you one thing in a way that will make you -_know_ it--it's to tell you that _you_ and _you_ and _you_ have the -heritage of money and prosperity waiting for you to come and claim it." - -At this point an Irishman of saturnine appearance rose from his desk -near the rear of the hall and went out. - -"That man thinks he'll go look for it in the beer parlor around the -corner. (Laughter.) He won't find it there. Once upon a time I looked -for it there myself (laughter), but that was before I did what every one -of you men no matter how young or how old, how poor or how rich (a faint -ripple of satirical laughter), can do. It was before I found--_myself_! - -"Now I wonder if any of you men know what a 'Heart Talk' is. A 'Heart -Talk' is a little book in which I started, about five years ago, to -write down what I had discovered were the principal reasons for a man's -failure and the principal reasons for a man's success--from John D. -Rockerfeller back to John D. Napoleon (laughter), and before that, back -in the days when Abel sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. There -are now one hundred of these 'Heart Talks.' Those of you who are -sincere, who are interested in our proposition, above all who are -dissatisfied with the way things are breaking for you at present will be -handed one to take home with you as you go out yonder door this -afternoon. - -"Now in my own pocket I have four letters just received concerning -'Heart Talks.' These letters have names signed to them that are familiar -in every house-hold in the U.S.A. Listen to this one from Detroit: - - * * * * * - -"DEAR MR. CARLETON: - -"I want to order three thousand more copies of 'Heart Talks' for -distribution among my salesmen. They have done more for getting work out -of the men than any bonus proposition ever considered. I read them -myself constantly, and I desire to heartily congratulate you on getting -at the roots of the biggest problem that faces our generation -to-day--the problem of salesmanship. The rock bottom on which the -country is founded is the problem of salesmanship. With many -felicitations I am - -"Yours very cordially, - -"HENRY W. TERRAL." - - * * * * * - -He brought the name out in three long booming triumphancies--pausing for -it to produce its magical effect. Then he read two more letters, one -from a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners and one from the president of the -Great Northern Doily Company. - -"And now," he continued, "I'm going to tell you in a few words what the -proposition is that's going to _make_ those of you who go into it in the -right spirit. Simply put, it's this: 'Heart Talks' have been -incorporated as a company. We're going to put these little pamphlets -into the hands of every big business organization, every salesman, and -every man who _knows_--I don't say 'thinks,' I say _'knows'_--that he -can sell! We are offering some of the stock of the 'Heart Talks' concern -upon the market, and in order that the distribution may be as wide as -possible, and in order also that we can furnish a living, concrete, -flesh-and-blood example of what salesmanship is, or rather what it may -be, we're going to give those of you who are the real thing a chance to -sell that stock. Now, I don't care what you've tried to sell before or -how you've tried to sell it. It don't matter how old you are or how -young you are. I only want to know two things--first, do you _want_ -success, and, second, will you work for it? - -"My name is Sammy Carleton. Not 'Mr.' Carleton, but just plain Sammy. -I'm a regular no-nonsense man with no fancy frills about me. I want you -to call me Sammy. - -"Now this is all I'm going to say to you to-day. To-morrow I want those -of you who have thought it over and have read the copy of 'Heart Talks' -which will be given to you at the door, to come back to this same room -at this same time, then we'll, go into the proposition further and I'll -explain to you what I've found the principles of success to be. I'm -going to make you _feel_ that _you_ and _you_ and _you_ can sell!" - -Mr. Carleton's voice echoed for a moment through the hall and then died -away. To the stamping of many feet Anthony was pushed and jostled with -the crowd out of the room. - - -FURTHER ADVENTURES WITH "HEART TALKS" - -With an accompaniment of ironic laughter Anthony told Gloria the story -of his commercial adventure. But she listened without amusement. - -"You're going to give up again?" she demanded coldly. - -"Why--you don't expect me to--" - -"I never expected anything of you." - -He hesitated. - -"Well--I can't see the slightest benefit in laughing myself sick over -this sort of affair. If there's anything older than the old story, it's -the new twist." - -It required an astonishing amount of moral energy on Gloria's part to -intimidate him into returning, and when he reported next day, somewhat -depressed from his perusal of the senile bromides skittishly set forth -in "Heart Talks on Ambition," he found only fifty of the original three -hundred awaiting the appearance of the vital and compelling Sammy -Carleton. Mr. Carleton's powers of vitality and compulsion were this -time exercised in elucidating that magnificent piece of speculation--how -to sell. It seemed that the approved method was to state one's -proposition and then to say not "And now, will you buy?"--this was not -the way--oh, no!--the way was to state one's proposition and then, -having reduced one's adversary to a state of exhaustion, to deliver -oneself of the categorical imperative: "Now see here! You've taken up my -time explaining this matter to you. You've admitted my points--all I -want to ask is how many do you want?" - -As Mr. Carleton piled assertion upon assertion Anthony began to feel a -sort of disgusted confidence in him. The man appeared to know what he -was talking about. Obviously prosperous, he had risen to the position of -instructing others. It did not occur to Anthony that the type of man who -attains commercial success seldom knows how or why, and, as in his -grandfather's case, when he ascribes reasons, the reasons are generally -inaccurate and absurd. - -Anthony noted that of the numerous old men who had answered the original -advertisement, only two had returned, and that among the thirty odd who -assembled on the third day to get actual selling instructions from Mr. -Carleton, only one gray head was in evidence. These thirty were eager -converts; with their mouths they followed the working of Mr. Carleton's -mouth; they swayed in their seats with enthusiasm, and in the intervals -of his talk they spoke to each other in tense approving whispers. Yet of -the chosen few who, in the words of Mr. Carleton, "were determined to -get those deserts that rightly and truly belonged to them," less than -half a dozen combined even a modicum of personal appearance with that -great gift of being a "pusher." But they were told that they were all -natural pushers--it was merely necessary that they should believe with a -sort of savage passion in what they were selling. He even urged each one -to buy some stock himself, if possible, in order to increase his own -sincerity. - -On the fifth day then, Anthony sallied into the street with all the -sensations of a man wanted by the police. Acting according to -instructions he selected a tall office building in order that he might -ride to the top story and work downward, stopping in every office that -had a name on the door. But at the last minute he hesitated. Perhaps it -would be more practicable to acclimate himself to the chilly atmosphere -which he felt was awaiting him by trying a few offices on, say, Madison -Avenue. He went into an arcade that seemed only semi-prosperous, and -seeing a sign which read Percy B. Weatherbee, Architect, he opened the -door heroically and entered. A starchy young woman looked up -questioningly. - -"Can I see Mr. Weatherbee?" He wondered if his voice sounded tremulous. - -She laid her hand tentatively on the telephone-receiver. - -"What's the name, please?" - -"He wouldn't--ah--know me. He wouldn't know my name." - -"What's your business with him? You an insurance agent?" - -"Oh, no, nothing like that!" denied Anthony hurriedly. "Oh, no. It's -a--it's a personal matter." He wondered if he should have said this. It -had all sounded so simple when Mr. Carleton had enjoined his flock: - -"Don't allow yourself to be kept out! Show them you've made up your mind -to talk to them, and they'll listen." - -The girl succumbed to Anthony's pleasant, melancholy face, and in a -moment the door to the inner room opened and admitted a tall, -splay-footed man with slicked hair. He approached Anthony with -ill-concealed impatience. - -"You wanted to see me on a personal matter?" - -Anthony quailed. - -"I wanted to talk to you," he said defiantly. - -"About what?" - -"It'll take some time to explain." - -"Well, what's it about?" Mr. Weatherbee's voice indicated rising -irritation. - -Then Anthony, straining at each word, each syllable, began: - -"I don't know whether or not you've ever heard of a series of pamphlets -called 'Heart Talks'--" - -"Good grief!" cried Percy B. Weatherbee, Architect, "are you trying to -touch my heart?" - -"No, it's business. 'Heart Talks' have been incorporated and we're -putting some shares on the market--" - -His voice faded slowly off, harassed by a fixed and contemptuous stare -from his unwilling prey. For another minute he struggled on, -increasingly sensitive, entangled in his own words. His confidence oozed -from him in great retching emanations that seemed to be sections of his -own body. Almost mercifully Percy B. Weatherbee, Architect, terminated -the interview: - -"Good grief!" he exploded in disgust, "and you call that a _personal_ -matter!" He whipped about and strode into his private office, banging -the door behind him. Not daring to look at the stenographer, Anthony in -some shameful and mysterious way got himself from the room. Perspiring -profusely he stood in the hall wondering why they didn't come and arrest -him; in every hurried look he discerned infallibly a glance of scorn. - -After an hour and with the help of two strong whiskies he brought -himself up to another attempt. He walked into a plumber's shop, but when -he mentioned his business the plumber began pulling on his coat in a -great hurry, gruffly announcing that he had to go to lunch. Anthony -remarked politely that it was futile to try to sell a man anything when -he was hungry, and the plumber heartily agreed. - -This episode encouraged Anthony; he tried to think that had the plumber -not been bound for lunch he would at least have listened. - -Passing by a few glittering and formidable bazaars he entered a grocery -store. A talkative proprietor told him that before buying any stocks he -was going to see how the armistice affected the market. To Anthony this -seemed almost unfair. In Mr. Carleton's salesman's Utopia the only -reason prospective buyers ever gave for not purchasing stock was that -they doubted it to be a promising investment. Obviously a man in that -state was almost ludicrously easy game, to be brought down merely by the -judicious application of the correct selling points. But these men--why, -actually they weren't considering buying anything at all. - -Anthony took several more drinks before he approached his fourth man, a -real-estate agent; nevertheless, he was floored with a coup as decisive -as a syllogism. The real-estate agent said that he had three brothers in -the investment business. Viewing himself as a breaker-up of homes -Anthony apologized and went out. - -After another drink he conceived the brilliant plan of selling the stock -to the bartenders along Lexington Avenue. This occupied several hours, -for it was necessary to take a few drinks in each place in order to get -the proprietor in the proper frame of mind to talk business. But the -bartenders one and all contended that if they had any money to buy bonds -they would not be bartenders. It was as though they had all convened and -decided upon that rejoinder. As he approached a dark and soggy five -o'clock he found that they were developing a still more annoying -tendency to turn him off with a jest. - -At five, then, with a tremendous effort at concentration he decided that -he must put more variety into his canvassing. He selected a medium-sized -delicatessen store, and went in. He felt, illuminatingly, that the thing -to do was to cast a spell not only over the storekeeper but over all the -customers as well--and perhaps through the psychology of the herd -instinct they would buy as an astounded and immediately convinced whole. - -"Af'ernoon," he began in a loud thick voice. "Ga l'il prop'sition." - -If he had wanted silence he obtained it. A sort of awe descended upon -the half-dozen women marketing and upon the gray-haired ancient who in -cap and apron was slicing chicken. - -Anthony pulled a batch of papers from his flapping briefcase and waved -them cheerfully. - -"Buy a bon'," he suggested, "good as liberty bon'!" The phrase pleased -him and he elaborated upon it. "Better'n liberty bon'. Every one these -bon's worth _two_ liberty bon's." His mind made a hiatus and skipped to -his peroration, which he delivered with appropriate gestures, these -being somewhat marred by the necessity of clinging to the counter with -one or both hands. - -"Now see here. You taken up my time. I don't want know _why_ you won't -buy. I just want you say _why_. Want you say _how many!_" - -At this point they should have approached him with check-books and -fountain pens in hand. Realizing that they must have missed a cue -Anthony, with the instincts of an actor, went back and repeated -his finale. - -"Now see here! You taken up my time. You followed prop'sition. You -agreed 'th reasonin'? Now, all I want from _you_ is, how many -lib'ty bon's?" - -"See here!" broke in a new voice. A portly man whose face was adorned -with symmetrical scrolls of yellow hair had come out of a glass cage in -the rear of the store and was bearing down upon Anthony. "See -here, you!" - -"How many?" repeated the salesman sternly. "You taken up my time--" - -"Hey, you!" cried the proprietor, "I'll have you taken up by the -police." - -"You mos' cert'nly won't!" returned Anthony with fine defiance. "All I -want know is how many." - -From here and there in the store went up little clouds of comment and -expostulation. - -"How terrible!" - -"He's a raving maniac." - -"He's disgracefully drunk." - -The proprietor grasped Anthony's arm sharply. - -"Get out, or I'll call a policeman." - -Some relics of rationality moved Anthony to nod and replace his bonds -clumsily in the case. - -"How many?" he reiterated doubtfully. - -"The whole force if necessary!" thundered his adversary, his yellow -mustache trembling fiercely. - -"Sell 'em all a bon'." - -With this Anthony turned, bowed gravely to his late auditors, and -wabbled from the store. He found a taxicab at the corner and rode home -to the apartment. There he fell sound asleep on the sofa, and so Gloria -found him, his breath filling the air with an unpleasant pungency, his -hand still clutching his open brief case. - -Except when Anthony was drinking, his range of sensation had become less -than that of a healthy old man and when prohibition came in July he -found that, among those who could afford it, there was more drinking -than ever before. One's host now brought out a bottle upon the slightest -pretext. The tendency to display liquor was a manifestation of the same -instinct that led a man to deck his wife with jewels. To have liquor was -a boast, almost a badge of respectability. - -In the mornings Anthony awoke tired, nervous, and worried. Halcyon -summer twilights and the purple chill of morning alike left him -unresponsive. Only for a brief moment every day in the warmth and -renewed life of a first high-ball did his mind turn to those opalescent -dreams of future pleasure--the mutual heritage of the happy and the -damned. But this was only for a little while. As he grew drunker the -dreams faded and he became a confused spectre, moving in odd crannies of -his own mind, full of unexpected devices, harshly contemptuous at best -and reaching sodden and dispirited depths. One night in June he had -quarrelled violently with Maury over a matter of the utmost triviality. -He remembered dimly next morning that it had been about a broken pint -bottle of champagne. Maury had told him to sober up and Anthony's -feelings had been hurt, so with an attempted gesture of dignity he had -risen from the table and seizing Gloria's arm half led, half shamed her -into a taxicab outside, leaving Maury with three dinners ordered and -tickets for the opera. - -This sort of semi-tragic fiasco had become so usual that when they -occurred he was no longer stirred into making amends. If Gloria -protested--and of late she was more likely to sink into contemptuous -silence--he would either engage in a bitter defense of himself or else -stalk dismally from the apartment. Never since the incident on the -station platform at Redgate had he laid his hands on her in anger--though -he was withheld often only by some instinct that itself made him tremble -with rage. Just as he still cared more for her than for any other -creature, so did he more intensely and frequently hate her. - -So far, the judges of the Appellate Division had failed to hand down a -decision, but after another postponement they finally affirmed the -decree of the lower court--two justices dissenting. A notice of appeal -was served upon Edward Shuttleworth. The case was going to the court of -last resort, and they were in for another interminable wait. Six months, -perhaps a year. It had grown enormously unreal to them, remote and -uncertain as heaven. - -Throughout the previous winter one small matter had been a subtle and -omnipresent irritant--the question of Gloria's gray fur coat. At that -time women enveloped in long squirrel wraps could be seen every few -yards along Fifth Avenue. The women were converted to the shape of tops. -They seemed porcine and obscene; they resembled kept women in the -concealing richness, the feminine animality of the garment. Yet--Gloria -wanted a gray squirrel coat. - -Discussing the matter--or, rather, arguing it, for even more than in the -first year of their marriage did every discussion take the form of -bitter debate full of such phrases as "most certainly," "utterly -outrageous," "it's so, nevertheless," and the ultra-emphatic -"regardless"--they concluded that they could not afford it. And so -gradually it began to stand as a symbol of their growing -financial anxiety. - -To Gloria the shrinkage of their income was a remarkable phenomenon, -without explanation or precedent--that it could happen at all within the -space of five years seemed almost an intended cruelty, conceived and -executed by a sardonic God. When they were married seventy-five hundred -a year had seemed ample for a young couple, especially when augmented by -the expectation of many millions. Gloria had failed to realize that it -was decreasing not only in amount but in purchasing power until the -payment of Mr. Haight's retaining fee of fifteen thousand dollars made -the fact suddenly and startlingly obvious. When Anthony was drafted they -had calculated their income at over four hundred a month, with the -dollar even then decreasing in value, but on his return to New York they -discovered an even more alarming condition of affairs. They were -receiving only forty-five hundred a year from their investments. And -though the suit over the will moved ahead of them like a persistent -mirage and the financial danger-mark loomed up in the near distance they -found, nevertheless, that living within their income was impossible. - -So Gloria went without the squirrel coat and every day upon Fifth Avenue -she was a little conscious of her well-worn, half-length leopard skin, -now hopelessly old-fashioned. Every other month they sold a bond, yet -when the bills were paid it left only enough to be gulped down hungrily -by their current expenses. Anthony's calculations showed that their -capital would last about seven years longer. So Gloria's heart was very -bitter, for in one week, on a prolonged hysterical party during which -Anthony whimsically divested himself of coat, vest, and shirt in a -theatre and was assisted out by a posse of ushers, they spent twice what -the gray squirrel coat would have cost. - -It was November, Indian summer rather, and a warm, warm night--which was -unnecessary, for the work of the summer was done. Babe Ruth had smashed -the home-run record for the first time and Jack Dempsey had broken Jess -Willard's cheek-bone out in Ohio. Over in Europe the usual number of -children had swollen stomachs from starvation, and the diplomats were at -their customary business of making the world safe for new wars. In New -York City the proletariat were being "disciplined," and the odds on -Harvard were generally quoted at five to three. Peace had come down in -earnest, the beginning of new days. - -Up in the bedroom of the apartment on Fifty-seventh Street Gloria lay -upon her bed and tossed from side to side, sitting up at intervals to -throw off a superfluous cover and once asking Anthony, who was lying -awake beside her, to bring her a glass of ice-water. "Be sure and put -ice in it," she said with insistence; "it isn't cold enough the way it -comes from the faucet." - -Looking through the frail curtains she could see the rounded moon over -the roofs and beyond it on the sky the yellow glow from Times -Square--and watching the two incongruous lights, her mind worked over an -emotion, or rather an interwoven complex of emotions, that had occupied -it through the day, and the day before that and back to the last time -when she could remember having thought clearly and consecutively about -anything--which must have been while Anthony was in the army. - -She would be twenty-nine in February. The month assumed an ominous and -inescapable significance--making her wonder, through these nebulous -half-fevered hours whether after all she had not wasted her faintly -tired beauty, whether there was such a thing as use for any quality -bounded by a harsh and inevitable mortality. - -Years before, when she was twenty-one, she had written in her diary: -"Beauty is only to be admired, only to be loved-to be harvested -carefully and then flung at a chosen lover like a gift of roses. It -seems to me, so far as I can judge clearly at all, that my beauty should -be used like that...." - -And now, all this November day, all this desolate day, under a sky dirty -and white, Gloria had been thinking that perhaps she had been wrong. To -preserve the integrity of her first gift she had looked no more for -love. When the first flame and ecstasy had grown dim, sunk down, -departed, she had begun preserving--what? It puzzled her that she no -longer knew just what she was preserving--a sentimental memory or some -profound and fundamental concept of honor. She was doubting now whether -there had been any moral issue involved in her way of life--to walk -unworried and unregretful along the gayest of all possible lanes and to -keep her pride by being always herself and doing what it seemed -beautiful that she should do. From the first little boy in an Eton -collar whose "girl" she had been, down to the latest casual man whose -eyes had grown alert and appreciative as they rested upon her, there was -needed only that matchless candor she could throw into a look or clothe -with an inconsequent clause--for she had talked always in broken -clauses--to weave about her immeasurable illusions, immeasurable -distances, immeasurable light. To create souls in men, to create fine -happiness and fine despair she must remain deeply proud--proud to be -inviolate, proud also to be melting, to be passionate and possessed. - -She knew that in her breast she had never wanted children. The reality, -the earthiness, the intolerable sentiment of child-bearing, the menace -to her beauty--had appalled her. She wanted to exist only as a conscious -flower, prolonging and preserving itself. Her sentimentality could cling -fiercely to her own illusions, but her ironic soul whispered that -motherhood was also the privilege of the female baboon. So her dreams -were of ghostly children only--the early, the perfect symbols of her -early and perfect love for Anthony. - -In the end then, her beauty was all that never failed her. She had never -seen beauty like her own. What it meant ethically or aesthetically faded -before the gorgeous concreteness of her pink-and-white feet, the clean -perfectness of her body, and the baby mouth that was like the material -symbol of a kiss. - -She would be twenty-nine in February. As the long night waned she grew -supremely conscious that she and beauty were going to make use of these -next three months. At first she was not sure for what, but the problem -resolved itself gradually into the old lure of the screen. She was in -earnest now. No material want could have moved her as this fear moved -her. No matter for Anthony, Anthony the poor in spirit, the weak and -broken man with bloodshot eyes, for whom she still had moments of -tenderness. No matter. She would be twenty-nine in February--a hundred -days, so many days; she would go to Bloeckman to-morrow. - -With the decision came relief. It cheered her that in some manner the -illusion of beauty could be sustained, or preserved perhaps in celluloid -after the reality had vanished. Well--to-morrow. - -The next day she felt weak and ill. She tried to go out, and saved -herself from collapse only by clinging to a mail box near the front -door. The Martinique elevator boy helped her up-stairs, and she waited -on the bed for Anthony's return without energy to unhook her brassiere. - -For five days she was down with influenza, which, just as the month -turned the corner into winter, ripened into double pneumonia. In the -feverish perambulations of her mind she prowled through a house of bleak -unlighted rooms hunting for her mother. All she wanted was to be a -little girl, to be efficiently taken care of by some yielding yet -superior power, stupider and steadier than herself. It seemed that the -only lover she had ever wanted was a lover in a dream. - - -"ODI PROFANUM VULGUS" - -One day in the midst of Gloria's illness there occurred a curious -incident that puzzled Miss McGovern, the trained nurse, for some time -afterward. It was noon, but the room in which the patient lay was dark -and quiet. Miss McGovern was standing near the bed mixing some medicine, -when Mrs. Patch, who had apparently been sound asleep, sat up and began -to speak vehemently: - -"Millions of people," she said, "swarming like rats, chattering like -apes, smelling like all hell ... monkeys! Or lice, I suppose. For one -really exquisite palace ... on Long Island, say--or even in Greenwich ... -for one palace full of pictures from the Old World and exquisite -things--with avenues of trees and green lawns and a view of the blue -sea, and lovely people about in slick dresses ... I'd sacrifice a -hundred thousand of them, a million of them." She raised her hand feebly -and snapped her fingers. "I care nothing for them--understand me?" - -The look she bent upon Miss McGovern at the conclusion of this speech -was curiously elfin, curiously intent. Then she gave a short little -laugh polished with scorn, and tumbling backward fell off again -to sleep. - -Miss McGovern was bewildered. She wondered what were the hundred -thousand things that Mrs. Patch would sacrifice for her palace. Dollars, -she supposed--yet it had not sounded exactly like dollars. - - -THE MOVIES - -It was February, seven days before her birthday, and the great snow that -had filled up the cross-streets as dirt fills the cracks in a floor had -turned to slush and was being escorted to the gutters by the hoses of -the street-cleaning department. The wind, none the less bitter for being -casual, whipped in through the open windows of the living room bearing -with it the dismal secrets of the areaway and clearing the Patch -apartment of stale smoke in its cheerless circulation. - -Gloria, wrapped in a warm kimona, came into the chilly room and taking -up the telephone receiver called Joseph Bloeckman. - -"Do you mean Mr. Joseph _Black_?" demanded the telephone girl at "Films -Par Excellence." - -"Bloeckman, Joseph Bloeckman. B-l-o--" - -"Mr. Joseph Bloeckman has changed his name to Black. Do you want him?" - -"Why--yes." She remembered nervously that she had once called him -"Blockhead" to his face. - -His office was reached by courtesy of two additional female voices; the -last was a secretary who took her name. Only with the flow through the -transmitter of his own familiar but faintly impersonal tone did she -realize that it had been three years since they had met. And he had -changed his name to Black. - -"Can you see me?" she suggested lightly. "It's on a business matter, -really. I'm going into the movies at last--if I can." - -"I'm awfully glad. I've always thought you'd like it." - -"Do you think you can get me a trial?" she demanded with the arrogance -peculiar to all beautiful women, to all women who have ever at any time -considered themselves beautiful. - -He assured her that it was merely a question of when she wanted the -trial. Any time? Well, he'd phone later in the day and let her know a -convenient hour. The conversation closed with conventional padding on -both sides. Then from three o'clock to five she sat close to the -telephone--with no result. - -But next morning came a note that contented and excited her: - - * * * * * - -_My dear Gloria:_ - -_Just by luck a matter came to my attention that I think will be just -suited to you. I would like to see you start with something that would -bring you notice. At the same time if a very beautiful girl of your sort -is put directly into a picture next to one of the rather shop-worn stars -with which every company is afflicted, tongues would very likely wag. -But there is a "flapper" part in a Percy B. Debris production that I -think would be just suited to you and would bring you notice. Willa -Sable plays opposite Gaston Mears in a sort of character part and your -part I believe would be her younger sister._ - -_Anyway Percy B. Debris who is directing the picture says if you'll come -to the studios day after to-morrow (Thursday) he will run off a test. If -ten o'clock is suited to you I will meet you there at that time._ - -_With all good wishes_ - -_Ever Faithfully_ - -JOSEPH BLACK. - - * * * * * - -Gloria had decided that Anthony was to know nothing of this until she -had obtained a definite position, and accordingly she was dressed and -out of the apartment next morning before he awoke. Her mirror had given -her, she thought, much the same account as ever. She wondered if there -were any lingering traces of her sickness. She was still slightly under -weight, and she had fancied, a few days before, that her cheeks were a -trifle thinner--but she felt that those were merely transitory -conditions and that on this particular day she looked as fresh as ever. -She had bought and charged a new hat, and as the day was warm she had -left the leopard skin coat at home. - -At the "Films Par Excellence" studios she was announced over the -telephone and told that Mr. Black would be down directly. She looked -around her. Two girls were being shown about by a little fat man in a -slash-pocket coat, and one of them had indicated a stack of thin -parcels, piled breast-high against the wall, and extending along for -twenty feet. - -"That's studio mail," explained the fat man. "Pictures of the stars who -are with 'Films Par Excellence.'" - -"Oh." - -"Each one's autographed by Florence Kelley or Gaston Mears or Mack -Dodge--" He winked confidentially. "At least when Minnie McGlook out in -Sauk Center gets the picture she wrote for, she _thinks_ it's -autographed." - -"Just a stamp?" - -"Sure. It'd take 'em a good eight-hour day to autograph half of 'em. -They say Mary Pickford's studio mail costs her fifty thousand a year." - -"Say!" - -"Sure. Fifty thousand. But it's the best kinda advertising there is--" - -They drifted out of earshot and almost immediately Bloeckman -appeared--Bloeckman, a dark suave gentleman, gracefully engaged in the -middle forties, who greeted her with courteous warmth and told her she -had not changed a bit in three years. He led the way into a great hall, -as large as an armory and broken intermittently with busy sets and -blinding rows of unfamiliar light. Each piece of scenery was marked in -large white letters "Gaston Mears Company," "Mack Dodge Company," or -simply "Films Par Excellence." - -"Ever been in a studio before?" - -"Never have." - -She liked it. There was no heavy closeness of greasepaint, no scent of -soiled and tawdry costumes which years before had revolted her behind -the scenes of a musical comedy. This work was done in the clean -mornings; the appurtenances seemed rich and gorgeous and new. On a set -that was joyous with Manchu hangings a perfect Chinaman was going -through a scene according to megaphone directions as the great -glittering machine ground out its ancient moral tale for the edification -of the national mind. - -A red-headed man approached them and spoke with familiar deference to -Bloeckman, who answered: - -"Hello, Debris. Want you to meet Mrs. Patch.... Mrs. Patch wants to go -into pictures, as I explained to you.... All right, now, where do -we go?" - -Mr. Debris--the great Percy B. Debris, thought Gloria--showed them to a -set which represented the interior of an office. Some chairs were drawn -up around the camera, which stood in front of it, and the three of -them sat down. - -"Ever been in a studio before?" asked Mr. Debris, giving her a glance -that was surely the quintessence of keenness. "No? Well, I'll explain -exactly what's going to happen. We're going to take what we call a test -in order to see how your features photograph and whether you've got -natural stage presence and how you respond to coaching. There's no need -to be nervous over it. I'll just have the camera-man take a few hundred -feet in an episode I've got marked here in the scenario. We can tell -pretty much what we want to from that." - -He produced a typewritten continuity and explained to her the episode -she was to enact. It developed that one Barbara Wainwright had been -secretly married to the junior partner of the firm whose office was -there represented. Entering the deserted office one day by accident she -was naturally interested in seeing where her husband worked. The -telephone rang and after some hesitation she answered it. She learned -that her husband had been struck by an automobile and instantly killed. -She was overcome. At first she was unable to realize the truth, but -finally she succeeded in comprehending it, and went into a dead faint on -the floor. - -"Now that's all we want," concluded Mr. Debris. "I'm going to stand here -and tell you approximately what to do, and you're to act as though I -wasn't here, and just go on do it your own way. You needn't be afraid -we're going to judge this too severely. We simply want to get a general -idea of your screen personality." - -"I see." - -"You'll find make-up in the room in back of the set. Go light on it. -Very little red." - -"I see," repeated Gloria, nodding. She touched her lips nervously with -the tip of her tongue. - - -THE TEST - -As she came into the set through the real wooden door and closed it -carefully behind her, she found herself inconveniently dissatisfied with -her clothes. She should have bought a "misses'" dress for the -occasion--she could still wear them, and it might have been a good -investment if it had accentuated her airy youth. - -Her mind snapped sharply into the momentous present as Mr. Debris's -voice came from the glare of the white lights in front. - -"You look around for your husband.... Now--you don't see him ... you're -curious about the office...." - -She became conscious of the regular sound of the camera. It worried her. -She glanced toward it involuntarily and wondered if she had made up her -face correctly. Then, with a definite effort she forced herself to -act--and she had never felt that the gestures of her body were so banal, -so awkward, so bereft of grace or distinction. She strolled around the -office, picking up articles here and there and looking at them inanely. -Then she scrutinized the ceiling, the floor, and thoroughly inspected an -inconsequential lead pencil on the desk. Finally, because she could -think of nothing else to do, and less than nothing to express, she -forced a smile. - -"All right. Now the phone rings. Ting-a-ling-a-ling! Hesitate, and then -answer it." - -She hesitated--and then, too quickly, she thought, picked up the -receiver. - -"Hello." - -Her voice was hollow and unreal. The words rang in the empty set like -the ineffectualities of a ghost. The absurdities of their requirements -appalled her--Did they expect that on an instant's notice she could put -herself in the place of this preposterous and unexplained character? - -"... No ... no.... Not yet! Now listen: 'John Sumner has just been -knocked over by an automobile and instantly killed!'" - -Gloria let her baby mouth drop slowly open. Then: - -"Now hang up! With a bang!" - -She obeyed, clung to the table with her eyes wide and staring. At length -she was feeling slightly encouraged and her confidence increased. - -"My God!" she cried. Her voice was good, she thought. "Oh, my God!" - -"Now faint." - -She collapsed forward to her knees and throwing her body outward on the -ground lay without breathing. - -"All right!" called Mr. Debris. "That's enough, thank you. That's -plenty. Get up--that's enough." - -Gloria arose, mustering her dignity and brushing off her skirt. - -"Awful!" she remarked with a cool laugh, though her heart was bumping -tumultuously. "Terrible, wasn't it?" - -"Did you mind it?" said Mr. Debris, smiling blandly. "Did it seem hard? -I can't tell anything about it until I have it run off." - -"Of course not," she agreed, trying to attach some sort of meaning to -his remark--and failing. It was just the sort of thing he would have -said had he been trying not to encourage her. - -A few moments later she left the studio. Bloeckman had promised that she -should hear the result of the test within the next few days. Too proud -to force any definite comment she felt a baffling uncertainty and only -now when the step had at last been taken did she realize how the -possibility of a successful screen career had played in the back of her -mind for the past three years. That night she tried to tell over to -herself the elements that might decide for or against her. Whether or -not she had used enough make-up worried her, and as the part was that of -a girl of twenty, she wondered if she had not been just a little too -grave. About her acting she was least of all satisfied. Her entrance had -been abominable--in fact not until she reached the phone had she -displayed a shred of poise--and then the test had been over. If they had -only realized! She wished that she could try it again. A mad plan to -call up in the morning and ask for a new trial took possession of her, -and as suddenly faded. It seemed neither politic nor polite to ask -another favor of Bloeckman. - -The third day of waiting found her in a highly nervous condition. She -had bitten the insides of her mouth until they were raw and smarting, -and burnt unbearably when she washed them with listerine. She had -quarrelled so persistently with Anthony that he had left the apartment -in a cold fury. But because he was intimidated by her exceptional -frigidity, he called up an hour afterward, apologized and said he was -having dinner at the Amsterdam Club, the only one in which he still -retained membership. - -It was after one o'clock and she had breakfasted at eleven, so, deciding -to forego luncheon, she started for a walk in the Park. At three there -would be a mail. She would be back by three. - -It was an afternoon of premature spring. Water was drying on the walks -and in the Park little girls were gravely wheeling white doll-buggies up -and down under the thin trees while behind them followed bored -nursery-maids in two's, discussing with each other those tremendous -secrets that are peculiar to nursery-maids. - -Two o'clock by her little gold watch. She should have a new watch, one -made in a platinum oblong and incrusted with diamonds--but those cost -even more than squirrel coats and of course they were out of her reach -now, like everything else--unless perhaps the right letter was awaiting -her ... in about an hour ... fifty-eight minutes exactly. Ten to get -there left forty-eight ... forty-seven now ... - -Little girls soberly wheeling their buggies along the damp sunny walks. -The nursery-maids chattering in pairs about their inscrutable secrets. -Here and there a raggedy man seated upon newspapers spread on a drying -bench, related not to the radiant and delightful afternoon but to the -dirty snow that slept exhausted in obscure corners, waiting for -extermination.... - -Ages later, coming into the dim hall she saw the Martinique elevator boy -standing incongruously in the light of the stained-glass window. - -"Is there any mail for us?" she asked. - -"Up-stays, madame." - -The switchboard squawked abominably and Gloria waited while he -ministered to the telephone. She sickened as the elevator groaned its -way up--the floors passed like the slow lapse of centuries, each one -ominous, accusing, significant. The letter, a white leprous spot, lay -upon the dirty tiles of the hall.... - - * * * * * - -_My dear Gloria:_ - -_We had the test run off yesterday afternoon, and Mr. Debris seemed to -think that for the part he had in mind he needed a younger woman. He -said that the acting was not bad, and that there was a small character -part supposed to be a very haughty rich widow that he thought -you might----_ - - * * * * * - -Desolately Gloria raised her glance until it fell out across the -areaway. But she found she could not see the opposite wall, for her gray -eyes were full of tears. She walked into the bedroom, the letter -crinkled tightly in her hand, and sank down upon her knees before the -long mirror on the wardrobe floor. This was her twenty-ninth birthday, -and the world was melting away before her eyes. She tried to think that -it had been the make-up, but her emotions were too profound, too -overwhelming for any consolation that the thought conveyed. - -She strained to see until she could feel the flesh on her temples pull -forward. Yes--the cheeks were ever so faintly thin, the corners of the -eyes were lined with tiny wrinkles. The eyes were different. Why, they -were different! ... And then suddenly she knew how tired her eyes were. - -"Oh, my pretty face," she whispered, passionately grieving. "Oh, my -pretty face! Oh, I don't want to live without my pretty face! Oh, what's -_happened?_" - -Then she slid toward the mirror and, as in the test, sprawled face -downward upon the floor--and lay there sobbing. It was the first awkward -movement she had ever made. - - - -CHAPTER III - - -NO MATTER! - -Within another year Anthony and Gloria had become like players who had -lost their costumes, lacking the pride to continue on the note of -tragedy--so that when Mrs. and Miss Hulme of Kansas City cut them dead -in the Plaza one evening, it was only that Mrs. and Miss Hulme, like -most people, abominated mirrors of their atavistic selves. - -Their new apartment, for which they paid eighty-five dollars a month, -was situated on Claremont Avenue, which is two blocks from the Hudson in -the dim hundreds. They had lived there a month when Muriel Kane came to -see them late one afternoon. - -It was a reproachless twilight on the summer side of spring. Anthony lay -upon the lounge looking up One Hundred and Twenty-seventh Street toward -the river, near which he could just see a single patch of vivid green -trees that guaranteed the brummagem umbrageousness of Riverside Drive. -Across the water were the Palisades, crowned by the ugly framework of -the amusement park--yet soon it would be dusk and those same iron -cobwebs would be a glory against the heavens, an enchanted palace set -over the smooth radiance of a tropical canal. - -The streets near the apartment, Anthony had found, were streets where -children played--streets a little nicer than those he had been used to -pass on his way to Marietta, but of the same general sort, with an -occasional hand organ or hurdy-gurdy, and in the cool of the evening -many pairs of young girls walking down to the corner drug-store for ice -cream soda and dreaming unlimited dreams under the low heavens. - -Dusk in the streets now, and children playing, shouting up incoherent -ecstatic words that faded out close to the open window--and Muriel, who -had come to find Gloria, chattering to him from an opaque gloom over -across the room. - -"Light the lamp, why don't we?" she suggested. "It's getting _ghostly_ -in here." - -With a tired movement he arose and obeyed; the gray window-panes -vanished. He stretched himself. He was heavier now, his stomach was a -limp weight against his belt; his flesh had softened and expanded. He -was thirty-two and his mind was a bleak and disordered wreck. - -"Have a little drink, Muriel?" - -"Not me, thanks. I don't use it anymore. What're you doing these days, -Anthony?" she asked curiously. - -"Well, I've been pretty busy with this lawsuit," he answered -indifferently. "It's gone to the Court of Appeals--ought to be settled -up one way or another by autumn. There's been some objection as to -whether the Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over the matter." - -Muriel made a clicking sound with her tongue and cocked her head on one -side. - -"Well, you tell'em! I never heard of anything taking so long." - -"Oh, they all do," he replied listlessly; "all will cases. They say it's -exceptional to have one settled under four or five years." - -"Oh ..." Muriel daringly changed her tack, "why don't you go to work, -you la-azy!" - -"At what?" he demanded abruptly. - -"Why, at anything, I suppose. You're still a young man." - -"If that's encouragement, I'm much obliged," he answered dryly--and then -with sudden weariness: "Does it bother you particularly that I don't -want to work?" - -"It doesn't bother me--but, it does bother a lot of people who claim--" - -"Oh, God!" he said brokenly, "it seems to me that for three years I've -heard nothing about myself but wild stories and virtuous admonitions. -I'm tired of it. If you don't want to see us, let us alone. I don't -bother my former friends.' But I need no charity calls, and no criticism -disguised as good advice--" Then he added apologetically: "I'm -sorry--but really, Muriel, you mustn't talk like a lady slum-worker even -if you are visiting the lower middle classes." He turned his bloodshot -eyes on her reproachfully--eyes that had once been a deep, clear blue, -that were weak now, strained, and half-ruined from reading when he -was drunk. - -"Why do you say such awful things?" she protested. You talk as if you -and Gloria were in the middle classes." - -"Why pretend we're not? I hate people who claim to be great aristocrats -when they can't even keep up the appearances of it." - -"Do you think a person has to have money to be aristocratic?" - -Muriel ... the horrified democrat ...! - -"Why, of course. Aristocracy's only an admission that certain traits -which we call fine--courage and honor and beauty and all that sort of -thing--can best be developed in a favorable environment, where you don't -have the warpings of ignorance and necessity." - -Muriel bit her lower lip and waved her head from side to side. - -"Well, all _I_ say is that if a person comes from a good family they're -always nice people. That's the trouble with you and Gloria. You think -that just because things aren't going your way right now all your old -friends are trying to avoid you. You're too sensitive--" - -"As a matter of fact," said Anthony, "you know nothing at all about it. -With me it's simply a matter of pride, and for once Gloria's reasonable -enough to agree that we oughtn't go where we're not wanted. And people -don't want us. We're too much the ideal bad examples." - -"Nonsense! You can't park your pessimism in my little sun parlor. I -think you ought to forget all those morbid speculations and go to work." - -"Here I am, thirty-two. Suppose I did start in at some idiotic business. -Perhaps in two years I might rise to fifty dollars a week--with luck. -That's _if_ I could get a job at all; there's an awful lot of -unemployment. Well, suppose I made fifty a week. Do you think I'd be any -happier? Do you think that if I don't get this money of my grandfather's -life will be _endurable?_" - -Muriel smiled complacently. - -"Well," she said, "that may be clever but it isn't common sense." - -A few minutes later Gloria came in seeming to bring with her into the -room some dark color, indeterminate and rare. In a taciturn way she was -happy to see Muriel. She greeted Anthony with a casual "Hi!" - -"I've been talking philosophy with your husband," cried the -irrepressible Miss Kane. - -"We took up some fundamental concepts," said Anthony, a faint smile -disturbing his pale cheeks, paler still under two days' growth of beard. - -Oblivious to his irony Muriel rehashed her contention. When she had -done, Gloria said quietly: - -"Anthony's right. It's no fun to go around when you have the sense that -people are looking at you in a certain way." - -He broke in plaintively: - -"Don't you think that when even Maury Noble, who was my best friend, -won't come to see us it's high time to stop calling people up?" Tears -were standing in his eyes. - -"That was your fault about Maury Noble," said Gloria coolly. - -"It wasn't." - -"It most certainly was." - -Muriel intervened quickly: - -"I met a girl who knew Maury, the other day, and she says he doesn't -drink any more. He's getting pretty cagey." - -"Doesn't?" - -"Practically not at all. He's making _piles_ of money. He's sort of -changed since the war. He's going to marry a girl in Philadelphia who -has millions, Ceci Larrabee--anyhow, that's what Town Tattle said." - -"He's thirty-three," said Anthony, thinking aloud. But it's odd to -imagine his getting married. I used to think he was so brilliant." - -"He was," murmured Gloria, "in a way." - -"But brilliant people don't settle down in business--or do they? Or what -do they do? Or what becomes of everybody you used to know and have so -much in common with?" - -"You drift apart," suggested Muriel with the appropriate dreamy look. - -"They change," said Gloria. "All the qualities that they don't use in -their daily lives get cobwebbed up." - -"The last thing he said to me," recollected Anthony, "was that he was -going to work so as to forget that there was nothing worth working for." - -Muriel caught at this quickly. - -"That's what _you_ ought to do," she exclaimed triumphantly. "Of course -I shouldn't think anybody would want to work for nothing. But it'd give -you something to do. What do you do with yourselves, anyway? Nobody ever -sees you at Montmartre or--or anywhere. Are you economizing?" - -Gloria laughed scornfully, glancing at Anthony from the corners of her -eyes. - -"Well," he demanded, "what are you laughing at?" "You know what I'm -laughing at," she answered coldly. - -"At that case of whiskey?" - -"Yes"--she turned to Muriel--"he paid seventy-five dollars for a case of -whiskey yesterday." - -"What if I did? It's cheaper that way than if you get it by the bottle. -You needn't pretend that you won't drink any of it." - -"At least I don't drink in the daytime." - -"That's a fine distinction!" he cried, springing to his feet in a weak -rage. "What's more, I'll be damned if you can hurl that at me every -few minutes!" - -"It's true." - -"It is _not!_ And I'm getting sick of this eternal business of -criticising me before visitors!" He had worked himself up to such a -state that his arms and shoulders were visibly trembling. "You'd think -everything was my fault. You'd think you hadn't encouraged me to spend -money--and spent a lot more on yourself than I ever did by a long shot." - -Now Gloria rose to her feet. - -"I _won't_ let you talk to me that way!" - -"All right, then; by Heaven, you don't have to!" - -In a sort of rush he left the room. The two women heard his steps in the -hall and then the front door banged. Gloria sank back into her chair. -Her face was lovely in the lamplight, composed, inscrutable. - -"Oh--!" cried Muriel in distress. "Oh, what _is_ the matter?" - -"Nothing particularly. He's just drunk." - -"Drunk? Why, he's perfectly sober. He talked----" - -Gloria shook her head. - -"Oh, no, he doesn't show it any more unless he can hardly stand up, and -he talks all right until he gets excited. He talks much better than he -does when he's sober. But he's been sitting here all day -drinking--except for the time it took him to walk to the corner for a -newspaper." - -"Oh, how terrible!" Muriel was sincerely moved. Her eyes filled with -tears. "Has this happened much?" - -"Drinking, you mean?" - -"No, this--leaving you?" - -"Oh, yes. Frequently. He'll come in about midnight--and weep and ask me -to forgive him." - -"And do you?" - -"I don't know. We just go on." - -The two women sat there in the lamplight and looked at each other, each -in a different way helpless before this thing. Gloria was still pretty, -as pretty as she would ever be again--her cheeks were flushed and she -was wearing a new dress that she had bought--imprudently--for fifty -dollars. She had hoped she could persuade Anthony to take her out -to-night, to a restaurant or even to one of the great, gorgeous moving -picture palaces where there would be a few people to look at her, at -whom she could bear to look in turn. She wanted this because she knew -her cheeks were flushed and because her dress was new and becomingly -fragile. Only very occasionally, now, did they receive any invitations. -But she did not tell these things to Muriel. - -"Gloria, dear, I wish we could have dinner together, but I promised a -man and it's seven-thirty already. I've got to _tear_." - -"Oh, I couldn't, anyway. In the first place I've been ill all day. I -couldn't eat a thing." - -After she had walked with Muriel to the door, Gloria came back into the -room, turned out the lamp, and leaning her elbows on the window sill -looked out at Palisades Park, where the brilliant revolving circle of -the Ferris wheel was like a trembling mirror catching the yellow -reflection of the moon. The street was quiet now; the children had gone -in--over the way she could see a family at dinner. Pointlessly, -ridiculously, they rose and walked about the table; seen thus, all that -they did appeared incongruous--it was as though they were being jiggled -carelessly and to no purpose by invisible overhead wires. - -She looked at her watch--it was eight o'clock. She had been pleased for -a part of the day--the early afternoon--in walking along that Broadway -of Harlem, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, with her nostrils alert -to many odors, and her mind excited by the extraordinary beauty of some -Italian children. It affected her curiously--as Fifth Avenue had -affected her once, in the days when, with the placid confidence of -beauty, she had known that it was all hers, every shop and all it held, -every adult toy glittering in a window, all hers for the asking. Here on -One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street there were Salvation Army bands and -spectrum-shawled old ladies on door-steps and sugary, sticky candy in -the grimy hands of shiny-haired children--and the late sun striking down -on the sides of the tall tenements. All very rich and racy and savory, -like a dish by a provident French chef that one could not help enjoying, -even though one knew that the ingredients were probably left-overs.... - -Gloria shuddered suddenly as a river siren came moaning over the dusky -roofs, and leaning back in till the ghostly curtains fell from her -shoulder, she turned on the electric lamp. It was growing late. She knew -there was some change in her purse, and she considered whether she would -go down and have some coffee and rolls where the liberated subway made a -roaring cave of Manhattan Street or eat the devilled ham and bread in -the kitchen. Her purse decided for her. It contained a nickel and -two pennies. - -After an hour the silence of the room had grown unbearable, and she -found that her eyes were wandering from her magazine to the ceiling, -toward which she stared without thought. Suddenly she stood up, -hesitated for a moment, biting at her finger--then she went to the -pantry, took down a bottle of whiskey from the shelf and poured herself -a drink. She filled up the glass with ginger ale, and returning to her -chair finished an article in the magazine. It concerned the last -revolutionary widow, who, when a young girl, had married an ancient -veteran of the Continental Army and who had died in 1906. It seemed -strange and oddly romantic to Gloria that she and this woman had been -contemporaries. - -She turned a page and learned that a candidate for Congress was being -accused of atheism by an opponent. Gloria's surprise vanished when she -found that the charges were false. The candidate had merely denied the -miracle of the loaves and fishes. He admitted, under pressure, that he -gave full credence to the stroll upon the water. - -Finishing her first drink, Gloria got herself a second. After slipping -on a negligee and making herself comfortable on the lounge, she became -conscious that she was miserable and that the tears were rolling down -her cheeks. She wondered if they were tears of self-pity, and tried -resolutely not to cry, but this existence without hope, without -happiness, oppressed her, and she kept shaking her head from side to -side, her mouth drawn down tremulously in the corners, as though she -were denying an assertion made by some one, somewhere. She did not know -that this gesture of hers was years older than history, that, for a -hundred generations of men, intolerable and persistent grief has offered -that gesture, of denial, of protest, of bewilderment, to something more -profound, more powerful than the God made in the image of man, and -before which that God, did he exist, would be equally impotent. It is a -truth set at the heart of tragedy that this force never explains, never -answers--this force intangible as air, more definite than death. - - -RICHARD CARAMEL - -Early in the summer Anthony resigned from his last club, the Amsterdam. -He had come to visit it hardly twice a year, and the dues were a -recurrent burden. He had joined it on his return from Italy because it -had been his grandfather's club and his father's, and because it was a -club that, given the opportunity, one indisputably joined--but as a -matter of fact he had preferred the Harvard Club, largely because of -Dick and Maury. However, with the decline of his fortunes, it had seemed -an increasingly desirable bauble to cling to.... It was relinquished at -the last, with some regret.... - -His companions numbered now a curious dozen. Several of them he had met -in a place called "Sammy's," on Forty-third Street, where, if one -knocked on the door and were favorably passed on from behind a grating, -one could sit around a great round table drinking fairly good whiskey. -It was here that he encountered a man named Parker Allison, who had been -exactly the wrong sort of rounder at Harvard, and who was running -through a large "yeast" fortune as rapidly as possible. Parker Allison's -notion of distinction consisted in driving a noisy red-and-yellow -racing-car up Broadway with two glittering, hard-eyed girls beside him. -He was the sort who dined with two girls rather than with one--his -imagination was almost incapable of sustaining a dialogue. - -Besides Allison there was Pete Lytell, who wore a gray derby on the side -of his head. He always had money and he was customarily cheerful, so -Anthony held aimless, long-winded conversation with him through many -afternoons of the summer and fall. Lytell, he found, not only talked but -reasoned in phrases. His philosophy was a series of them, assimilated -here and there through an active, thoughtless life. He had phrases about -Socialism--the immemorial ones; he had phrases pertaining to the -existence of a personal deity--something about one time when he had been -in a railroad accident; and he had phrases about the Irish problem, the -sort of woman he respected, and the futility of prohibition. The only -time his conversation ever rose superior to these muddled clauses, with -which he interpreted the most rococo happenings in a life that had been -more than usually eventful, was when he got down to the detailed -discussion of his most animal existence: he knew, to a subtlety, the -foods, the liquor, and the women that he preferred. - -He was at once the commonest and the most remarkable product of -civilization. He was nine out of ten people that one passes on a city -street--and he was a hairless ape with two dozen tricks. He was the hero -of a thousand romances of life and art--and he was a virtual moron, -performing staidly yet absurdly a series of complicated and infinitely -astounding epics over a span of threescore years. - -With such men as these two Anthony Patch drank and discussed and drank -and argued. He liked them because they knew nothing about him, because -they lived in the obvious and had not the faintest conception of the -inevitable continuity of life. They sat not before a motion picture with -consecutive reels, but at a musty old-fashioned travelogue with all -values stark and hence all implications confused. Yet they themselves -were not confused, because there was nothing in them to be -confused--they changed phrases from month to month as they -changed neckties. - -Anthony, the courteous, the subtle, the perspicacious, was drunk each -day--in Sammy's with these men, in the apartment over a book, some book -he knew, and, very rarely, with Gloria, who, in his eyes, had begun to -develop the unmistakable outlines of a quarrelsome and unreasonable -woman. She was not the Gloria of old, certainly--the Gloria who, had she -been sick, would have preferred to inflict misery upon every one around -her, rather than confess that she needed sympathy or assistance. She was -not above whining now; she was not above being sorry for herself. Each -night when she prepared for bed she smeared her face with some new -unguent which she hoped illogically would give back the glow and -freshness to her vanishing beauty. When Anthony was drunk he taunted her -about this. When he was sober he was polite to her, on occasions even -tender; he seemed to show for short hours a trace of that old quality of -understanding too well to blame--that quality which was the best of him -and had worked swiftly and ceaselessly toward his ruin. - -But he hated to be sober. It made him conscious of the people around -him, of that air of struggle, of greedy ambition, of hope more sordid -than despair, of incessant passage up or down, which in every metropolis -is most in evidence through the unstable middle class. Unable to live -with the rich he thought that his next choice would have been to live -with the very poor. Anything was better than this cup of perspiration -and tears. - -The sense of the enormous panorama of life, never strong in Anthony, had -become dim almost to extinction. At long intervals now some incident, -some gesture of Gloria's, would take his fancy--but the gray veils had -come down in earnest upon him. As he grew older those things -faded--after that there was wine. - -There was a kindliness about intoxication--there was that indescribable -gloss and glamour it gave, like the memories of ephemeral and faded -evenings. After a few high-balls there was magic in the tall glowing -Arabian night of the Bush Terminal Building--its summit a peak of sheer -grandeur, gold and dreaming against the inaccessible sky. And Wall -Street, the crass, the banal--again it was the triumph of gold, a -gorgeous sentient spectacle; it was where the great kings kept the money -for their wars.... - -... The fruit of youth or of the grape, the transitory magic of the -brief passage from darkness to darkness--the old illusion that truth and -beauty were in some way entwined. - -As he stood in front of Delmonico's lighting a cigarette one night he -saw two hansoms drawn up close to the curb, waiting for a chance drunken -fare. The outmoded cabs were worn and dirty--the cracked patent leather -wrinkled like an old man's face, the cushions faded to a brownish -lavender; the very horses were ancient and weary, and so were the -white-haired men who sat aloft, cracking their whips with a grotesque -affectation of gallantry. A relic of vanished gaiety! - -Anthony Patch walked away in a sudden fit of depression, pondering the -bitterness of such survivals. There was nothing, it seemed, that grew -stale so soon as pleasure. - -On Forty-second Street one afternoon he met Richard Caramel for the -first time in many months, a prosperous, fattening Richard Caramel, -whose face was filling out to match the Bostonian brow. - -"Just got in this week from the coast. Was going to call you up, but I -didn't know your new address." - -"We've moved." - -Richard Caramel noticed that Anthony was wearing a soiled shirt, that -his cuffs were slightly but perceptibly frayed, that his eyes were set -in half-moons the color of cigar smoke. - -"So I gathered," he said, fixing his friend with his bright-yellow eye. -"But where and how is Gloria? My God, Anthony, I've been hearing the -dog-gonedest stories about you two even out in California--and when I -get back to New York I find you've sunk absolutely out of sight. Why -don't you pull yourself together?" - -"Now, listen," chattered Anthony unsteadily, "I can't stand a long -lecture. We've lost money in a dozen ways, and naturally people have -talked--on account of the lawsuit, but the thing's coming to a final -decision this winter, surely--" - -"You're talking so fast that I can't understand you," interrupted Dick -calmly. - -"Well, I've said all I'm going to say," snapped Anthony. "Come and see -us if you like--or don't!" - -With this he turned and started to walk off in the crowd, but Dick -overtook him immediately and grasped his arm. - -"Say, Anthony, don't fly off the handle so easily! You know Gloria's my -cousin, and you're one of my oldest friends, so it's natural for me to -be interested when I hear that you're going to the dogs--and taking her -with you." - -"I don't want to be preached to." - -"Well, then, all right--How about coming up to my apartment and having a -drink? I've just got settled. I've bought three cases of Gordon gin from -a revenue officer." - -As they walked along he continued in a burst of exasperation: - -"And how about your grandfather's money--you going to get it?" - -"Well," answered Anthony resentfully, "that old fool Haight seems -hopeful, especially because people are tired of reformers right now--you -know it might make a slight difference, for instance, if some judge -thought that Adam Patch made it harder for him to get liquor." - -"You can't do without money," said Dick sententiously. "Have you tried -to write any--lately?" - -Anthony shook his head silently. - -"That's funny," said Dick. "I always thought that you and Maury would -write some day, and now he's grown to be a sort of tight-fisted -aristocrat, and you're--" - -"I'm the bad example." - -"I wonder why?" - -"You probably think you know," suggested Anthony, with an effort at -concentration. "The failure and the success both believe in their hearts -that they have accurately balanced points of view, the success because -he's succeeded, and the failure because he's failed. The successful man -tells his son to profit by his father's good fortune, and the failure -tells _his_ son to profit by his father's mistakes." - -"I don't agree with you," said the author of "A Shave-tail in France." -"I used to listen to you and Maury when we were young, and I used to be -impressed because you were so consistently cynical, but now--well, after -all, by God, which of us three has taken to the--to the intellectual -life? I don't want to sound vainglorious, but--it's me, and I've always -believed that moral values existed, and I always will." - -"Well," objected Anthony, who was rather enjoying himself, "even -granting that, you know that in practice life never presents problems as -clear cut, does it?" - -"It does to me. There's nothing I'd violate certain principles for." - -"But how do you know when you're violating them? You have to guess at -things just like most people do. You have to apportion the values when -you look back. You finish up the portrait then--paint in the details -and shadows." - -Dick shook his head with a lofty stubbornness. "Same old futile cynic," -he said. "It's just a mode of being sorry for yourself. You don't do -anything--so nothing matters." - -"Oh, I'm quite capable of self-pity," admitted Anthony, "nor am I -claiming that I'm getting as much fun out of life as you are." - -"You say--at least you used to--that happiness is the only thing worth -while in life. Do you think you're any happier for being a pessimist?" - -Anthony grunted savagely. His pleasure in the conversation began to -wane. He was nervous and craving for a drink. - -"My golly!" he cried, "where do you live? I can't keep walking forever." - -"Your endurance is all mental, eh?" returned Dick sharply. "Well, I live -right here." - -He turned in at the apartment house on Forty-ninth Street, and a few -minutes later they were in a large new room with an open fireplace and -four walls lined with books. A colored butler served them gin rickeys, -and an hour vanished politely with the mellow shortening of their drinks -and the glow of a light mid-autumn fire. - -"The arts are very old," said Anthony after a while. With a few glasses -the tension of his nerves relaxed and he found that he could -think again. - -"Which art?" - -"All of them. Poetry is dying first. It'll be absorbed into prose sooner -or later. For instance, the beautiful word, the colored and glittering -word, and the beautiful simile belong in prose now. To get attention -poetry has got to strain for the unusual word, the harsh, earthy word -that's never been beautiful before. Beauty, as the sum of several -beautiful parts, reached its apotheosis in Swinburne. It can't go any -further--except in the novel, perhaps." - -Dick interrupted him impatiently: - -"You know these new novels make me tired. My God! Everywhere I go some -silly girl asks me if I've read 'This Side of Paradise.' Are our girls -really like that? If it's true to life, which I don't believe, the next -generation is going to the dogs. I'm sick of all this shoddy realism. I -think there's a place for the romanticist in literature." - -Anthony tried to remember what he had read lately of Richard Caramel's. -There was "A Shave-tail in France," a novel called "The Land of Strong -Men," and several dozen short stories, which were even worse. It had -become the custom among young and clever reviewers to mention Richard -Caramel with a smile of scorn. "Mr." Richard Caramel, they called him. -His corpse was dragged obscenely through every literary supplement. He -was accused of making a great fortune by writing trash for the movies. -As the fashion in books shifted he was becoming almost a byword -of contempt. - -While Anthony was thinking this, Dick had got to his feet and seemed to -be hesitating at an avowal. - -"I've gathered quite a few books," he said suddenly. - -"So I see." - -"I've made an exhaustive collection of good American stuff, old and new. -I don't mean the usual Longfellow-Whittier thing--in fact, most of -it's modern." - -He stepped to one of the walls and, seeing that it was expected of him, -Anthony arose and followed. - -"Look!" - -Under a printed tag _Americana_ he displayed six long rows of books, -beautifully bound and, obviously, carefully chosen. - -"And here are the contemporary novelists." - -Then Anthony saw the joker. Wedged in between Mark Twain and Dreiser -were eight strange and inappropriate volumes, the works of Richard -Caramel--"The Demon Lover," true enough ... but also seven others that -were execrably awful, without sincerity or grace. - -Unwillingly Anthony glanced at Dick's face and caught a slight -uncertainty there. - -"I've put my own books in, of course," said Richard Caramel hastily, -"though one or two of them are uneven--I'm afraid I wrote a little too -fast when I had that magazine contract. But I don't believe in false -modesty. Of course some of the critics haven't paid so much attention to -me since I've been established--but, after all, it's not the critics -that count. They're just sheep." - -For the first time in so long that he could scarcely remember, Anthony -felt a touch of the old pleasant contempt for his friend. Richard -Caramel continued: - -"My publishers, you know, have been advertising me as the Thackeray of -America--because of my New York novel." - -"Yes," Anthony managed to muster, "I suppose there's a good deal in what -you say." - -He knew that his contempt was unreasonable. He, knew that he would have -changed places with Dick unhesitatingly. He himself had tried his best -to write with his tongue in his cheek. Ah, well, then--can a man -disparage his life-work so readily? ... - ---And that night while Richard Caramel was hard at toil, with great -hittings of the wrong keys and screwings up of his weary, unmatched -eyes, laboring over his trash far into those cheerless hours when the -fire dies down, and the head is swimming from the effect of prolonged -concentration--Anthony, abominably drunk, was sprawled across the back -seat of a taxi on his way to the flat on Claremont Avenue. - - -THE BEATING - -As winter approached it seemed that a sort of madness seized upon -Anthony. He awoke in the morning so nervous that Gloria could feel him -trembling in the bed before he could muster enough vitality to stumble -into the pantry for a drink. He was intolerable now except under the -influence of liquor, and as he seemed to decay and coarsen under her -eyes, Gloria's soul and body shrank away from him; when he stayed out -all night, as he did several times, she not only failed to be sorry but -even felt a measure of relief. Next day he would be faintly repentant, -and would remark in a gruff, hang-dog fashion that he guessed he was -drinking a little too much. - -For hours at a time he would sit in the great armchair that had been in -his apartment, lost in a sort of stupor--even his interest in reading -his favorite books seemed to have departed, and though an incessant -bickering went on between husband and wife, the one subject upon which -they ever really conversed was the progress of the will case. What -Gloria hoped in the tenebrous depths of her soul, what she expected that -great gift of money to bring about, is difficult to imagine. She was -being bent by her environment into a grotesque similitude of a -housewife. She who until three years before had never made coffee, -prepared sometimes three meals a day. She walked a great deal in the -afternoons, and in the evenings she read--books, magazines, anything she -found at hand. If now she wished for a child, even a child of the -Anthony who sought her bed blind drunk, she neither said so nor gave any -show or sign of interest in children. It is doubtful if she could have -made it clear to any one what it was she wanted, or indeed what there -was to want--a lonely, lovely woman, thirty now, retrenched behind some -impregnable inhibition born and coexistent with her beauty. - -One afternoon when the snow was dirty again along Riverside Drive, -Gloria, who had been to the grocer's, entered the apartment to find -Anthony pacing the floor in a state of aggravated nervousness. The -feverish eyes he turned on her were traced with tiny pink lines that -reminded her of rivers on a map. For a moment she received the -impression that he was suddenly and definitely old. - -"Have you any money?" he inquired of her precipitately. - -"What? What do you mean?" - -"Just what I said. Money! Money! Can't you speak English?" - -She paid no attention but brushed by him and into the pantry to put the -bacon and eggs in the ice-box. When his drinking had been unusually -excessive he was invariably in a whining mood. This time he followed her -and, standing in the pantry door, persisted in his question. - -"You heard what I said. Have you any money?" - -She turned about from the ice-box and faced him. - -"Why, Anthony, you must be crazy! You know I haven't any money--except a -dollar in change." - -He executed an abrupt about-face and returned to the living room, where -he renewed his pacing. It was evident that he had something portentous -on his mind--he quite obviously wanted to be asked what was the matter. -Joining him a moment later she sat upon the long lounge and began taking -down her hair. It was no longer bobbed, and it had changed in the last -year from a rich gold dusted with red to an unresplendent light brown. -She had bought some shampoo soap and meant to wash it now; she had -considered putting a bottle of peroxide into the rinsing water. - -"--Well?" she implied silently. - -"That darn bank!" he quavered. "They've had my account for over ten -years--ten _years_. Well, it seems they've got some autocratic rule that -you have to keep over five hundred dollars there or they won't carry -you. They wrote me a letter a few months ago and told me I'd been -running too low. Once I gave out two bum checks--remember? that night in -Reisenweber's?--but I made them good the very next day. Well, I promised -old Halloran--he's the manager, the greedy Mick--that I'd watch out. And -I thought I was going all right; I kept up the stubs in my check-book -pretty regular. Well, I went in there to-day to cash a check, and -Halloran came up and told me they'd have to close my account. Too many -bad checks, he said, and I never had more than five hundred to my -credit--and that only for a day or so at a time. And by God! What do you -think he said then?" - -"What?" - -"He said this was a good time to do it because I didn't have a damn -penny in there!" - -"You didn't?" - -"That's what he told me. Seems I'd given these Bedros people a check for -sixty for that last case of liquor--and I only had forty-five dollars in -the bank. Well, the Bedros people deposited fifteen dollars to my -account and drew the whole thing out." - -In her ignorance Gloria conjured up a spectre of imprisonment and -disgrace. - -"Oh, they won't do anything," he assured her. "Bootlegging's too risky a -business. They'll send me a bill for fifteen dollars and I'll pay it." - -"Oh." She considered a moment. "--Well, we can sell another bond." - -He laughed sarcastically. - -"Oh, yes, that's always easy. When the few bonds we have that are paying -any interest at all are only worth between fifty and eighty cents on the -dollar. We lose about half the bond every time we sell." - -"What else can we do?" - -"Oh, we'll sell something--as usual. We've got paper worth eighty -thousand dollars at par." Again he laughed unpleasantly. "Bring about -thirty thousand on the open market." - -"I distrusted those ten per cent investments." - -"The deuce you did!" he said. "You pretended you did, so you could claw -at me if they went to pieces, but you wanted to take a chance as much -as I did." - -She was silent for a moment as if considering, then: - -"Anthony," she cried suddenly, "two hundred a month is worse than -nothing. Let's sell all the bonds and put the thirty thousand dollars in -the bank--and if we lose the case we can live in Italy for three years, -and then just die." In her excitement as she talked she was aware of a -faint flush of sentiment, the first she had felt in many days. - -"Three years," he said nervously, "three years! You're crazy. Mr. -Haight'll take more than that if we lose. Do you think he's working -for charity?" - -"I forgot that." - -"--And here it is Saturday," he continued, "and I've only got a dollar -and some change, and we've got to live till Monday, when I can get to my -broker's.... And not a drink in the house," he added as a significant -afterthought. - -"Can't you call up Dick?" - -"I did. His man says he's gone down to Princeton to address a literary -club or some such thing. Won't be back till Monday." - -"Well, let's see--Don't you know some friend you might go to?" - -"I tried a couple of fellows. Couldn't find anybody in. I wish I'd sold -that Keats letter like I started to last week." - -"How about those men you play cards with in that Sammy place?" - -"Do you think I'd ask _them?_" His voice rang with righteous horror. -Gloria winced. He would rather contemplate her active discomfort than -feel his own skin crawl at asking an inappropriate favor. "I thought of -Muriel," he suggested. - -"She's in California." - -"Well, how about some of those men who gave you such a good time while I -was in the army? You'd think they might be glad to do a little favor -for you." - -She looked at him contemptuously, but he took no notice. - -"Or how about your old friend Rachael--or Constance Merriam?" - -"Constance Merriam's been dead a year, and I wouldn't ask Rachael." - -"Well, how about that gentleman who was so anxious to help you once that -he could hardly restrain himself, Bloeckman?" - -"Oh--!" He had hurt her at last, and he was not too obtuse or too -careless to perceive it. - -"Why not him?" he insisted callously. - -"Because--he doesn't like me any more," she said with difficulty, and -then as he did not answer but only regarded her cynically: "If you want -to know why, I'll tell you. A year ago I went to Bloeckman--he's changed -his name to Black--and asked him to put me into pictures." - -"You went to Bloeckman?" - -"Yes." - -"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded incredulously, the smile fading -from his face. - -"Because you were probably off drinking somewhere. He had them give me a -test, and they decided that I wasn't young enough for anything except a -character part." - -"A character part?" - -"The 'woman of thirty' sort of thing. I wasn't thirty, and I didn't -think I--looked thirty." - -"Why, damn him!" cried Anthony, championing her violently with a curious -perverseness of emotion, "why--" - -"Well, that's why I can't go to him." - -"Why, the insolence!" insisted Anthony nervously, "the insolence!" - -"Anthony, that doesn't matter now; the thing is we've got to live over -Sunday and there's nothing in the house but a loaf of bread and a -half-pound of bacon and two eggs for breakfast." She handed him the -contents of her purse. "There's seventy, eighty, a dollar fifteen. With -what you have that makes about two and a half altogether, doesn't it? -Anthony, we can get along on that. We can buy lots of food with -that--more than we can possibly eat." - -Jingling the change in his hand he shook his head. "No. I've got to have -a drink. I'm so darn nervous that I'm shivering." A thought struck him. -"Perhaps Sammy'd cash a check. And then Monday I could rush down to the -bank with the money." "But they've closed your account." - -"That's right, that's right--I'd forgotten. I'll tell you what: I'll go -down to Sammy's and I'll find somebody there who'll lend me something. I -hate like the devil to ask them, though...." He snapped his fingers -suddenly. "I know what I'll do. I'll hock my watch. I can get twenty -dollars on it, and get it back Monday for sixty cents extra. It's been -hocked before--when I was at Cambridge." - -He had put on his overcoat, and with a brief good-by he started down the -hall toward the outer door. - -Gloria got to her feet. It had suddenly occurred to her where he would -probably go first. - -"Anthony!" she called after him, "hadn't you better leave two dollars -with me? You'll only need car-fare." - -The outer door slammed--he had pretended not to hear her. She stood for -a moment looking after him; then she went into the bathroom among her -tragic unguents and began preparations for washing her hair. - -Down at Sammy's he found Parker Allison and Pete Lytell sitting alone at -a table, drinking whiskey sours. It was just after six o'clock, and -Sammy, or Samuele Bendiri, as he had been christened, was sweeping an -accumulation of cigarette butts and broken glass into a corner. - -"Hi, Tony!" called Parker Allison to Anthony. Sometimes he addressed him -as Tony, at other times it was Dan. To him all Anthonys must sail under -one of these diminutives. - -"Sit down. What'll you have?" - -On the subway Anthony had counted his money and found that he had almost -four dollars. He could pay for two rounds at fifty cents a drink--which -meant that he would have six drinks. Then he would go over to Sixth -Avenue and get twenty dollars and a pawn ticket in exchange for -his watch. - -"Well, roughnecks," he said jovially, "how's the life of crime?" - -"Pretty good," said Allison. He winked at Pete Lytell. "Too bad you're a -married man. We've got some pretty good stuff lined up for about eleven -o'clock, when the shows let out. Oh, boy! Yes, sir--too bad he's -married--isn't it, Pete?" - -"'Sa shame." - -At half past seven, when they had completed the six rounds, Anthony -found that his intentions were giving audience to his desires. He was -happy and cheerful now--thoroughly enjoying himself. It seemed to him -that the story which Pete had just finished telling was unusually and -profoundly humorous--and he decided, as he did every day at about this -point, that they were "damn good fellows, by golly!" who would do a lot -more for him than any one else he knew. The pawnshops would remain open -until late Saturday nights, and he felt that if he took just one more -drink he would attain a gorgeous rose-colored exhilaration. - -Artfully, he fished in his vest pockets, brought up his two quarters, -and stared at them as though in surprise. - -"Well, I'll be darned," he protested in an aggrieved tone, "here I've -come out without my pocketbook." - -"Need some cash?" asked Lytell easily. - -"I left my money on the dresser at home. And I wanted to buy you another -drink." - -"Oh--knock it." Lytell waved the suggestion away disparagingly. "I guess -we can blow a good fella to all the drinks he wants. What'll you -have--same?" - -"I tell you," suggested Parker Allison, "suppose we send Sammy across -the street for some sandwiches and eat dinner here." - -The other two agreed. - -"Good idea." - -"Hey, Sammy, wantcha do somep'm for us...." - -Just after nine o'clock Anthony staggered to his feet and, bidding them -a thick good night, walked unsteadily to the door, handing Sammy one of -his two quarters as he passed out. Once in the street he hesitated -uncertainly and then started in the direction of Sixth Avenue, where he -remembered to have frequently passed several loan offices. He went by a -news-stand and two drug-stores--and then he realized that he was -standing in front of the place which he sought, and that it was shut and -barred. Unperturbed he continued; another one, half a block down, was -also closed--so were two more across the street, and a fifth in the -square below. Seeing a faint light in the last one, he began to knock on -the glass door; he desisted only when a watchman appeared in the back of -the shop and motioned him angrily to move on. With growing -discouragement, with growing befuddlement, he crossed the street and -walked back toward Forty-third. On the corner near Sammy's he paused -undecided--if he went back to the apartment, as he felt his body -required, he would lay himself open to bitter reproach; yet, now that -the pawnshops were closed, he had no notion where to get the money. He -decided finally that he might ask Parker Allison, after all--but he -approached Sammy's only to find the door locked and the lights out. He -looked at his watch; nine-thirty. He began walking. - -Ten minutes later he stopped aimlessly at the corner of Forty-third -Street and Madison Avenue, diagonally across from the bright but nearly -deserted entrance to the Biltmore Hotel. Here he stood for a moment, and -then sat down heavily on a damp board amid some debris of construction -work. He rested there for almost half an hour, his mind a shifting -pattern of surface thoughts, chiefest among which were that he must -obtain some money and get home before he became too sodden to find -his way. - -Then, glancing over toward the Biltmore, he saw a man standing directly -under the overhead glow of the porte-cochere lamps beside a woman in an -ermine coat. As Anthony watched, the couple moved forward and signalled -to a taxi. Anthony perceived by the infallible identification that lurks -in the walk of a friend that it was Maury Noble. - -He rose to his feet. - -"Maury!" he shouted. - -Maury looked in his direction, then turned back to the girl just as the -taxi came up into place. With the chaotic idea of borrowing ten dollars, -Anthony began to run as fast as he could across Madison Avenue and along -Forty-third Street. - -As he came up Maury was standing beside the yawning door of the taxicab. -His companion turned and looked curiously at Anthony. - -"Hello, Maury!" he said, holding out his hand. "How are you?" - -"Fine, thank you." - -Their hands dropped and Anthony hesitated. Maury made no move to -introduce him, but only stood there regarding him with an inscrutable -feline silence. - -"I wanted to see you--" began Anthony uncertainly. He did not feel that -he could ask for a loan with the girl not four feet away, so he broke -off and made a perceptible motion of his head as if to beckon Maury -to one side. - -"I'm in rather a big hurry, Anthony." - -"I know--but can you, can you--" Again he hesitated. - -"I'll see you some other time," said Maury. "It's important." - -"I'm sorry, Anthony." - -Before Anthony could make up his mind to blurt out his request, Maury -had turned coolly to the girl, helped her into the car and, with a -polite "good evening," stepped in after her. As he nodded from the -window it seemed to Anthony that his expression had not changed by a -shade or a hair. Then with a fretful clatter the taxi moved off, and -Anthony was left standing there alone under the lights. - -Anthony went on into the Biltmore, for no reason in particular except -that the entrance was at hand, and ascending the wide stair found a seat -in an alcove. He was furiously aware that he had been snubbed; he was as -hurt and angry as it was possible for him to be when in that condition. -Nevertheless, he was stubbornly preoccupied with the necessity of -obtaining some money before he went home, and once again he told over on -his fingers the acquaintances he might conceivably call on in this -emergency. He thought, eventually, that he might approach Mr. Howland, -his broker, at his home. - -After a long wait he found that Mr. Howland was out. He returned to the -operator, leaning over her desk and fingering his quarter as though -loath to leave unsatisfied. - -"Call Mr. Bloeckman," he said suddenly. His own words surprised him. The -name had come from some crossing of two suggestions in his mind. - -"What's the number, please?" - -Scarcely conscious of what he did, Anthony looked up Joseph Bloeckman in -the telephone directory. He could find no such person, and was about to -close the book when it flashed into his mind that Gloria had mentioned a -change of name. It was the matter of a minute to find Joseph Black--then -he waited in the booth while central called the number. - -"Hello-o. Mr. Bloeckman--I mean Mr. Black in?" - -"No, he's out this evening. Is there any message?" The intonation was -cockney; it reminded him of the rich vocal deferences of Bounds. - -"Where is he?" - -"Why, ah, who is this, please, sir?" - -"This Mr. Patch. Matter of vi'al importance." "Why, he's with a party at -the Boul' Mich', sir." "Thanks." - -Anthony got his five cents change and started for the Boul' Mich', a -popular dancing resort on Forty-fifth Street. It was nearly ten but the -streets were dark and sparsely peopled until the theatres should eject -their spawn an hour later. Anthony knew the Boul' Mich', for he had been -there with Gloria during the year before, and he remembered the -existence of a rule that patrons must be in evening dress. Well, he -would not go up-stairs--he would send a boy up for Bloeckman and wait for -him in the lower hall. For a moment he did not doubt that the whole -project was entirely natural and graceful. To his distorted imagination -Bloeckman had become simply one of his old friends. - -The entrance hall of the Boul' Mich' was warm. There were high yellow -lights over a thick green carpet, from the centre of which a white -stairway rose to the dancing floor. - -Anthony spoke to the hallboy: - -"I want to see Mr. Bloeckman--Mr. Black," he said. "He's up-stairs--have -him paged." - -The boy shook his head. - -"'Sagainsa rules to have him paged. You know what table he's at?" - -"No. But I've got see him." - -"Wait an' I'll getcha waiter." - -After a short interval a head waiter appeared, bearing a card on which -were charted the table reservations. He darted a cynical look at -Anthony--which, however, failed of its target. Together they bent over -the cardboard and found the table without difficulty--a party of eight, -Mr. Black's own. - -"Tell him Mr. Patch. Very, very important." - -Again he waited, leaning against the banister and listening to the -confused harmonies of "Jazz-mad" which came floating down the stairs. A -check-girl near him was singing: - -_"Out in--the shimmee sanitarium -The jazz-mad nuts reside. -Out in--the shimmee sanitarium -I left my blushing bride. -She went and shook herself insane, -So let her shiver back again--"_ - -Then he saw Bloeckman descending the staircase, and took a step forward -to meet him and shake hands. - -"You wanted to see me?" said the older man coolly. - -"Yes," answered Anthony, nodding, "personal matter. Can you jus' step -over here?" - -Regarding him narrowly Bloeckman followed Anthony to a half bend made by -the staircase where they were beyond observation or earshot of any one -entering or leaving the restaurant. - -"Well?" he inquired. - -"Wanted talk to you." - -"What about?" - -Anthony only laughed--a silly laugh; he intended it to sound casual. - -"What do you want to talk to me about?" repeated Bloeckman. - -"Wha's hurry, old man?" He tried to lay his hand in a friendly gesture -upon Bloeckman's shoulder, but the latter drew away slightly. -"How've been?" - -"Very well, thanks.... See here, Mr. Patch, I've got a party up-stairs. -They'll think it's rude if I stay away too long. What was it you wanted -to see me about?" - -For the second time that evening Anthony's mind made an abrupt jump, and -what he said was not at all what he had intended to say. - -"Un'erstand you kep' my wife out of the movies." "What?" Bloeckman's -ruddy face darkened in parallel planes of shadows. - -"You heard me." - -"Look here, Mr. Patch," said Bloeckman, evenly and without changing his -expression, "you're drunk. You're disgustingly and insultingly drunk." - -"Not too drunk talk to you," insisted Anthony with a leer. "Firs' place, -my wife wants nothin' whatever do with you. Never did. Un'erstand me?" - -"Be quiet!" said the older man angrily. "I should think you'd respect -your wife enough not to bring her into the conversation under these -circumstances." - -"Never you min' how I expect my wife. One thing--you leave her alone. -You go to hell!" - -"See here--I think you're a little crazy!" exclaimed Bloeckman. He took -two paces forward as though to pass by, but Anthony stepped in his way. - -"Not so fas', you Goddam Jew." - -For a moment they stood regarding each other, Anthony swaying gently -from side to side, Bloeckman almost trembling with fury. - -"Be careful!" he cried in a strained voice. - -Anthony might have remembered then a certain look Bloeckman had given -him in the Biltmore Hotel years before. But he remembered nothing, -nothing---- - -"I'll say it again, you God----" - -Then Bloeckman struck out, with all the strength in the arm of a -well-conditioned man of forty-five, struck out and caught Anthony -squarely in the mouth. Anthony cracked up against the staircase, -recovered himself and made a wild drunken swing at his opponent, but -Bloeckman, who took exercise every day and knew something of sparring, -blocked it with ease and struck him twice in the face with two swift -smashing jabs. Anthony gave a little grunt and toppled over onto the -green plush carpet, finding, as he fell, that his mouth was full of -blood and seemed oddly loose in front. He struggled to his feet, panting -and spitting, and then as he started toward Bloeckman, who stood a few -feet away, his fists clenched but not up, two waiters who had appeared -from nowhere seized his arms and held him, helpless. In back of them a -dozen people had miraculously gathered. - -"I'll kill him," cried Anthony, pitching and straining from side to -side. "Let me kill----" - -"Throw him out!" ordered Bloeckman excitedly, just as a small man with a -pockmarked face pushed his way hurriedly through the spectators. - -"Any trouble, Mr. Black?" - -"This bum tried to blackmail me!" said Bloeckman, and then, his voice -rising to a faintly shrill note of pride: "He got what was coming -to him!" - -The little man turned to a waiter. - -"Call a policeman!" he commanded. - -"Oh, no," said Bloeckman quickly. "I can't be bothered. Just throw him -out in the street.... Ugh! What an outrage!" He turned and with -conscious dignity walked toward the wash-room just as six brawny hands -seized upon Anthony and dragged him toward the door. The "bum" was -propelled violently to the sidewalk, where he landed on his hands and -knees with a grotesque slapping sound and rolled over slowly onto -his side. - -The shock stunned him. He lay there for a moment in acute distributed -pain. Then his discomfort became centralized in his stomach, and he -regained consciousness to discover that a large foot was prodding him. - -"You've got to move on, y' bum! Move on!" - -It was the bulky doorman speaking. A town car had stopped at the curb -and its occupants had disembarked--that is, two of the women were -standing on the dashboard, waiting in offended delicacy until this -obscene obstacle should be removed from their path. - -"Move on! Or else I'll _throw_ y'on!" - -"Here--I'll get him." - -This was a new voice; Anthony imagined that it was somehow more -tolerant, better disposed than the first. Again arms were about him, -half lifting, half dragging him into a welcome shadow four doors up the -street and propping him against the stone front of a millinery shop. - -"Much obliged," muttered Anthony feebly. Some one pushed his soft hat -down upon his head and he winced. - -"Just sit still, buddy, and you'll feel better. Those guys sure give you -a bump." - -"I'm going back and kill that dirty--" He tried to get to his feet but -collapsed backward against the wall. - -"You can't do nothin' now," came the voice. "Get 'em some other time. -I'm tellin' you straight, ain't I? I'm helpin' you." - -Anthony nodded. - -"An' you better go home. You dropped a tooth to-night, buddy. You know -that?" - -Anthony explored his mouth with his tongue, verifying the statement. -Then with an effort he raised his hand and located the gap. - -"I'm agoin' to get you home, friend. Whereabouts do you live--" - -"Oh, by God! By God!" interrupted Anthony, clenching his fists -passionately. "I'll show the dirty bunch. You help me show 'em and I'll -fix it with you. My grandfather's Adam Patch, of Tarrytown"-- - -"Who?" - -"Adam Patch, by God!" - -"You wanna go all the way to Tarrytown?" - -"No." - -"Well, you tell me where to go, friend, and I'll get a cab." - -Anthony made out that his Samaritan was a short, broad-shouldered -individual, somewhat the worse for wear. - -"Where d'you live, hey?" - -Sodden and shaken as he was, Anthony felt that his address would be poor -collateral for his wild boast about his grandfather. - -"Get me a cab," he commanded, feeling in his pockets. - -A taxi drove up. Again Anthony essayed to rise, but his ankle swung -loose, as though it were in two sections. The Samaritan must needs help -him in--and climb in after him. - -"See here, fella," said he, "you're soused and you're bunged up, and you -won't be able to get in your house 'less somebody carries you in, so I'm -going with you, and I know you'll make it all right with me. Where -d'you live?" - -With some reluctance Anthony gave his address. Then, as the cab moved -off, he leaned his head against the man's shoulder and went into a -shadowy, painful torpor. When he awoke, the man had lifted him from the -cab in front of the apartment on Claremont Avenue and was trying to set -him on his feet. - -"Can y' walk?" - -"Yes--sort of. You better not come in with me." Again he felt helplessly -in his pockets. "Say," he continued, apologetically, swaying dangerously -on his feet, "I'm afraid I haven't got a cent." - -"Huh?" - -"I'm cleaned out." - -"Sa-a-ay! Didn't I hear you promise you'd fix it with me? Who's goin' to -pay the taxi bill?" He turned to the driver for confirmation. "Didn't -you hear him say he'd fix it? All that about his grandfather?" - -"Matter of fact," muttered Anthony imprudently, "it was you did all the -talking; however, if you come round, to-morrow--" - -At this point the taxi-driver leaned from his cab and said ferociously: - -"Ah, poke him one, the dirty cheap skate. If he wasn't a bum they -wouldn'ta throwed him out." - -In answer to this suggestion the fist of the Samaritan shot out like a -battering-ram and sent Anthony crashing down against the stone steps of -the apartment-house, where he lay without movement, while the tall -buildings rocked to and fro above him.... - -After a long while he awoke and was conscious that it had grown much -colder. He tried to move himself but his muscles refused to function. He -was curiously anxious to know the time, but he reached for his watch, -only to find the pocket empty. Involuntarily his lips formed an -immemorial phrase: - -"What a night!" - -Strangely enough, he was almost sober. Without moving his head he looked -up to where the moon was anchored in mid-sky, shedding light down into -Claremont Avenue as into the bottom of a deep and uncharted abyss. There -was no sign or sound of life save for the continuous buzzing in his own -ears, but after a moment Anthony himself broke the silence with a -distinct and peculiar murmur. It was the sound that he had consistently -attempted to make back there in the Boul' Mich', when he had been face -to face with Bloeckman--the unmistakable sound of ironic laughter. And -on his torn and bleeding lips it was like a pitiful retching of -the soul. - -Three weeks later the trial came to an end. The seemingly endless spool -of legal red tape having unrolled over a period of four and a half -years, suddenly snapped off. Anthony and Gloria and, on the other side, -Edward Shuttleworth and a platoon of beneficiaries testified and lied -and ill-behaved generally in varying degrees of greed and desperation. -Anthony awoke one morning in March realizing that the verdict was to be -given at four that afternoon, and at the thought he got up out of his -bed and began to dress. With his extreme nervousness there was mingled -an unjustified optimism as to the outcome. He believed that the decision -of the lower court would be reversed, if only because of the reaction, -due to excessive prohibition, that had recently set in against reforms -and reformers. He counted more on the personal attacks that they had -levelled at Shuttleworth than on the more sheerly legal aspects of the -proceedings. - -Dressed, he poured himself a drink of whiskey and then went into -Gloria's room, where he found her already wide awake. She had been in -bed for a week, humoring herself, Anthony fancied, though the doctor had -said that she had best not be disturbed. - -"Good morning," she murmured, without smiling. Her eyes seemed unusually -large and dark. - -"How do you feel?" he asked grudgingly. "Better?" - -"Yes." - -"Much?" - -"Yes." - -"Do you feel well enough to go down to court with me this afternoon?" - -She nodded. - -"Yes. I want to. Dick said yesterday that if the weather was nice he was -coming up in his car and take me for a ride in Central Park--and look, -the room's all full of sunshine." - -Anthony glanced mechanically out the window and then sat down upon the -bed. - -"God, I'm nervous!" he exclaimed. - -"Please don't sit there," she said quickly. - -"Why not?" - -"You smell of whiskey. I can't stand it." - -He got up absent-mindedly and left the room. A little later she called -to him and he went out and brought her some potato salad and cold -chicken from the delicatessen. - -At two o'clock Richard Caramel's car arrived at the door and, when he -phoned up, Anthony took Gloria down in the elevator and walked with her -to the curb. - -She told her cousin that it was sweet of him to take her riding. "Don't -be simple," Dick replied disparagingly. "It's nothing." - -But he did not mean that it was nothing and this was a curious thing. -Richard Caramel had forgiven many people for many offenses. But he had -never forgiven his cousin, Gloria Gilbert, for a statement she had made -just prior to her wedding, seven years before. She had said that she did -not intend to read his book. - -Richard Caramel remembered this--he had remembered it well for seven -years. - -"What time will I expect you back?" asked Anthony. - -"We won't come back," she answered, "we'll meet you down there at four." - -"All right," he muttered, "I'll meet you." - -Up-stairs he found a letter waiting for him. It was a mimeographed -notice urging "the boys" in condescendingly colloquial language to pay -the dues of the American Legion. He threw it impatiently into the -waste-basket and sat down with his elbows on the window sill, looking -down blindly into the sunny street. - -Italy--if the verdict was in their favor it meant Italy. The word had -become a sort of talisman to him, a land where the intolerable anxieties -of life would fall away like an old garment. They would go to the -watering-places first and among the bright and colorful crowds forget -the gray appendages of despair. Marvellously renewed, he would walk -again in the Piazza di Spanga at twilight, moving in that drifting -flotsam of dark women and ragged beggars, of austere, barefooted friars. -The thought of Italian women stirred him faintly--when his purse hung -heavy again even romance might fly back to perch upon it--the romance of -blue canals in Venice, of the golden green hills of Fiesole after rain, -and of women, women who changed, dissolved, melted into other women and -receded from his life, but who were always beautiful and always young. - -But it seemed to him that there should be a difference in his attitude. -All the distress that he had ever known, the sorrow and the pain, had -been because of women. It was something that in different ways they did -to him, unconsciously, almost casually--perhaps finding him -tender-minded and afraid, they killed the things in him that menaced -their absolute sway. - -Turning about from the window he faced his reflection in the mirror, -contemplating dejectedly the wan, pasty face, the eyes with their -crisscross of lines like shreds of dried blood, the stooped and flabby -figure whose very sag was a document in lethargy. He was thirty -three--he looked forty. Well, things would be different. - -The door-bell rang abruptly and he started as though he had been dealt a -blow. Recovering himself, he went into the hall and opened the outer -dour. It was Dot. - - -THE ENCOUNTER - -He retreated before her into the living room, comprehending only a word -here and there in the slow flood of sentences that poured from her -steadily, one after the other, in a persistent monotone. She was -decently and shabbily dressed--a somehow pitiable little hat adorned -with pink and blue flowers covered and hid her dark hair. He gathered -from her words that several days before she had seen an item in the -paper concerning the lawsuit, and had obtained his address from the -clerk of the Appellate Division. She had called up the apartment and had -been told that Anthony was out by a woman to whom she had refused to -give her name. - -In a living room he stood by the door regarding her with a sort of -stupefied horror as she rattled on.... His predominant sensation was -that all the civilization and convention around him was curiously -unreal.... She was in a milliner's shop on Sixth Avenue, she said. It -was a lonesome life. She had been sick for a long while after he left -for Camp Mills; her mother had come down and taken her home again to -Carolina.... She had come to New York with the idea of finding Anthony. - -She was appallingly in earnest. Her violet eyes were red with tears; her -soft intonation was ragged with little gasping sobs. - -That was all. She had never changed. She wanted him now, and if she -couldn't have him she must die.... - -"You'll have to get out," he said at length, speaking with tortuous -intensity. "Haven't I enough to worry me now without you coming here? My -_God_! You'll have to get _out!"_ - -Sobbing, she sat down in a chair. - -"I love you," she cried; "I don't care what you say to me! I love you." - -"I don't care!" he almost shrieked; "get out--oh, get out! Haven't you -done me harm enough? Haven't--you--done--_enough?"_ - -"Hit me!" she implored him--wildly, stupidly. "Oh, hit me, and I'll kiss -the hand you hit me with!" - -His voice rose until it was pitched almost at a scream. "I'll kill you!" -he cried. "If you don't get out I'll kill you, I'll kill you!" - -There was madness in his eyes now, but, unintimidated, Dot rose and took -a step toward him. - -"Anthony! Anthony!--" - -He made a little clicking sound with his teeth and drew back as though -to spring at her--then, changing his purpose, he looked wildly about him -on the floor and wall. - -"I'll kill you!" he was muttering in short, broken gasps. "I'll _kill_ -you!" He seemed to bite at the word as though to force it into -materialization. Alarmed at last she made no further movement forward, -but meeting his frantic eyes took a step back toward the door. Anthony -began to race here and there on his side of the room, still giving out -his single cursing cry. Then he found what he had been seeking--a stiff -oaken chair that stood beside the table. Uttering a harsh, broken shout, -he seized it, swung it above his head and let it go with all his raging -strength straight at the white, frightened face across the room ... then -a thick, impenetrable darkness came down upon him and blotted out -thought, rage, and madness together--with almost a tangible snapping -sound the face of the world changed before his eyes.... - -Gloria and Dick came in at five and called his name. There was no -answer--they went into the living room and found a chair with its back -smashed lying in the doorway, and they noticed that all about the room -there was a sort of disorder--the rugs had slid, the pictures and -bric-a-brac were upset upon the centre table. The air was sickly sweet -with cheap perfume. - -They found Anthony sitting in a patch of sunshine on the floor of his -bedroom. Before him, open, were spread his three big stamp-books, and -when they entered he was running his hands through a great pile of -stamps that he had dumped from the back of one of them. Looking up and -seeing Dick and Gloria he put his head critically on one side and -motioned them back. - -"Anthony!" cried Gloria tensely, "we've won! They reversed the -decision!" - -"Don't come in," he murmured wanly, "you'll muss them. I'm sorting, and -I know you'll step in them. Everything always gets mussed." - -"What are you doing?" demanded Dick in astonishment. "Going back to -childhood? Don't you realize you've won the suit? They've reversed the -decision of the lower courts. You're worth thirty millions!" - -Anthony only looked at him reproachfully. - -"Shut the door when you go out." He spoke like a pert child. - -With a faint horror dawning in her eyes, Gloria gazed at him-- - -"Anthony!" she cried, "what is it? What's the matter? Why didn't you -come--why, what _is_ it?" - -"See here," said Anthony softly, "you two get out--now, both of you. Or -else I'll tell my grandfather." - -He held up a handful of stamps and let them come drifting down about him -like leaves, varicolored and bright, turning and fluttering gaudily upon -the sunny air: stamps of England and Ecuador, Venezuela and -Spain--Italy.... - - -TOGETHER WITH THE SPARROWS - -That exquisite heavenly irony which has tabulated the demise of so many -generations of sparrows doubtless records the subtlest verbal -inflections of the passengers of such ships as _The Berengaria_. And -doubtless it was listening when the young man in the plaid cap crossed -the deck quickly and spoke to the pretty girl in yellow. - -"That's him," he said, pointing to a bundled figure seated in a wheel -chair near the rail. "That's Anthony Patch. First time he's been -on deck." - -"Oh--that's him?" - -"Yes. He's been a little crazy, they say, ever since he got his money, -four or five months ago. You see, the other fellow, Shuttleworth, the -religious fellow, the one that didn't get the money, he locked himself -up in a room in a hotel and shot himself-- - -"Oh, he did--" - -"But I guess Anthony Patch don't care much. He got his thirty million. -And he's got his private physician along in case he doesn't feel just -right about it. Has _she_ been on deck?" he asked. - -The pretty girl in yellow looked around cautiously. - -"She was here a minute ago. She had on a Russian-sable coat that must -have cost a small fortune." She frowned and then added decisively: "I -can't stand her, you know. She seems sort of--sort of dyed and -_unclean_, if you know what I mean. Some people just have that look -about them whether they are or not." - -"Sure, I know," agreed the man with the plaid cap. "She's not -bad-looking, though." He paused. "Wonder what he's thinking about--his -money, I guess, or maybe he's got remorse about that fellow -Shuttleworth." - -"Probably...." - -But the man in the plaid cap was quite wrong. Anthony Patch, sitting -near the rail and looking out at the sea, was not thinking of his money, -for he had seldom in his life been really preoccupied with material -vainglory, nor of Edward Shuttleworth, for it is best to look on the -sunny side of these things. No--he was concerned with a series of -reminiscences, much as a general might look back upon a successful -campaign and analyze his victories. He was thinking of the hardships, -the insufferable tribulations he had gone through. They had tried to -penalize him for the mistakes of his youth. He had been exposed to -ruthless misery, his very craving for romance had been punished, his -friends had deserted him--even Gloria had turned against him. He had -been alone, alone--facing it all. - -Only a few months before people had been urging him to give in, to -submit to mediocrity, to go to work. But he had known that he was -justified in his way of life--and he had stuck it out stanchly. Why, the -very friends who had been most unkind had come to respect him, to know -he had been right all along. Had not the Lacys and the Merediths and the -Cartwright-Smiths called on Gloria and him at the Ritz-Carlton just a -week before they sailed? - -Great tears stood in his eyes, and his voice was tremulous as he -whispered to himself. - -"I showed them," he was saying. 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