PART FOUR

I

On the way to Thursday dinner with the Aunts, Wilfred went around by Sixth avenue in order to have a look at the news-stand. Yes, the Century was out! Good old Century in its plain yellow dress, and neat lettering! Wilfred’s heart set up a slightly accelerated beating. Before paying over his thirty-five cents, he took the precaution of consulting the table of contents. “Romance in Rivington Street. . . . Wilfred Pell.” A sigh of satisfaction relieved his breast.

Oblivious to the uproar at Sixth avenue and Eighth street, he leaned against a shop window to get the light over his shoulder, reading the sentences that he already knew by heart, with a delighted grin pressing into his cheeks. How human and funny it was! how offhand and graceful! He had _got_ it that time! At the same time an inner voice was saying dryly, in Hilgy’s manner: Oh, it’s not as good as all that! His delight was mixed with apprehension: Would he ever be able to get it again?

He gave his private ring at the Aunts’ door-bell, that the maid might not be brought up-stairs from her work. Aunt May opened the door. Wilfred had shoved the magazine in his overcoat pocket. He would not blurt out his news. Besides, his Aunts would be sure to say the wrong thing. Aunt May held up her cheek to be kissed, without looking at him. It was one of the most amusing characteristics of his people, the way they took each other for granted.

The reason for Aunt May’s abstraction was revealed. “I think a rat must have died under the floor. . . . Huh?” she said sniffing. “These old houses . . . !”

“How inconsiderate!” said Wilfred.

She was already on her way back to the drawing-room, and did not get it. Wilfred presently followed, carrying the magazine in his hand.

“I am just finishing a letter,” said Aunt May at her desk.

Wilfred looked around the room with a warm feeling about his heart. How pleasant the sight of something that was unchanged. The Brussels carpet with its all-over design; the skimmed-milk wall-paper with its neo-Gothic ornaments traced in gilt; the square piano with yellowed keys and absurd muscle-bound legs; the carved walnut furniture. Could he not do something in a story with that tranquillizing room, with the whole quaint little house which was of a piece with it—but no! He was still too close to it. At the thought of the room up-stairs which had been his, he shivered with old pains and ardors.

Wilfred commenced to read the delicious story all over again.

Having sealed her letter, Aunt May became aware of his smile. “What is amusing you?” she asked.

“Damn good story!” said Wilfred.

“Wilfred! This is not South Washington Square!”

“Oh, beg pardon, Aunt. They tell me that profanity is becoming fashionable.”

“Not in this house! . . . Who is the story by?”

Wilfred affected to turn back to the beginning. “Chap called Wilfred Pell.”

“Wilfred! Give me that magazine!”

Together they studied the illustration to Wilfred’s story.

“I don’t think much of that,” remarked Aunt May.

“Putrid!”

“Wilfred . . . !”

“One is prepared for it,” said Wilfred like a long-suffering author. “He’s made my young lad look like a race track tout. Twenty years out of date. Why can’t these fellows look about them when they go into the streets? . . . However, it’s a Dugan, you see. That lends importance to the story. They paid more for that one picture than they did for the story.”

“How unjust!”

The placid, rosy Aunt Fanny came into the room.

“Fanny!” cried her sister. “Wilfred’s story in the Century!”

Aunt Fanny seized the magazine, and while her eyes fastened upon it, she held up her cheek sideways to be kissed.

Said Aunt May with a thoughtful air: “Wilfred, how many of those could you . . . Huh? . . . About the same amount of writing as ten letters, I should say. And if you had nothing else to do. . . .”

“Oh, but I have not your facility, Aunt May.”

“Don’t try to be funny! . . . Say, two a month anyway. . . .”

“It’s not how many you can write, but how many you can sell, my dear.”

“Oh, but the cheaper magazines will all be after you . . . Huh? now that the Century. . . .”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that. The cheaper magazines have a grand conceit of themselves, you see. They affect to look upon the Century as a back number.”

“All the best people read the Century!”

“Unfortunately there are so many more people of the other kind!”

Later, at the table, Aunt May said with a casual air—but her hazy grey eyes were intent upon her thought: “Wilfred, now that you are becoming known . . . Huh? . . . you ought to . . . _Do_ sit up straight in your chair! . . . you ought to go about more . . . !”

“Why, I circulate like a dollar bill!” said Wilfred. “I am worn and greasy with handling.”

“I _wish_ you wouldn’t be vulgar!”

“Seriously, I have dozens of friends now.”

“Oh, South Washington Square!”

“I’m known as far North as Fifty-Ninth street. The Fifty-Ninth street crowd of artists and writers are _most_ respectable. They sell their work, too. I know Walter Sherman, and Louis Sala and Frances Mary Lore. Miss Lore is a special friend of mine.”

The two Aunts exchanged an anxious glance. “Lore?” said Aunt Fanny. “Who are her people . . . Huh? . . .”

“Let me see,” said Wilfred, “her father was a letter carrier in Memphis. Or else he was the garbage collector. I forget.”

“Wilfred!”

“Well, it doesn’t signify, does it? Frances Mary stands on her own bottom.”

“_Wilfred!_”

“Oh, Aunt! I didn’t mean what you mean!”

“Seriously, Wilfred,” said Aunt May, “you are twenty-six years old. . . .”

“We should hate to see you marry on South Washington Square,” put in Aunt Fanny.

Aunt May frowned at Aunt Fanny. This was too direct.

Wilfred grinned at them both. An outrageous retort trembled on his tongue, but he bit it back. After all, they were dear old dears. And he was his own man now. “Well, thank God! that’s not an issue,” he said. “I don’t want to marry and I couldn’t if I did!”

“You ought to know the people who _count_,” said Aunt May.

“So I do,” said Wilfred. “In my world.”

“But that’s a very small world, my dear. . . . Huh? . . . I mean the great world.”

“Society?” said Wilfred. “I can hardly see myself performing with that troupe of trained seals.”

“And why not, pray?” asked Aunt May, bridling. “That is where you belong, on both sides of the house. Your name alone. . . . Huh? . . . the sole representative of your branch. . . .”

“And you have become quite nice-looking,” added Aunt Fanny.

“Thanks, ladies, thanks,” said Wilfred bowing.

“Nor are we entirely forgotten,” said Aunt May with dignity, “notwithstanding the parvenues who crowd everywhere. . . .”

“And the girls of that world are so much prettier and more charming,” put in Aunt Fanny.

Aunt May frowned at her again. But it was the seeming injudicious remark of Aunt Fanny’s which arrested Wilfred’s attention, and sent his mind cavorting down the very avenue that they wished. It was true! The girls of _his_ world, writers and artists, good fellows as they were—well, that was just the trouble with them, they were such good fellows! When women descended into the arena to compete with men, they lost something of their allure. What cynic had he heard say that? He himself, would never have dared say it out loud amongst his friends; but was it not true? And sometimes, confound them! they beat a man at his own trade! How could you make love to a girl whose stories were in greater demand by the editors than your own? . . . Why not be honest with yourself, and confess that you were enough of a Turk at heart to be attracted by the idea of exquisite girls especially trained and groomed to please men. Very reprehensible, of course, but as long as there were such girls going, why not have one?

Wilfred was recalled to his surroundings by hearing Aunt May say, casually:

“Every time we see Cousin Emily Gore she asks after you.”

So that was the milk in the cocoanut! “Kind of her,” said Wilfred.

“She has several times given you an opening to call; but you never would.”

“That was when I was working for her husband,” said Wilfred. “No sucking up to the boss’s wife for me, thanks.”

“Wilfred! What an expression!”

“But I’m on my own now; the case is altered.”

“And Cousin Emily says,” added Aunt Fanny, “that there’s such a shortage of dancing men in society, they’re at a premium!”

Aunt May looked annoyed. Fanny _would_ say the word too much!

“Yes, so I’ve heard,” drawled Wilfred. “Low society is really more select.”

“Will you call on Cousin Emily Gore? . . . Huh?” asked Aunt May.

“Haven’t got a Prince Albert.”

“We are told it is no longer indispensable.”

“Oh, they’ll take us in anything now, eh?”

“_Do_ be sensible, Wilfred! . . . Will you go?”

“Oh well, I suppose an author’s got to know all sides of life—even the lowest.”

The two ladies exchanged a look of mutual congratulation.

“Wednesday is her day,” said Aunt May. “And Wilfred, dear, do allow yourself to be . . . Huh? . . . As you know so well how to be. . . . This mocking air may be . . . But not in Cousin Emily’s world, my dear. . . .”

It was then, Wilfred saw, Aunt Fanny’s turn to feel that May was risking all they had gained by saying too much. Their faces were so transparent! “Cousin Emily takes a special interest in the débutantes,” Aunt Fanny hastily put in. “They say that this year’s débutantes are the loveliest in years!”

“Well I may be a Turk,” said Wilfred, “but I’m not as much of a Turk as that—no débutantes!”

“A Turk. . . . Huh? . . .” said Aunt May. “I’ll let her know you’re coming.”

II

Wilfred knew the Gore house from cellar to garret, from having been required once in the old days, to take an inventory of its contents. It was rather piquant to be there now as a guest in a swallow-tail coat. It was not one of the greatest houses in New York; but ’twould serve. His hat and coat were taken from him in a horrible entrance hall in the “Moorish” style, all the rage about 1890. He passed through the library (which contained no books) all done in red velvet, and entered the drawing-room behind. The drawing-room, with its great bay-window giving on the side street, was rather fine he considered; evidently a pretty good decorator had been let loose in here. But there was far too much stuff in it. The prevailing tone was an agreeable blue.

In the bay stood a grand piano, with a great golden harp placed beside it. Wilfred smiled at the harp. It had not been moved in seven years. “Why in Hell a harp?” he asked himself. Against the wall facing the bay stood an immense upholstered settee; and over the settee in the place of honor, hung the famous portrait of Mrs. Gore by Madrazo. A superb figure. The rich blue brocade of her corsage seemed to be glued to her body like wall-paper.

It was a dinner for about twenty people. Mrs. Gore affected the Knickerbocker set, whose present day representatives showed a sad falling off from the picturesqueness of their ancestors. The ladies affected a rich and dowdy style of dress, still featuring the abdomen; and the gentlemen also, who ran to bottle shoulders, and a small, neat melon under their waist-bands, suggested the magazine illustrations of twenty years ago. Obviously gentlemen, who toiled not neither did they spin. In America, for some reason, they looked piteous. There were several more or less subdued young persons present. Wilfred was introduced to a few of the guests, and left to shift for himself. He was to take in a Mrs. Varick, an anæmic little woman who kept up a fire of virtuous platitudes. One could safely agree with everything she said, while one looked about.

A little late, when all the estimable guests were visibly becoming uneasy, a woman entered the room, who changed the whole complexion of the party. Like a wild bird lighting in the poultry yard, Wilfred thought. She was about his own age with miscellaneous American features, not in the least beautiful. But she had the divine carriage of Diana, and Diana’s arrowy glance. Never had Wilfred beheld that proud, free glance in living woman. What a glorious spirit it betokened! So defiant and desirable it rendered him helpless. She was wearing a dress of tomato red, partly misted with smoke-colored net. Nothing of yesteryear about _her_! Though she and all her works must have been anathema to the drab ones, Wilfred observed that they were inclined to fawn upon her. Obviously, that girl could get away with anything, anywhere, Wilfred thought.

At the table he was terrified and delighted to discover that she was to be on the other side of him. She sat down, talking busily to her companion. Wilfred stole a glance at her place card. “Miss Elaine Sturges.” It had the effect of striking a gong. Elaine Sturges! Wilfred had not been above reading of the doings of the butterflies he despised; the Sturgeses of North Washington Square; elect of the elect! For several seasons she had been chief amongst the unmarried girls. It appeared that no entertainment was complete without her. Merely from having her name so often printed, the lustre of fame was about her plainly-dressed brown head; and Wilfred’s imagination was dazzled afresh. While he sagely nodded his head in agreement with Mrs. Varick’s ambling comment, he sought in his mind to have ready some arresting thing to say, when his chance came. But his mind was a blank.

He happened not to be looking in that direction when a contralto voice said near his ear: “I say, who are you? Your place card is covered up.”

Wilfred jumped. “Wilfred Pell,” he said, smiling.

“I thought I knew all the Pells.”

“I’m only an offshoot. A scribbling Pell.”

“Didn’t think such a thing was possible!”

They laughed, knowing the Pell characteristics.

Wilfred thought: She has not read my stories. . . . But why should she? I must say something at once, or she’ll turn back to the other man. . . .

When it came, it sounded feeble. “I hate to be asked my name. I dislike it so much!”

“What, Wilfred?” she asked carelessly. “Yes, it is rather in the Percy and Harold class.”

“One’s mouth takes such a foolish shape in saying it.”

Her cool, strong glance sought his eyes appraisingly. There was a thought in her eyes that she did not utter; but he read it.

“You think Wilfred suits me?” he said smiling, and sore at heart.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she said coolly. “. . . You have nice eyes.”

Nice eyes! At that moment it was like an insult. And so good-humored about it! He struggled with a crushing sense of inferiority.

“Well, at any rate, you are well-named,” he said.

“Am I? I thought the original Elaine was a pale, die-away maiden who floated down the river with flowers in her hair, and her toes turned to the sky!—But maybe I’m thinking of somebody else. My literary associations are hazy.”

“The Lady of Shalott?” suggested Wilfred. “I was thinking of the mere sound of the name. Elaine! So forthright!”

“So you think I’m a forthright sort of person?”

“Rather!”

“That requires consideration.”

“How do you seem to yourself?” asked Wilfred.

“Oh, I don’t know. . . . We are all over-civilized, over-complicated nowadays. . . .”

“You are neither civilized nor complicated,” said Wilfred boldly.

“Well upon my word!” she said, half-affronted.

“Diana,” murmured Wilfred. “You know that picture at the Metropolitan; a rotten picture, but a glorious woman!”

She continued to stare, really amused, as with a baby’s prattle. Wilfred, as if Mrs. Varick had spoken to him, turned away. I _did_ make an impression then, he thought; better leave her with it!

They talked again at intervals during dinner; the usual sort of thing. Wilfred had no other daring inspiration. However, when the divinely brave eyes turned on him, he perceived a speculative look in them. At least I exist for her, he thought hopefully.

After dinner there was music in the drawing-room (but not on the harp) and all the guests had to stay put—or so Wilfred supposed. Not having been sufficiently ready-witted to maneuver himself into a position beside her, he watched her from down the room. He was sitting beside the door into the hall. There was a sleek fellow behind her, leaning forward with his lips close to her ear. He appeared to be able to amuse her. He was not in the least afraid of her, Wilfred observed with a pang.

Taking advantage of a little movement among the guests between numbers, the red girl with characteristic nonchalance came sauntering down the long room, attended by her companion. Wilfred’s skin began to burn and prickle. She was headed directly for him. He suffered acutely. He did not see how he was going to keep his head up if she passed so close. She had laid a dreadful spell on him.

She did not pass him by. She stopped, and he jumped up. Careless of who might hear, she said:

“Come and sit on the stairs with me.”

Wilfred followed her like a man in a dream.

“Thanks, Ted,” she said over her shoulder to the other man, and he remained within the room.

Wilfred tingled. Came to me in the face of the whole room! Sent the other man away! But he was deeply perturbed, too. It should have been me to go to her, and carry her off. . . . What will Mrs. Gore say to my walking out on her concert like this?

Elaine seemed to read his thoughts. “They won’t blame you,” she said smiling. “They know me! . . . Oh well, poor dears! I like to give them something to talk about. They lead such dull lives!”

In the hall, the stairs started off at right angles, and after pausing on a sort of Moorish balcony, turned and went up in the proper direction without further divagations. Above the balcony it was rather secluded, and not too light. Here they sat, Wilfred with a tumultuously beating heart. There was already a meek youth and maiden higher up. Elaine permitted Wilfred to light a cigarette for her. Wilfred was astounded at his situation. Smoking companionably on the stairs with Elaine Sturges! He had supposed that these girls were so circumspect. However, there was nothing equivocal in the clear glance.

“After a season or two, what an experience of stairs you must acquire!” said Wilfred.

“Eh?” she said, not getting it—or not choosing to get it.

“You ought to write a monograph on the subject,” he blundered on; “The stairs of New York.”

She smiled inattentively, and Wilfred felt like a perfect ass.

“I never meet any artists or writers,” she said, “except old and famous ones. It seems so odd for a young man to go in for it. And a Pell!”

She means that she thinks its unmanly, thought Wilfred with a wry smile. “Oh, it’s an easy job,” he said flippantly.

“You only say that because you think I’m not capable of understanding,” she said.

“Not at all!” said Wilfred quickly. “It’s because I can’t appear to take myself seriously, without feeling like a fool!”

“Oh!” she said, looking at him as if he had given her new food for reflection.

Wilfred felt like a specimen impaled on a pin.

“Tell me more about myself,” she said presently. “It’s refreshing!”

“I have so little to go on!” protested Wilfred.

“That didn’t seem to hamper you a while ago. Make it up as you go along.”

“You always do exactly what you please.”

She smiled inscrutably. “That isn’t very clever!”

Wilfred felt flattened out. “Well . . . you have entirely false notions about life,” he said, making a desperate fresh start.

“That’s better,” she said serenely. “In what way do you mean?”

III

It was after the lawful hours of business. Casting a glance up and down to assure himself no policeman was watching, Wilfred descended three steps, and knocked on the shuttered door of the little Hungarian café in East Fourth street. He was admitted as a matter of course. A haze of tobacco smoke filled the interior. The cymbaline player had gone home; and the place seemed oddly quiet. There were only four or five figures crouching over the tables; habitués of the place.

Relief filled Wilfred’s breast at the sight of Stanny in his usual place, over against the wall, his back to the door. Impossible to tell if he were drunk. It required more than a casual glance to discover that in Stanny. Opposite him sat Mitzi of course, with her seraphic, unchanging smile. The wide-eyed, soulless, pretty creature!—Not soulless, really; one must be fair; soulless only to them. Stanny, brooding upon her face, was giving everything away in his eyes. Andreas, the proprietor, passing to and fro with the drinks, scarcely troubled to hide his contempt. Wilfred became hot with angry compassion.

Big Andreas greeted him with loud heartiness, the while his black eyes glittered remotely. They hated each other. Mitzi turned her smile on Wilfred, offering him an adorable, plump, cruel little paw with short tapering fingers. That is to say, the kind of hand which is called cruel, he thought. In reality there was no cruelty in Mitzi; she was merely docile. Stanny looked around at him without any expression whatever; and by that, Wilfred knew he was drunk. He dropped into the seat beside Stanny, and a glass of _tchai_ was put before him.

“’Ello, Vee’fred!” said the adorable Mitzi “’Ow you was to-night?”

Wilfred was fully sensible of her magical quality—the quality of a red rose beginning to unfold; but it left him unperturbed. For one thing she was too foreign. “Out o’ sight!” he replied. “I don’t need to ask how you are. You are prettier than ever to-night.”

“You lie!” said Mitzi, pouting good-humoredly. “You no t’ink I pretty girl. You t’ink I ogly girl.”

“Aw, shucks!” said Wilfred. “You know quite well you’re the prettiest girl East of Third avenue!”

Mitzi, having exhausted her English, relapsed into her smile. Occasionally she made a droll face at either Stanny or Wilfred and murmured: “Aw, shucks!” Mitzi could sit and smile at a man—any man, the whole evening through without betraying either tedium or self-consciousness. There was that in her smile Wilfred thought, which called into being fires she was incapable of comprehending.

Wilfred was aware that anger was smoking within Stanny. Finally it puffed out spitefully: “What do you want here?”

“A glass of _tchai_,” said Wilfred, smiling.

“By God! I’m sick of this Ten Nights in a Barroom stunt!” said Stanny passionately. “You’re not my keeper!”

“Keep your shirt on,” said Wilfred, smiling still for Mitzi’s benefit. “I don’t aim to be.”

“Then what brought you here?”

“I wanted company,” said Wilfred. It was true, but Stanny would not believe it.

“If I’m going to Hell, I prefer to go in my own way,” said Stanny.

“Sure!” agreed Wilfred. “But I can’t help thinking you’re getting damned little out of this lap.”

“That’s all right!” said Stanny with drunken obstinacy.

“What you say him?” asked Mitzi, without in the least caring what the answer might be.

“I’m telling him I wish you were my sweetheart,” said Wilfred grinning. (How sick he was of his own grin!) “That’s what makes him sore.”

“Aw, shucks!” said Mitzi.

“What do you expect to get out of it?” Wilfred went on to Stanny. “You know as well as I do, that the man only puts out his pretty little wife as a decoy. He never lets her out of his sight. I don’t see how you can fall for it. With him looking on and sneering!”

“I wish to God I could see you make a fool of yourself over a woman!” cried Stanny bitterly. “You wouldn’t be so damn superior then!”

Wilfred grinned until his nostrils hurt. He had spent the earlier part of the night walking up and down North Washington Square, gazing at the lighted windows of the Sturges sitting-room with sick eyes; picturing a man inside bolder than himself.

“But I never will! I never will!” said Stanny. “You’re too much up in the air!”

“You don’t know me,” murmured Wilfred.

“Yah! a hell of a romantic feller if the truth were known, eh?” sneered Stanny.

Wilfred went on grinning inanely; tracing a capital E on the table with his forefinger. It created a sort of diversion to have Stanny abusing him unjustly; it was a counterirritant. He was absolutely sure of Stanny’s affection. It comforted him a little to lean his breast against the thorn of misunderstanding. It was the nearest to obtaining sympathy that he could hope for, he thought.

After awhile Wilfred said: “Will you come now?”

“No!” said Stanny.

But Mitzi, though she could not understand their talk, perceived that there was something inimical in the atmosphere. Presently she yawned behind the sinister little manicured paw, and stood up.

“Well, goo’-ni’, boys. Come round to-morrow.”

Through sullen lashes Stanny watched the little thing go swaying down the room and through the curtain at the rear, an unfathomable pain in his eyes. Wilfred raged internally. A man like Stanny to be brought down by _that_! What am I raging at? he asked himself. Certainly not at Stanny; nor at the unconscious, infantile Mitzi. And he had no God to rage at.—At the same time Wilfred envied Stanny; his pain was so much simpler than his own.

Wilfred and Stanny went out on the sidewalk. At the Third avenue corner Stanny stopped.

“You had better leave me here,” he said bitterly, but without anger; “you can do me no good to-night.”

“How about your doing me a little good?” suggested Wilfred.

“Don’t make me laugh!” said Stanny. “You’re as transparent as window glass! . . . If you could only get rid of your evangelical streak!”

“I don’t want to save you,” said Wilfred. “I just want to be with somebody. Even you! . . . My God! you’re a selfish beggar!”

Stanny snorted, and started walking on with that extraordinarily doughty carriage of his, more pronounced when he was drunk.

Wilfred fell in beside him. “Oh hell,” he said, “you can say what you like. I’m not going to leave you. . . . You can come to my place if you want. Or I’ll go to yours if you’d rather.”

“I can’t sleep,” muttered Stanny.

“No more can I. Let’s walk then.”

When they had gone a block, Stanny stopped short, and faced Wilfred. “I know I’m a bloody fool,” he said ill-temperedly. “Now are you satisfied?”

Wilfred slipped his arm through Stanny’s “I’m a bloodier fool than you, old fellow, and my heart’s just as heavy!”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” cried Stanny passionately. “You and your heart! Do you think I can’t see that you’re saying that just to make me feel better? Nothing can touch _you_! I wish to God you’d give over trying to manage me like a woman!”

Wilfred laughed.

When they got to the corner of Washington Square, Stanny kept straight on, and by that Wilfred knew that he was coming to his place. As they turned in at the old iron gate, rusting under its hundred coats of paint, in Stanny’s sullen eyes could be read as plainly as if it had been spoken, his intention of inveigling Wilfred into going to bed, and afterwards slipping out again.

As soon as they got inside Wilfred’s room, they started to quarrel viciously. Wilfred insisted on making up the fire, and Stanny said they shouldn’t need it. Then about the bed. Stanny all but knocked Wilfred into his own bed. Wilfred however, insisted on lying down on the moth-eaten bearskin before the fire. Stanny looked as if he would have liked to kick him there.

“You might as well take the bed,” said Wilfred.

“I’m damned if I will!” cried Stanny passionately.

“If I was alone, I should be lying here just the same. I can’t sleep, and I like to look at the fire.”

“Seeing pictures, eh?” sneered Stanny.

“Sure, seeing pictures. . . . What fools we are to scrap with each other, Stanny. . . .”

“Sure, what fools!” agreed Stanny, suddenly falling quiet and mournful.—But instantly, he lost his temper again. “You needn’t think I’m going to take your bed and leave you lying on the floor!”

“Well, you know what you can do with it,” snarled Wilfred.

Stanny flung himself into Wilfred’s big chair, and the bed remained without an occupant.

The firelight filled the room. The rows of books looked gravely down from the tall shelves. Bye and bye Wilfred had the satisfaction of seeing the bitter, down-drawn face in the chair begin to relax. Stanny took a more comfortable position, and his head dropped over against one of the wings. But he was not yet asleep. From the borderland he murmured:

“She has enslaved my senses. . . . I am besotted . . . !”

Wilfred murmured involuntarily: “You don’t know it, but you are lucky it is only your senses. If it was your imagination that was enslaved, there would be no satisfaction possible; no escape; ever!”

There was no reply, and Wilfred looked over apprehensively. To his relief he perceived that Stanny had not heard it; he was asleep.

Wilfred stretched himself out on the old rug, yielding to the luxury of pain. Real pain that bit like teeth. For an instant he beheld the truth with devastating clearness. There was no hope for him. Elaine’s instinct was sounder than his own. He and she could not possibly find happiness together. He was a better man than she would ever guess: but his worthier qualities were sealed to her, and must always be so. Impossible to reach an understanding. In another way, he was not man enough to be her mate. How that thought stabbed! But it was the truth. It must be faced out. Thank God! pain could be borne. He had his own kind of strength, not at all a showy kind, and Elaine would never perceive it; but he need not despise himself. Pain fortified him. He looked over towards Stanny with a feeling of gratitude. In some queer way it was due to the presence of that solid body in his chair, that he had been vouchsafed this moment of lucid pain, instead of being dragged as usual, helpless at the heels of the wild horses of Imagination.

IV

In the winter twilight Elaine and Wilfred were sunk in easy chairs side by side before the fire in the Sturges sitting-room, the smoke of their cigarettes mounting lazily. In that serene atmosphere Wilfred was least serene. Whenever he sat there his heart beat too fast; and the clamorous thoughts jostled confusedly in his brain. The smiling servants had softly brought the tea things, and later, had carried them away. A lovely, gracious life! Should he ever be able to take it as if it were his by right? The Sturges house was almost exactly opposite Bella Billings; distant about three hundred yards; but social deeps rolled between.

Elaine was sliding down in the deep chair on the small of her back, her long legs inelegantly thrust out, her feet crossed. Elaine could yield to any common impulse without losing the quality of distinction, he thought. The firelight was strong in her resolute face. It was not beautiful in the ordinary sense. He despised the insipidity of pretty women. There was something much greater here; character; passion; and that divine assurance of herself. Whence arose Elaine’s magnificent air? It was because she held herself one of the elect of earth. Ordinary people were so far beneath her, she could afford to exhibit them every kindness. All wrong! thought Wilfred. A preposterous assumption! Yet there it was! And it beat him down!

They were good enough friends to be silent together when they felt like silence. But those silences! At a certain point Wilfred’s heart would begin to rise slowly into his throat. There she sat a yard away, and so remote! He ached for her intolerably. Was this love? More like an insanity. Suppose she were to cast herself suddenly into his arms, would he know what to do with her? Would he not turn clammy? Did he ever know what he wanted? An insanity! Being denied her, he ached and burned. Burned, while he sat still and answered her cool remarks, coolly. Why was he forced to go on thinking and thinking about her in her presence? Making figments of her while the reality was at his side!

Elaine herself never thought, though she liked to suppose that she did: all her acts, words were struck out of her, instant and bright as fire. How natural for her to despise one like him! She _did_ despise him sub-consciously, though they were good friends; her speculative glance often confessed it. That high air of hers was a continual challenge to his masculinity, and he dared not take it up. Wilfred believed that she was just a little higher with him than with others. It suggested that she believed he was a coward in the presence of women. In other quarters he had not been considered so. What good was that to him here? By thinking him a coward she made him a coward in _her_ presence.

Yet she had singled him out, him, the insignificant scribbler, amongst a crowd of glittering young men who dangled after her. These hours that Wilfred spent alone with her had been specially contrived by her. Nothing happened by accident in Elaine’s busy life. In dealing with men, she enveloped herself in an atmosphere of high mystery. During Wilfred’s hour she never volunteered the least information as to how she had spent the other twenty-three. It tormented him unbearably. He knew that other men came to the house on other days. He had seen some of them springing eagerly up the steps. Well, and why not? He had nothing to reproach her with. She was always clear-eyed and candid. But she ordained how much of herself each was to have. An hour to Wilfred twice a week perhaps, leaving him to spend the others in torment. He suffered when he was with her; he suffered when he was away. His only moment of happiness came when _he_ went springing up the steps. Things had come to such a pass with him, he could no longer do his work.

Why had she singled him out for even these infrequent hours? That he might talk to her. There was no secret about it. “Nobody talks to me like you,” she had said once, while her eyes flickered with unconscious contempt for the young man who was a talker. And Wilfred accepted it, hating himself. They sat in front of the fire talking like disembodied intelligences while Wilfred eyed her.

After such a silence, Elaine said: “The trouble with me is, I don’t know anything.”

“Hear! Hear!” said Wilfred.

“Oh, you needn’t get funny,” she retorted. “It’s something to know that you don’t know anything. . . . I mean. . . . What do I mean? I mean I don’t know anything in my head. I know lots of things by intuition. I think I know more than you do, that way. . . .”

“Not a doubt of it,” said Wilfred.

“But the voice of intuition is dumb,” Elaine went on. “I act as I act without knowing why. There is no residue. Intuition prompts you how to act at the moment; but it doesn’t help you to lay out a course.”

How exactly, sometimes, unconscious people can convey what is in their minds! thought Wilfred enviously. “What about books?” he suggested.

“Books! Pshaw! Books are a kind of dope!” said Elaine.

“You read only novels—and those, not the best.”

“I _do_ read the best!” she said indignantly.

“I don’t mean the latest best,” said Wilfred.

“I read poetry, too. . . . But poetry just lifts you up—and lets you drop again. Oh, I suppose it’s my fault. Really serious books bore me.”

“There are good novels,” said Wilfred.

“They get on so slowly!” said Elaine with a sigh. “And when you do disentangle the meaning, it’s only what you know already.”

“What is it, exactly, that you are after?” asked Wilfred.

“Knowledge of life,” she said promptly. “Old people pretend that they have all the knowledge. I _feel_ that they are wrong.”

“In what, for instance?”

“Well, it’s a platitude amongst old people that love always dies.”

“I don’t know of any book that would assure you that it doesn’t,” said Wilfred, lowering his eyes.

“Never mind books. What do you think? Does love die?”

“What kind of love?” he asked with a sinking heart.

“What kind?” she repeated staring. “I mean love between a man and a woman, of course.”

“Passion burns itself out,” said Wilfred, “but I suppose something fine may come of it.”

“Oh, that’s just like an old person,” said Elaine. “The cooling-off process is hideous to me! I don’t want any left-overs!”

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” he asked.

“It doesn’t help to be cynical!”

“What does your own heart tell you?”

“My heart tells me that love dies,” murmured Elaine unexpectedly. She was staring into the fire. “I was hoping for some reassurance.”

“I hope it does,” said Wilfred flippantly. He observed that his teeth were clenched together.

She ignored this. “Even though love is transitory, should we not stake everything on it, anyway?” she murmured.

“Everybody must decide that for themselves,” he said composedly, feeling like a little waxy-faced oracle.

“But what do _you_ think?” she insisted.

“It’s too complicated!” he said with a burst of irritation. “I could not possibly give an answer to cover the whole question.”

Another silence.

“Do you believe in the devil?” asked Elaine.

“In my own individual devil, yes.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s a wet blanket!”

Elaine laughed. “How original! Mine is a more conventional sort of devil.”

“Yes, I know.”

“How do you know?” she asked quickly.

“Can’t I have intuitions too?”

“Well, you’re entirely wrong about _me_,” she said vivaciously. “You have been from the first. You have a ridiculous notion that I am a sort of cavewoman. Why, if I were, would I be talking to you like this now?”

Wilfred smiled into the fire.

“Oh well, if it amuses you . . . !” said Elaine, shrugging.

“You know that big statue of Barnard’s,” she presently went on; “I Feel Two Natures Struggling Within Me”?

“All rot!” he said rousing himself. “I imagine that is just a little joke of Barnard’s on the dear public. What he is really portraying is the Triumph of Youth Over Age! It was a favorite subject during the renaissance. . . . Two natures! Life is not so simple! That is merely a theological distinction. Body and soul are _not_ at war with each other. We can’t get anywhere without Body. In the complete life you would find Body and Soul pulling in double harness.”

“But is there ever a complete life?” asked Elaine.

“Well . . . no! I suppose not!” murmured Wilfred, falling through space. “It is only an ideal. . . .”

Their eyes were suddenly drawn together. They exchanged a startled, questioning glance like prisoners beholding each other from separate towers. Forever solitary and wistful. They knew each other then. They hastily looked away, laughing in an embarrassed way; each terrified lest the other might speak of what he had surprised. But neither spoke, and they secretly softened towards each other.

After awhile Elaine got up, and switched on the lamps. She glanced at the clock. “There’s a man coming directly,” she said.

Wilfred stood up.

“Don’t be silly!” said Elaine. “Suppose I _was_ giving you a hint to go, why be in such haste to take it? It’s not very flattering.”

“I’ve had my hour,” he said, trying to speak lightly.

“You said that just like an actor! Oh, I wish I could teach you how to deal with women!”

“Well, if it comes to that, why is it always up to the man?” demanded Wilfred.

Elaine opened her eyes. “Well, women have to be won, don’t they?”

He spread out his hands. All wrong! All wrong! But he could not dispute her. She had stolen his strength.

“Sit down again,” she said. “You ought to know by this time that I never deal in hints. What I have not yet had a chance to say is, I want you to meet this man. An unusual specimen!”

Wilfred discovered that he still had reserves of pain. Was _that_ the rôle he was to be called upon to play?

Far-off in the great house Wilfred heard the buzz of the door-bell. After an interval the front door opened and closed again with its opulent thud. He entered quickly, thought Wilfred. There were rapid footsteps on the stairs. Coming up two steps at a time. Wilfred’s heart beat suffocatingly. That treacherous heart of his!

“It’s Joe Kaplan,” said Elaine, shielding her face from the fire.

“Oh, Joe Kaplan,” said Wilfred with an air of interest. His belly suddenly failed him. Rising, he caught sight of the grinning, white-faced manikin in the mirror over the fireplace, and quickly lowered his eyes in disgust.

“You have heard of him?” asked Elaine.

“Who hasn’t?” said Wilfred.

Joe swept in. “Hello, Elaine!”

She had risen, and was helping herself to a fresh cigarette from the mantelpiece. “Hello, Joe,” she said, without looking around.

Having caught sight of Wilfred, Joe stopped short in his eager progress.

“This is Mr. Pell,” drawled Elaine. “. . . Mr. Kaplan.”

Joe jerked into motion again. “I know him,” he said. “Hello, Pell! What the devil are you doing here?”

It was said with a good-humored grin, though Joe’s eyes were snapping. To Wilfred’s relief, he did not put out his hand. Perceiving enmity, Wilfred had not sufficient self-command to match the feigned good humor. Inside him there was howling, black confusion. Yet the necessity of good form was strong upon him, too. All he could do was to stand grinning in a sickly way. How craven he must appear, knuckling under to Joe at the first word!

Joe wasted no time on him. Elaine had reseated herself, and he plumped into the chair that Wilfred had lately occupied. “I say, Elaine,” he said; “I saw that blue chow to-day. He’s a sweet-tempered little beast; but my man says if you want to show him, he’s not good enough. So I thought we had better wait until something first-class turned up.”

“But I liked him,” said Elaine. “And he liked me!”

“Oh, in that case, Princess, he shall be here to-morrow!”

So Joe has become a sporting gentleman, thought Wilfred with curling lip. Wilfred was left standing like a clown with a witless grin daubed on his face. What he ought to have done was to leave, he knew; but he was incapable of making a good exit; and he would not slink out like a whipped dog. So he stayed. He sat down on a straight-backed chair a little to one side of the fireplace, facing the other two. The faces of Elaine and Joe were strongly revealed in the firelight. It was nothing to them if Wilfred watched them.

They rattled on. It appeared that they shared a hundred small interests. Joe had achieved the precise tone of Elaine’s world. The rattle was all a blind, Wilfred suspected. The fact that they never looked at each other, gave the game away. He imagined that he heard a rich quality in their laughter, having nothing to do with the trifles they discussed. Hidden things escaped in their laughter. Elaine’s superb nonchalance might very well be a sham. She could get away with anything. Such a woman recognized only one truth; the truth of her emotions. Color had stolen into her cheeks; it was an effort to keep her lips decorous. Secrets! secrets! between these two! Diana was only a woman of the flesh! What a handsome male Joe was, damn him! Wilfred felt as if he would die with the beating of his heart, and the pressure of blood against his temples.

Knowing himself, he strove desperately to make a stand against this madness. You are imagining it all! You cannot honestly say that Elaine has changed in the slightest degree. She treats Joe precisely the same as she treated you. . . .

Elaine sought to draw Wilfred into the talk. “Funny you two should be acquainted,” she said.

“Oh yes,” said Joe with a mocking laugh in Wilfred’s direction. “It’s ten years since we first laid eyes on each other. Remember that night, Pell?”

“I remember,” said Wilfred, seeking Joe’s eyes in wonder. Joe’s eyes skated laughingly away. Clever and daring as Satan! thought Wilfred.

Joe went on to give a humorous account of the psychical evening at the house of Wilfred’s Aunts long ago. Elaine was to infer that this was the occasion of their first meeting. In telling the story, Joe allowed his own soullessness to appear quite nakedly. He didn’t care; nor, apparently, did Elaine. It was a good joke.

Meanwhile Wilfred was working himself up to the point of going. He finally stood up with a jerk. “Well, I must trot along,” he said in a thin voice.

“So long, Wilfred,” said Elaine in her boyish way.

“Ta-ta, old man,” said Joe ironically.

You be damned! thought Wilfred, looking straight ahead of him.

He went out stiffly. Silence in the room behind him. Already! Already! What if he should go back? . . . Why go back? He knew without going back. And it wouldn’t shame _them_! . . . Elaine . . . and that soulless blackguard! All her brave colors hauled down! Abandoning herself . . . his practised embraces! Oh, Christ! . . .

He hurried out of the house with a shrieking in his ears.

V

After having resisted the temptation for many days, Wilfred pushed a button at the door of one of the little flats in the Manhanset Building on Fifty-Ninth street. He was ashamed to drag his dead and alive self there for succor; nevertheless a feeling of thankfulness sprang up in his breast like water in dusty earth. What a blessing it was to have a place where you could drop in without an appointment, and be sure of your welcome. Perhaps he could conceal from Frances Mary how far gone he was.

She opened the door. His eyes were gratified by the sight of her bland and dusky fairness; her calm. Frances Mary was always the same. “Hello!” she said with her ironical smile, while her eyes beamed with friendliness. She had a quality of voice that worked magic with refractory nerves. “Come in!”

She walked away from the door, leaving Wilfred to close it and follow. If she had read anything in his face she gave no sign of it.

“Hope I’m not interrupting your work,” he said, trying not to sound perfunctory. He knew he was interrupting.

“I was ripe for an interruption.”

At the end of a tiny hall was her general room, a mellow retreat highly characteristic of its owner. It had two windows looking northward over the flat roofs of dwellings below. The effect was of green and brown and gold. Wilfred looked around him thirstily; it provided just what he needed then.

“This room is as right as a natural thing,” he said grinning. “Nothing sticks out. It doesn’t ask to be admired, but to be flopped in. Demoralizing I call it. Makes me feel tearful.”

Frances Mary looked most ironical when she was flattered. “Want a hanky?” she asked.

There was a hard coal fire burning in the grate. She put a plump brass kettle on the trivet and swung it in.

“Don’t bother about tea,” said Wilfred; “at least not for me.”

“I want it,” she said. They always carried through this little fiction.

She moved about the room, bringing out the tea things. She had the gift of getting things done without any fuss. A tall woman, of an essentially feminine tenderness of flesh, her glance was not tender but level. The leaf-colored room was a fit setting for her. Wilfred’s frantic feeling passed away. How restful! How blessedly restful! Her unexpressed sympathy was like sleep stealing on.

He could always count on her sympathy, he reflected, though she rarely agreed with him. There was a wholesome astringent quality in her nature. She was not generally popular he had observed with surprise. People complained that she seemed to mock at everything. They would not see that her mockery was only a thin shield for her heavenly kindness of heart. He felt that he alone understood Frances Mary. She had a slightly invidious smile; and her gentle glance was generally veiled. In particular, stupid women hated her for her smile. Yet she was what is known as a woman’s woman; she had devoted friends amongst the best sort of women. On the other hand she seemed to know but few men, and they not the best sort of men; women’s men.

Frances Mary was predestined to die single, Wilfred supposed, watching her. And she so splendidly made; what a pity! Loved babies, too. But she lacked any disturbing quality for men. Well, she was one of the rare women who could do without a man. There would be no souring here. Not with that serene mind. The happiest person he knew. Noble. If one had only had the luck to fall in love with a woman like that instead of . . . well, it would be just the difference between life and death! But you couldn’t fall in love with Frances Mary. She was too intelligent. A hollow laugh sounded inside Wilfred. What would be said of a man who uttered such a sentiment in a story?—But it was true just the same. Nature disregarded intelligence in the business of mating. Perhaps intelligence was too modern for Nature. It was a truism that a man’s man and a woman’s woman were the best types of each sex. What a ghastly joke anyhow, the whole damned business of sex! The peach-like Frances Mary doomed to shrivel, ungathered; and he to his Hell of base jealousy!

She did not look at him while she moved about, nevertheless Wilfred felt that he was being explored with a faculty other than sight—that withdrawn glance of hers; that hint of a smile. In haste he said, still in the tone of one determined not to be perfunctory—he could hear it!

“How is your work going?”

At the tone, her smile deepened; but she answered simply: “I’ve been working at the ‘Æolian Harp.’ I’d like you to read part of it later.”

“I expect I shan’t like it,” he said. “A little bird tells me you have been niggling at it. I warned you to leave it alone. It was all right as it was.”

An adorable look of anxiety came into Frances Mary’s face. It gave Wilfred a pleasant sense of power. She came to a stop; looking at him; biting her lip. “I . . . I thought I had improved it,” she faltered.

“Your vice is, never knowing when to leave a thing alone,” he said severely. “You lose sight of the whole in the parts.”

“I expect I do,” she said with a disarming humility. “Your criticism is awfully good for me. . . . What are you doing?”

Wilfred relapsed into the depths. “Nothing,” he said. The blackness was real enough; but he equivocated respecting its cause. For days past he had not even tried to write. “I’m still stuck in the middle of my restaurant story.”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“Too damn sentimental!”

Frances Mary was silent.

Wilfred found he was not so deadened, but that he could still feel the pin-pricks of wounded self-love. “You don’t say anything,” he said bitterly. “You think it’s tripe, too.”

“Oh, not as bad as that!” she said. “The sentimentality was implicit in the original design. . . .”

“Why didn’t you tell me so then?”

“I tried to, but you wouldn’t have it so. . . . Why not finish it now, frankly in a sentimental vein; and go on to something else.”

“Why not advise me to tear it up?”

“But it has charm. It will sell readily.”

“You think that’s all I’m good for!”

She shook her head. “You can be as brutal as you like, next time. Your Rivington street story wasn’t sentimental.”

“Ah! don’t throw that up to me! I’ve never been able to equal it!”

“Every artist knows that feeling!”

“You manage to maintain the level of your stuff. It makes me sore, you write so much better than I do!”

Frances Mary smiled somewhat dryly. “I’ve been at it longer than you.”

“That hasn’t got anything to do with it. You have an instinct for perfection, while I’m all over the place!”

“Perfect stories of perfect ladies to adorn the chaste pages of our leading family magazine!” she said, smiling still.

“It doesn’t matter what they’re about, they’re well done!” said Wilfred.

“I suppose I do write better than you do now,” she said, ceasing to smile. “But my work is much the same as it was ten years ago when I began. There is more hope in your unevenness than in my dead level.”

“I truckle to the editors,” said Wilfred glooming.

“So you do,” admitted Frances Mary—and laughed when he looked up resentfully. “But as long as you know it, the case is not hopeless.”

“I’m no good!” said Wilfred, touching bottom.

“Have it your own way,” she said. “You are in one of your self-accusatory moods to-day, and to argue with you only strengthens your obstinacy. I’ll wait until you come out of it.”

“It’s not only to-day!” Wilfred burst out. “I shall never write again! I’ve utterly lost the knack. I can’t put together an intelligible sentence! I have gone dead inside!”

Frances Mary looked at him levelly before answering. Wilfred knew that look. It was to enable her to decide if this was the mere froth that he sometimes gave off, or if there was really something in it. He couldn’t tell which she decided. She said:

“Why not drop work for a while? Take a day or two off to walk in the country. There is snow on the Connecticut roads.”

He shook his head. “Can’t leave town just now,” he said, looking down.

She made no comment. The tea was made. Extending a cup she said: “Try hot tea.”

Wilfred forgot his guard for a moment. Raising his eyes to hers, he broke out laughing. “What a fool you must think me!” he said.

For an instant, the veil was lifted from her glance too. By his laughter she knew that he was in real pain. She laughed too. “Perfect!” she said.

Her laughter; her warm glance made Wilfred feel that existence was a little less like a vacuum.

* * * * *

He allowed himself to be persuaded to stay for dinner. Dinner in Frances Mary’s flat had the effect of a miracle. Without any heat or fuss or noise, a little table appeared in the center of the room, and was dressed in snow and silver. She wafted in and out of the room, keeping up the conversation from the kitchenette. An enticing odor gradually got itself recognized, and in a surprisingly short space of time, behold! there was the dinner on the table, an exactly right meal, never quite the same as anybody else’s dinner. Like her room, and like her stories, it revealed the Frances Mary touch. There was even a little bottle of wine to grace the board. At the last moment she had made an opportunity to go change her dress. Wilfred, who knew something about housekeeping, always marvelled how it was done.

He suddenly discovered a renewed zest for food. “Oh, this is good!” he said continually; and Frances Mary trying in vain to look ironical, smiled all over like a little girl. A tinge of color had come into her magnolia-petal cheeks and her eyes were bright. Feeding herself abstractedly, she eagerly watched every mouthful he took, and filled his glass before it was half emptied. They talked shop, and Wilfred experienced a precarious happiness. Outside of that enchanted haven the beast might be waiting to rend him—let it wait!

When the table was cleared they gave themselves up to talk. Frances Mary had an insatiable curiosity concerning Wilfred’s friends, whom she had never seen, and his daily doings. He enjoyed feeding it of course; but was sometimes troubled by the feeling that he was inflicting himself unduly on his friend. When he remembered to try to draw her out, she was generally too many for him.

“What have you been doing lately, Frances Mary?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me about your friends.”

“I can’t make them sound as interesting as you do yours.”

“What do you do with yourself? You can’t write all the time.”

“I ruminate,” said Frances Mary flippantly.

Wilfred laughed. “I can see you!” he said unguardedly. “I know you so well!”

She looked at him quickly, started to speak, and thinking better of it, pulled down the corners of her mouth mockingly.

“Oh, sure, that was a fatuous thing to say,” muttered Wilfred, blushing.

“It’s what everybody says to everybody,” she said.

“But I ought to have known better. Nobody knows anybody, really.”

“I don’t know,” said Frances Mary, “when two people live together they may. Because then they have a chance to watch each other in the company of others. But you and I travel in entirely separate orbits. The only point of intersection is your coming here to see me. And you don’t come very often. And if you find anybody else here you clear out immediately.”

“But surely we get more out of it. . . .”

“Surely! The point I was making is that all you see is your own facet of me.”

“Do you mean you show a different facet to everybody?”

“Oh, nothing so exciting. Alas! I am not different from other girls. I am always the same—at least I think I am. What I mean is, that you only see in me what you wish to see, and there is never anybody else around to upset your self-pleasing notions.”

“Oh, come!” said Wilfred.

“It’s just as well,” said Frances Mary with her mocking smile—she was mocking herself now. “Who wants the truth to be known about oneself? Especially a woman. Mystery is her existence. No matter how clever she is, she cannot escape the common fate of woman. Her own concerns are so unreal to her! . . . Mercy, what nonsense I am talking!”

A note of real bitterness had crept into Frances Mary’s voice, and Wilfred felt that he was on the brink of a disclosure. But while he was still trying to puzzle out her meaning in his mind, he discovered that he had been hurried on to something else. It was a trick of hers. She was now asking him about his experiences in society.

“Oh, I couldn’t keep that up,” said Wilfred with his glib, surface mind. “It was useful to see a few interiors, and get a line on the way those people talk; but it’s deadly, really. You can’t let yourself go. It was cruel hard on a child of nature like me! And Mrs. Gore’s dinners weren’t as good as yours. Not by a damn sight.”

“I thought perhaps you might make a friend or two.”

“Hardly, in that milieu.”

“That brilliant girl you told me about; Elaine Sturges; she sounded promising.”

This name had the effect of a cave-in under Wilfred’s feet. He dropped sickeningly; the waters of wretchedness closed over his head. Just when he had succeeded in forgetting it, too. He carefully made his face a blank. The skin of it grew tight in the effort. “Oh, yes, she has character,” he said carelessly.

“Don’t you see her any more?”

“She leads a crowded life,” said Wilfred. “Occasionally she vouchsafes me an hour.”

“How picturesque, such a life!” murmured Frances Mary. “Has she got the imagination to conceive its picturesqueness?”

Wilfred attended closely to his pipe. His heart swelled and seemed to squeeze his lungs. He cautiously drew a long breath. He wondered if Frances Mary was doing this on purpose, but dared not look at her, for he suspected that she was looking at him. Her eyes were sharp.

“Hardly imaginative,” he said, after a pause, as if for consideration.

“If she isn’t imaginative, what on earth do you find to talk about?” asked Frances Mary.

Wilfred thought of venturing a laugh; decided against it. He shot a glance at Frances Mary through his lashes. She was no longer looking at him. The line of her averted face suggested the same agonized self-consciousness that he felt. Of course, he thought, I am giving everything away, and she feels for me. She has guessed everything. Why not be open with her? He trembled with a horrible internal weakness. No! he thought desperately. If I let a single word out, I should go completely to pieces. Make a disgusting exhibition of myself; this thing’s got to be clamped down. . . .

“Oh, she likes me to explain her to herself,” he said lightly.

Frances Mary let the subject drop.

VI

“This only drives me crazy!” said Joe, suddenly rising. “. . . It maddens me!”

Elaine huddled in the big chair, turned sideways and dropped her face on her outstretched arm. “You’re not so crazy but you’re able to stop!” she murmured resentfully.

Joe helped himself to a cigarette from the mantel. “The servants already suspect,” he said.

“What makes you think so?”

“They tap on the door before coming in.”

“Well, let them suspect! They’re devoted to me. Servants always are.”

“That may be; but it won’t prevent their talking. And talk spreads from servants.”

“I don’t care!”

“I _do_. If you won’t take care of yourself, I must take care of you.”

Elaine smiled crookedly.

“Oh, I’m not taking a moral attitude,” said Joe. “It’s just that I don’t choose to have my wife talked about by servants.”

“I have not said that I would marry you,” she said quickly.

“But you will!”

Elaine was silent, looking into the grate. She was pale; her cheeks showed little shadowy hollows. It was a disagreeable mild day out-of-doors; indoors the fire sulked.

Her silence shook Joe a little. Darting an uneasy glance at her, he asked combatively: “Why don’t you want to marry me?”

Elaine closed her eyes and let her head fall back. Joe’s eyes fastened on the pulse in her wan throat. “Ah, don’t let’s begin that again,” she said in a lifeless voice. “It gets us nowhere. . . . I love you! Isn’t that enough?”

A spark returned to Joe’s eyes; his lips pushed out a little. “But where is it going to land us?” he said. “We’ve got to thresh the thing out.”

Elaine opened her eyes. “Oh for heaven’s sake give me a cigarette and let’s stop arguing about ourselves.”

He put the cigarette between her lips and lighted it. “Why don’t you want to marry me?” he persisted.

“If I marry, commonsense tells me it ought to be a man of my own sort. . . .”

“This is new!” put in Joe. “Where did you get it?”

“. . . This madness will pass. What would we have then?”

“You mean one of the slick young fellows I meet around here? How often have you told me that their smoothness made you sick? You said it was my commonness and coarseness and naturalness that attracted you in the beginning.”

“Sure, I said it; what good to remind me of it now.”

“I’m only trying to get at your meaning.”

“Well . . . marriage is an everyday affair—a matter of superficialities if you like; breakfast, lunch and dinner. We have to live by little things when this passes. . . .”

“What makes you think this feeling we have for each other will pass?” demanded Joe. “That is not like you.”

“Well . . . everybody says it will pass . . .”

“Who is everybody . . . Wilfred Pell?”

Elaine straightened up in anger. She tossed the cigarette into the fire. “Don’t be common and tiresome!” she said. “Do you think I would allow Wilfred Pell to discuss my private affairs with me?—or any other man? . . . What on earth made you think of him?”

“I dunno,” said Joe indifferently. “I just had a hunch. . . . Just the same, it _was_ Wilfred Pell.”

“Oh, very well!” said Elaine hotly. “Then I am a liar!”

There was a silence. Joe whistled softly between his teeth.

“Not that I give a damn,” he presently said, good-humoredly. “A man like Wilfred Pell couldn’t trouble my peace any. I know the white-faced, hungry-eyed breed. You will always find them in a woman’s room whispering with her. That’s as near as they get, poor devils! sympathetic and safe!”

“Wilfred Pell is a gentleman!” said Elaine. “He is intelligent and good-hearted and decent!”

“Sure!” cried Joe, grinning with an open brow. “He is all that; and I am none of it!—But what does it all signify really, between man and woman?”

Elaine was silent, still angry.

“This is just spinning words,” said Joe, his voice becoming warm. “Why fight against the inevitable, sweetheart? I am your man! You can’t resist me!”

“And you?” she asked.

“You are my woman!” he said with glittering eyes. “Look at me!”

She dragged her eyes up to him, where he stood by the mantelpiece, a tall, muscular figure, displaying himself. He was as finished in appearance as any young man she knew; and he had in addition, the zest which had always tormented her in the faces of vulgar young men. Her eyes grew irresponsible; her face seemed to sharpen.

“Do you doubt it?” he demanded.

She shook her head helplessly.

“Well, then?”

“I can’t argue with you,” she said, low.

“You’re the sort of woman that never loves but once,” said Joe. “If you were to let me go . . . !”

“Are you threatening to leave me?” she asked, with a bitter smile.

“Frankly, I can’t stand this,” said Joe. “I must either have you entirely, or I _will_ leave you.”

Elaine was silent. Her eyes were hidden. Suddenly she rose, and going to one of the windows, stood, twisting the cord of the window shade between thumb and finger, and looking down on the squalid panorama of soiled, half-melted snow. The old Square looked exhausted and leprous with the patches of scant dead grass and naked earth showing amidst the snow. Finally she murmured:

“I am not sure that you love me!”

“What more do you want?” cried Joe. “You know your power over me. You have felt my heart beat against yours. You know that when I come near you, I am lost.”

“A power over your body,” she murmured without looking around.

“That’s the only thing I know,” said Joe coolly. “I don’t go in for soul states. You’ve read too many novels. For God’s sake let’s be natural with each other. What else is there but this blind hunger we have for each other. The big thing that comes only once!”

“And passes!”

“Passes? Why do you keep harping on that? Do you doubt your own power? A woman like you! Are you afraid of common women? You will never lose me as long as you are sure of yourself!”

“Then I have lost you already!” she whispered to the glass.

“What’s that?” he asked irritably.

She would not repeat it. “I shouldn’t so much mind about you,” she said slowly, “if I was sure that _I_ could stay mad. That’s what I most dread, coming to myself!”

“You needn’t fear,” said Joe smiling. “I’ll undertake to hold you.”

Elaine continued to look out of the window.

Presently he said: “I suspect the real reason is, you think I’m not good enough for you . . . not that I blame you. . . .”

“That’s not it,” she said quickly.

“I have never put on any pretences with you. . . .”

“Oh, no!” she said bitterly.

“I have told you the whole of my nefarious history. . . .”

“I wouldn’t care if you had committed a murder!”

“I suppose people warn you against me.”

“Oh, yes. Everybody. I don’t listen . . . I live only for the hours I spend with you.”

“Same here,” put in Joe.

Elaine looked at him involuntarily. The little hollows in her cheeks darkened; and her eyes became liquid with bitter mirth. She laughed shakily, unaware that she was laughing; paused as if startled by the sound; and resumed in her former toneless voice: “From the first moment that I saw you in the field at Piping Rock I was lost. It was your damned insolence. In half a glance you knew you had me.”

“Insolence was your line,” said Joe laughing.

“Then it was a kind of retribution,” she said darkly.

“You looked at me as if I was something dirty in the road.”

“You knew you had me!”

“Well, you had me, too.”

She shook her head. “There was triumph in your eyes.”

“All a bluff,” said Joe; “a man’s supposed to look like that. . . . Why, for weeks after that whenever we met, you went out of your way to insult me.”

“A fat lot you cared!” murmured Elaine.

“And the first night I tried to kiss you,” said Joe chuckling; “Gee! . . . Remember? Cave woman act. No man ever took worse punishment for a kiss.”

“You knew you had me,” murmured Elaine. “You laughed. . . . Oh, God! why does it have to be so one-sided!”

“Now who’s agonizing?” said Joe, going to her. “One-sided nothing! We’re both crazy. It’s just as it ought to be. We would be as happy as kids if it wasn’t for outside interference . . . I can see exactly what has happened. Your folks have been keeping after you about me, until you’re half hysterical. Well, it’s nobody’s business but our own. I am able to take care of you. Let’s steal away by ourselves and get married. We are free, white and twenty-one. That’s the way to stop the uproar. Nobody bothers about a thing once it’s done. To-morrow, Princess—or to-day! now! My car is at the door. Then good-bye to all worries. Nothing but happiness—Oh, my God! think of it. . . . Go get your hat and coat!”

Elaine shook her head.

Joe drew her back from the window. Holding her within one arm, he roughly pressed her hair back from her forehead, and kissed her eyelids. “You can’t fight against this thing, sweetheart,” he whispered. “It’s stronger than we are. The more you try to fight it, the stronger it gets!”

“Oh, don’t!” she whispered between his kisses. “I know it. . . . Oh, if I could stay like this forever! Oh, God! if I didn’t have to think!”

“Stop thinking, dearest dear. Come with me and stay with me forever. Come now! . . .”

She withdrew herself from his arm. “I will not,” she murmured.

Joe returned to the fireplace and flung himself into one of the big chairs. “Oh God! you do try a man’s patience!” he exclaimed. “You want me, and you don’t want me! Where is this going to end?”

“I’m afraid of you,” Elaine said suddenly. She had turned, and was looking at him somberly. The fear she spoke of was not evident in her glance.

Joe laughed softly. “That’s flattering,” he said: “for you’re the bravest woman I know.”

She went a step or two towards him. She seemed to speak by a power outside herself. “In our maddest moments your eyes are still measuring me. You never lose yourself. . . . You should not have forced me to speak of this. I see that all the things I ordinarily say are mere nonsense—like the noises made by savages to keep devils off. . . . You have roused a fever in me that is burning me up. . . . But . . . but . . . I don’t want to have a child. . . .”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!” exclaimed Joe, startled, showing his teeth.

The jangling voice recalled her to herself, wincing. She walked unevenly up and down. “The nonsense that they teach girls!” she murmured. “It made a rebel of me. I had prudence and obedience and chastity thrust down my throat until I fell in love with everything that was reckless and bad. I understood the devil worshippers. That’s how you got me. . . .”

“I don’t care how I got you,” said Joe with a secret smile.

She came to a stop. Her eyes were widely distended and quite unseeing. She made vague passes with her hand in the effort to express the inexpressible. “But all that stuff I laughed at . . . religion . . . all that stuff . . . is getting back at me . . . I mean may be it is . . . all kinds of things are working inside me . . . maybe there’s something in it. . . .”

“You’re talking wildly!” said Joe.

She shook her head. “I never got so close to naming it before . . . the thing you don’t talk about . . .”

“Come here,” said Joe, half contemptuously.

She shook her head inattentively. “Let me be. . . .”

He stood up. “Come here!” he said, peremptorily.

She looked at him reluctantly—and lost herself. A deep blush overspread her pale skin; her face became irradiated with a confused and imploring smile. She went to him slowly; shamed and rapturous.

Joe had dropped back into the big chair. Placing his hands on her shoulders, he pressed her down to her knees at his feet. “Put your arms around my neck,” he commanded.

She obeyed. He pressed his lips to hers.

“Now . . . _now_ tell me if there is anything in life that matters beside this,” he said breathlessly.

“No! No! No!” she whispered passionately. “I want only you!”

“You see, you’ll have to marry me!”

“No, Joe!”

“But I say you shall!”

VII

On a mild, bright afternoon, Elaine and Wilfred ran down the steps of the Sturges house, and turned east. Wilfred had enjoined Elaine to dress plainly; and she was wearing a severe tweed coat, and an inconspicuous hat bound round with a veil. Thus clad, her brave air was more apparent than ever. Wilfred’s heart beat high. Leaving behind them the big house which typified Elaine’s crowded exotic life, he felt for the first time that he had her to himself. Looking at her, he thought: It is impossible that Joe could reach his grimy paw so high! As usual, I have been tormenting myself without reason.

“Now elucidate the mystery,” said Elaine. “Where are we going?”

“Into the East Side,” said Wilfred. “My stamping-ground.”

“Slumming?” she asked, running up her eyebrows.

“No, indeed!” said Wilfred quickly.

“Well, I’m thankful for that. I’m no slum angel. . . . But why should we go there then? It’s not done.”

“I haunt the East Side for my own benefit, not for the East-Siders’,” he said. “I want to show you something real for once.”

“You funny man!” said Elaine. “I suppose you think you are sincere in this nonsense.”

Wilfred laughed.

“I warn you it is useless to expect me to be born anew.”

“I don’t,” he said quickly. “This is no deep-laid plot. Your life suffocates me. I am never myself in it. I wanted to have you once where I could breathe: to drag you down to my level if you like. It’s only for an hour. It won’t injure you permanently.”

“I am not afraid of being injured,” she said a little affronted.

“You are afraid of being changed, though.”

“Not at all!” she said stiffly. . . . “Still, I don’t see why I have to be dragged through the slums. I shan’t like it.”

“Oh, your conventional nose will turn up at the smells, and your eyes avert themselves from the dirt,” said Wilfred; “but there is a grand streak of commonness in you if one could only get at it.”

Elaine looked at him a little startled.

“Instead of a young lady of fashion you ought to have been a camp follower of the Revolution,” he went on. “I can see you shaking the Tricolor and yelling for blood!”

She liked this picture, and showed her white teeth. “You have the silliest notions about me!” she said scornfully.

They made their way through St. Mark’s Place and East Tenth street to Tompkins Square. This neighborhood, still suggesting 1860, with its plain brick tenements of low height, and old-fashioned store-fronts was a favorite haunt of Wilfred’s. It was still Irish-American New York, with the descendants of the original be-Jasus bhoys standing on the corners. It had the appeal of something doomed; for the old stores here and there were erupting in showy modern fronts; and the Jews were creeping in from the South.

Elaine did not get the special character of the streets, but any comely individual interested her. There was a stalwart young teamster unloading his dray, who, confident of his manhood, glanced sideways at Elaine with daring, mirthful eyes.

“What charming, wicked eyes!” murmured Elaine, after they had passed.

Wilfred felt a little crushed. His eyes were not wicked.

Proceeding farther east, they turned up-town, following always the last street on the edge of the Island. Wilfred found these forgotten streets full of character; the utilitarian steam-roller had not flattened them out. Actually, in the summer-time, spears of grass could be seen pushing up between the cobble-stones. There was a group of deserted buildings falling into ruin; and a little general store whose aspect had not changed since the days when New York was pure American; there was a smithy, which, lacking only a spreading chestnut tree, might have been transported entire from up-state. There was a yard piled with junk, which would have been fascinating to pick over; and there were high board fences with padlocked gates concealing mysteries. The inhabitants of the scattered dwellings in these last streets stared at the intruders like mountain folk.

He tried enthusiastically to convey it all to Elaine.

Looking at him with a quizzical eye, she asked: “Would you like to live over here?”

“What’s that got to do with it?” demanded Wilfred. “Isn’t it refreshing after the awful sameness of the other streets?”

Elaine peered dubiously through a filthy archway leading into a dank, paved court. “Well, I don’t know,” she said; “I like a place that I know.”

Farther up-town, they came to a wide waterside street which had lately been laid off on made ground. On the river side a row of big new piers had been built, sticking out into the river. As yet no sheds covered them; and it was one of the few places in the water-engirdled town Wilfred pointed out, where one could see the water from the street. The great shipping interests had still to take possession of the piers; consequently a confused throng of humble craft were tied up there; including canal-boats; sailing-lighters (which had once been called periguas); little old steam-boats laid up for the winter; and a rigged ship or two, waiting for a charter. Many of these vessels revealed family life on board. The open piers were heaped with rough cargo that would take no damage from the elements. The whole made a scene irresistibly entangling to the eye.

On the landward side a raw building or two had been run up alongside the new street to house the inevitable saloon with its colored glass and gingerbread work; but for the most part the vista was of coal-yards, and yards for the storage of wagons at night. These were backed by the side walls of the tall new tenements in the cross streets—not so new but that the white paint was scaling off the bricks, and the fire-escapes rusting. From every floor of the tenements extended lines of flapping clothes affixed to tall poles in the rear. Looking through between the backs of the houses, one beheld a very blizzard of linen. The sun was preparing to descend behind the tenement houses, and over across the wide river, the ugly factories of the Greenpoint shore (no longer green!) were sublimated by his horizontal rays.

Wilfred looked around him with a kindling eye. Elaine, glancing at him askance, said:

“Interesting if not beautiful.”

“Oh, I’ve quit worrying about what constitutes beauty!” said Wilfred. “All I know is, this _bites_ me. It’s because it sums up my town; the flapping clothes; the collection of queer craft; they could be of no other town; it’s New York!”

Crossing one of the streets leading away from the river, they saw a crowd assembling before the gates of a coal-yard. Little boys appeared from nowhere, running and crying in an ecstacy:

“Somep’n t’ matteh! Somep’n t’ matteh!”

“The rallying cry of New York!” murmured Wilfred. Anticipating ugliness, he took hold of Elaine’s arm to draw her on; but she resisted.

“Let’s see what it is,” she said.

Wilfred had no recourse but to follow her into the side street.

Two burly young men out of the coal-yard were fighting. It was a serious affair. Greasy with coal-dust, their faces dehumanized, there was nevertheless a dignity in the fighting look; hard, wary and intent. One was a mere lad; a young bull, with round head sunk between his brawny shoulders, and a remarkable mane of crisping black hair. The other, some years older, was cooler and warier; not without grace. How vain this one’s efforts! Though he was no older than Wilfred, on the plane of savagery his day was already passing; it was marked under his eyes. He might beat the lad now; but the lad would beat him next year. They were well-matched; they sparred smartly; and broke away clean; just the same there was a savage fury behind their blows.

Wilfred was a little sickened. Yet he had the envious feeling that these simple brutes possessed a key to life that had been taken from him, without any other being supplied. The younger man received a blow on the mouth that drew blood. He indifferently swept the back of his hand across his mouth, leaving a hideous smear. Had Wilfred been alone, he would have wished to see the affair to a conclusion, though he could not have borne to watch it continuously. His eyes would bolt, and have to be forced back. Now, with Elaine beside him, he was in distress, thinking of her womanhood exposed to such a sight.

“Come on! Come on!” he whispered urgently.

She turned a look of scorn on him. “You wanted me to see something real,” she said. “Can’t you stand it?”

“I was thinking of you,” he murmured.

She seemed to have increased in height; and her face wore a hard, bright look; in fact, a reflection of the look on the coal-blackened faces. She is of them; not of me! Wilfred thought sadly. She had not lost the simple key of life—the heroic key; and alas! he was no hero. He no longer saw the fight. Before his mind’s eye rose a picture of himself and Elaine yoked together and hopelessly opposed. Every advantage would be hers. It would be fatal for him to marry a woman with that strain in her, he thought; and at the same time his desire for her was increased tenfold, by reason of her savage, bright eyes.

There was no conclusion to the battle. A cry of “Cheese it, the cop!” was raised; and the two combatants, bolting through the ring that surrounded them, disappeared within the coal-yard. The spectators were left standing at a loss. A blue-coated officer approached with dignity from the river front.

“Hey! Move on there, youse!” he cried, disdaining to enquire into the cause of the gathering.

The people reluctantly made a pretence of moving this way and that; but scarcely left the spot. The bluecoat, with his Olympian air, went on a little way, and then came back again.

Still Elaine would not be drawn away. She saw a knot of people excitedly discussing the affair; and coolly elbowed her way in, leaving Wilfred to follow at her skirt.

“Hey! Move on! didn’t I tell yez!” commanded the officer, heading for the group; and dispersing it with strong outward thrusts of his forearms. The elegant Elaine was thrust aside with the rest. Up to this moment nobody had taken any particular notice of her; but the policeman, observing her dress, looked her up and down with amazement. He did not, however, address her. Wilfred suffered acutely. Elaine, ignoring the officer, fell into step beside a girl who seemed to be the source of information, and Wilfred walked beside Elaine, feeling as ineffective as a toddling child.

“What started it?” asked Elaine, avidly interested.

The girl was a meager little thing, not more than sixteen years old. Her thin jacket was mended crookedly; her shoes ran over at the heel. She wore a big black lace hat, which projected far beyond her pompadour like a fan. She was not at all averse to talking. It was her moment. Everybody was trying to walk alongside her, pressing close to hear; some in front walking with heads over their shoulders; all mouths open.

“T’at utter fella,” she said; “I mean t’ old fella; he’s too fresh, he is. He t’inks he’s t’ hull t’ing! Me guyl friend, she lives next door to t’ coal-yard, see? and he’s all a time flirtin’ wit’ her at t’ winda. Just to show off to t’ utter fellas in t’ yard what a hell of a fella _he_ was, understand?”

“Sure, I understand,” said Elaine.

“Well, it was all right until he begun to holler up at her,” the girl went on. “Then me friend’s old woman, she got sore, see? If he’d come up to her respectable in the street, like, she’d a gone out wit’ him, maybe—but to holler up at t’ winda like t’at!”

“No,” said Elaine; “it’s not done!”

“You’re right! It ain’t done! . . . So I says to my friend, I says, I’d stop by the yard when he was in on his cart, and I’d tell him real nice, to cut it out, see? And I did ast him just as polite, to cut it out, and he begun to get fresh wit’ me. An t’en t’ black-headed young fella he come in on his cart, and he up and tells t’ utter fella to cut it out. And t’ utter fella, I mean t’ old fella, he begins to cuyse. Such language! And me standin’ right t’ere all a time! T’en t’ black-headed young fella, he soaked him one, and t’ey went outside to settle it. . . . T’at old fella, he’s t’ bully of t’ hull yard. But he’d a got hisn to-day if t’ cop hadn’t a come. T’ black-headed boy’ll lay him out cold, yet!”

“He’s a handsome lad,” said Elaine.

“He is so, lady! And strong! My! He ain’t but nineteen year old, neit’er.”

“Shall you see him again?”

“Oh, he kin allus find me if he wants me,” she said with a toss of the lace hat. “I don’t live far.”

At the corner, the group broke up, and Wilfred was able to draw Elaine away at last. In his mind he was confused and bitter. Elaine scorned these people; yet she was able to talk to them without self-consciousness; he loved them, and could not. All his explorations on the East Side were conducted in silence. Not only was his tongue tied, but he knew he had an aloof air which prevented people from addressing him.

Elaine guessed what was passing in his mind. She said with a smile: “You see I am closer to them than you are.”

Wilfred said nothing.

“These people interest you, because they are strange to you,” she presently went on. “They are not strange to me. Just people. . . . All the same, I’m glad my great-great-grandfather made a lot of money! . . . Wilfred, if you lived over here, you’d spend your time walking up and down Fifth avenue, looking in the rich peoples’ windows, and dreaming about _their_ lives!”

It’s true! thought Wilfred. She has her own fire, and doesn’t have to bother; but I can only go about warming myself at the fires of others!

* * * * *

They reached one of the little terraces on the East River cliffs. Elaine swung herself up on the parapet that closed the end of a cross street; while Wilfred standing below her, leaned his elbows on the stone. Off to his left ran a little street of brownstone houses a block long, with back yards dropping over the cliff. Darkness was falling; no one was in sight. Elaine drew the tweed coat more closely around her.

“Light a cigarette for me,” she said. “If anybody comes, I’ll hand it back.”

Wilfred’s lips caressed the cigarette as it left them. Fascinated, he watched Elaine’s cool fresh lips close upon the same spot. How sweet that vicarious kiss! He ventured to move closer to her; and at the touch of her body, a momentary benediction descended on his agitated breast—momentary, because he had that to say which would destroy it forever.

“Well, has it been a success?” he asked.

They had walked fast, and the flags were up in Elaine’s cheeks. “The walk, yes!” she said quickly. “But as for your East Side! . . . Well, I prefer the middle.” She shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m not a snob. I know these people are every bit as good as I am; but I don’t feel any call to herd with them.”

“Oh well, let them go!” said Wilfred, smiling. (How useless this ordeal! But he had resolved upon it. As soon as it was dark, he had vowed.)

Elaine, glancing at him through her lashes, moved away ever so slightly. The move was not lost on Wilfred, but he stubbornly held to his purpose.

Looking out over the river, Elaine said quickly: “This view makes up for any amount of East Side!”

Wilfred, thankful for the respite, followed her glance. The stream was like a magical beam of twilight in the dark. It seemed to be the source of its own blue, darkling radiance. The fading sky held no such poignancy. The river was both still and subtly perturbed; like a smooth breast swelling upon inaudible sighs; like a quiet face working with obscure passions. Out in the middle rose the crouching black rocks off the point of Blackwell’s Island; the island itself, appeared, pointing out of the obscurity like a gigantic black forefinger. On it rose the inhuman prison buildings. Architects are always successful in designing prisons, Wilfred thought. Further to the left, and high against the sky sprang the vast cantilever bridge, a rumbling portent of the Age of Machines.

Wilfred put his yearning hand upon hers. She snatched her hand away.

“Oh, Wilfred! not _that_!”

“Elaine, will you marry me?” he whispered.

“Oh!” she breathed crossly. “You know very well I don’t love you!”

“Yes, I know.”

“Then why on earth . . . ?”

“I wanted you to know that I loved you.”

“I knew it. I am not blind.”

“But I was forced to tell you . . . because it was so difficult.”

“Oh, you ridiculous man! . . . I couldn’t possibly fall in love with a man like you!”

“I know it,” he murmured, while the iron entered slowly into his soul.

“You knew it all along,” she said. “You are no fool. I was glad to have you come to see me, you’re so intelligent. But I wondered why you continued to come.”

“I couldn’t help myself.”

Elaine said no more, but looked out over the river, kicking her heel impatiently against the stone of the parapet. How deeply grateful Wilfred was, to be spared her pity. How prompt and honest had been her response—like all her responses to life. While he backed and filled! He was not even sure at this moment that he wanted to marry her. Was there not a feeling of relief amidst all his pain? . . . Ah! if he might only hold her close, close in his arms and stop thinking!

He said: “You’ll catch cold if you continue to sit here.”

Lifting herself on her hands, she sprang down.

“We’ll have to walk a bit before we can hope to find a taxi,” said Wilfred.

“What’s the matter with the car-line?”

“All right. The nearest is on Second Avenue.”

They walked away from the river in a constrained silence. This was harder for Elaine to bear than for Wilfred. After awhile she burst out crossly:

“Oh, bother! You’ve spoiled everything!”

Wilfred smiled. “No,” he said. “You get me wrong. I am not bitter, because I expected nothing.”

“I think that’s just an attitude,” she said, looking at him shrewdly.

“Oh well, you’ll see—if you don’t cast me off.”

She impulsively slipped her hand through his arm. “Oh, Wilfred, I _do_ want you for a friend!” she said. “I have nobody to talk to but you.”

Wilfred was very happy. He thought without bitterness: I suppose I am a poor-spirited creature. Thankful for small favors. He said: “Why not? That thing is cleared away now. There are no bars between us. That’s why I spoke.”

“You have already given me three different reasons for speaking,” she remarked acutely.

Wilfred laughed. “All true! Life is not so simple!”

“You’re a funny man!”

“You know nothing about men,” said Wilfred. “You only recognize one quality in men. You want me for your friend, yet you despise me because I am willing to come in on that basis.”

“Not despise!” she said quickly.

“Well, supply your own word.”

“I don’t mind if you scold me,” she said with unexpected humility.

Wilfred laughed again, not very mirthfully. “I can be honester with you now,” he said. “I have nothing to lose.”

She stopped. “I’ll put your friendship to the test at once,” she said abruptly. “Let’s not go home. Let’s walk for miles and miles. Have dinner out.”

“Oh, _will_ you!” cried Wilfred in delight.

“Well! . . . you’re easily consoled,” she said dryly.

“I can’t help but be happy when you are beside me!”

She dropped his arm.

They turned Northward again. They went down hill under the bridge approach, and alongside the towering gas tanks. The next stage was marked by East River Park, with its row of fancy little brick houses, circa 1888; then through Pleasant avenue, a raw thoroughfare, belying its name; and finally through the secluded streets around the Northeast corner of the island, lined with gaily-painted wooden dwellings like a village. Not until they had reached the plaza where the red trolley cars start for the Bronx, did Elaine confess to being tired and hungry.

“Have you got enough money?” she asked like a boy.

Wilfred nodded. “We’ll get on the El. and ride back to Sixty-Seventh street,” he said. “There is a restaurant on Third avenue called Joe’s, famous in its way; I expect it’s like no place you have ever been in.”

The neighborhood was not prepossessing; and neither was Joe’s; a common-looking place with two rows of long tables, ended against the wall, like a Bowery restaurant.

Elaine looked about her with bright eyes. “I have never eaten in such a place,” she said. “I shall love it!”

“It’s not really as bad as it looks,” said Wilfred. “The commonness is deliberate. It is designed to attract those who appreciate good food, but do not like to put on style.”

“What a good idea!” said Elaine.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Wilfred. “Joe is a little discouraged. Style seems to be in the ascendant; and good living on the wane!”

“I can plant my elbows on the table, and slump down anyhow,” said Elaine. “Do you think they will allow me to smoke?”

“We’ll hazard it.”

Wilfred insisted on ordering champagne.

“How silly in such a place!” objected Elaine.

“Oh, no!” he said. “Joe is prepared for it. . . . Besides champagne has a special virtue. It puffs one up.”

* * * * *

Elaine pushed her plate away. “Wonderful food!” she said. “I’m as full as a tick!”

She lit a cigarette. There was no interference. Nearly all the other diners had left now. Wilfred was sitting opposite her with a smile etched around his lips; gazing at her with half-veiled eyes of pleasure. Elaine’s look at him became quizzical.

“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” he said reading her thought. “To-night I have had the best of you. Our walk together in the dark; our confidence in each other. If I were your husband I could have nothing better.”

Elaine’s smile broadened; and he perceived that she regarded this as mere sentimentalizing. Well, it didn’t matter now. He smiled on. He made no attempt to explain that his exquisite happiness was due to the fact that his heart was big and soft with pain. Impossible to convey such things in words.

“Besides, I have confessed myself to you,” he added. “I need hide no longer.”

“You are hiding things from me now!” she said.

“Things, but not myself.”

While she quizzed him, something was working behind it. Her eyes fell. “I wish I could be happy . . . like that,” she murmured.

An apprehension of worse to come struck through Wilfred. “You must feel something the same as I,” he said quickly.

“Something,” she said. “You’re a dear!”

The word chilled Wilfred. He hastened past it. “But not content?” he asked.

“Happiness seems to me to leave a bad taste in the mouth,” said Elaine, affecting lightness.

An exclamation of dismay was forced from Wilfred. “Oh!” Obscurely he had felt that Elaine was unhappy; but this forced it on his consciousness. He was thrown into confusion. He could scarcely conceive the possibility of pitying the glorious Elaine. She suffering too—but not for him! Still . . . fellows in pain! Compassion welled up in his breast. Compassion is most due to the strong, he felt.

“That’s just a phase,” he said quickly. “You knew the feeling of ridiculous happiness when you were a child.”

“Oh yes,” she said, “and later than that. That feeling is natural to me.”

“It will come back.”

“I wonder!”

“There’s a cloud over your sun at the moment; that’s all.”

“What do you mean?” she asked with a hard look, jealous of her secret.

It intimidated Wilfred. “I was only speculating,” he said, his eyes trailing away. Inwardly he was in a panic. Was it Joe? . . . It could not be Joe. . . . But he knew that it _was_ Joe! The thought was like the recurrence of a madness. He fought against it blindly. . . . She had not succumbed. She was fighting. Something must be done to help her! . . .

Elaine said, gloomily resting her chin on her palm: “Nobody can help anybody else, really. Each of us has his own particular hell.”

“People _could_ help one another if they were sufficiently honest,” Wilfred insisted. “It requires a terrifying honesty. Once or twice in a lifetime, maybe . . . I’ve been helped.”

Elaine’s look upon him was scarcely flattering. It said: Your case is hardly the same as mine!

Something must be done! Something must be done! the panic-stricken voice cried within Wilfred. He despaired of finding the right words to say. He said nothing.

“When you’re faced by a serious problem, should you listen to your heart or your head?” asked Elaine, flicking the ash off her cigarette.

“To both,” he answered.

“That’s merely silly,” she said with curling lip. “If they’re warring voices.”

Wilfred flushed. “I was wrong,” he said. “It’s confusing. . . . I never can speak without thinking. You should listen to your heart always.”

“Ah!” she said, with the air of one who had caught him out. “Then you believe that passion should override everything; all considerations of prudence; everything!”

Wilfred felt his lips growing tight. “Passion does not always come from the heart,” he said. “As I understand it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There is infatuation.”

At that word Elaine ran up her eyebrows in two little peaks; but Wilfred somehow found the courage to face her out. A silence succeeded, which shook him badly. A gush of foolish, emotional speech filled his mouth like warm blood. He grimly swallowed it, waiting.

“Suppose one experienced a violent passion,” asked Elaine, with a casual air which concealed nothing from the man who loved her, “how on earth would one know whether it was love or infatuation?”

“By the quality of the object,” he said quickly. “If it was worthy. . . .”

“That’s nonsense!” she said scornfully. “If you were infatuated you would think the object was glorious anyhow.”

Wilfred shook his head. “That’s where the heart comes in. No matter how blinded we may be, we each have a voice in our breasts that whispers the truth. Only we don’t want to listen.”

“You must have a well-trained little prompter!” said Elaine.

He looked at her. He could bear her gibes. He held his tongue, waiting for the right word.

She said: “I’d have to have some surer guide than mysterious inner voices.”

“That’s easy,” said Wilfred quickly. “If your passion is for a worthy object you feel proud; if it is not worthy, you suffer like the devil.”

“I wasn’t talking about _my_ passion,” said Elaine laughing; but her long-lashed eyes were dreadfully haunted.

“Oh, sure!” said Wilfred, grinning like a man on the rack. “That’s just the clumsy English language!” . . . Why can’t we speak out! he cried to himself; I love her so!

“Well, having got thus far,” said Elaine with a sprightly air that was almost more than he could bear; “having recognized that one is the victim of an infatuation, how is one to set about curing oneself?”

Wilfred shook his head helplessly.

“What! has the doctor no remedy to offer?”

“Leave it to time,” he murmured.

“That might work in the case of an elastic nature,” said Elaine. “One of those natures that snaps easily in and out of entanglements. But there’s another kind; stubborn.”

Wilfred could not speak. Something inside him was pressing up, and he could not force it back. It was stopping his throat; he struggled for breath. . . .

“Anyhow,” said Elaine, raising her chin, “I don’t admit your absolutes of love and infatuation. What’s the difference between them? It’s all in the point of view. It’s not the object that matters, but the feeling!”

The constriction within Wilfred suddenly broke. He heard with a feeling of surprise, a low, shaken voice issuing from between his lips. “Oh, Elaine! you couldn’t! He’s rotten! I am not quick to discover evil in people. But this man is altogether evil. . . . Never mind about his life. I expect he’s told you; he always does. What he’s done doesn’t matter. It is what he is! Your nature is clear and open; you _must_ feel it . . . !”

Elaine after a quick glance of astonishment, listened with curving lips. “Of whom are you speaking?” she asked.

“You know,” he said, suddenly dashed.

There it was out! He need not have been so terrified, because Elaine was equal to the situation. She shrugged. “Oh well, it’s no secret that Joe and I are pals. I should hardly come to you for a testimonial of his character.”

Her remote glance, full of pain, assured him that her inner self was listening to his words. It enabled him to bear her scorn. “Worse than positive evil,” he said. “It’s a sort of ghastly sterility. He’s a monster! He cannot feel anything.”

“Oh, I assure you, you are wrong about that,” said Elaine with her tormented and contemptuous smile.

“Lust,” he said very low, not able to look at her then.

“Well?” she said simply.

Wilfred was struck dumb by that query. Why not lust? Well . . . why not . . . ?

In a moment he went on: “You must not think that I am merely jealous. I have no hopes. If Joe had never existed, you would not have cared for me. Remember too, that I’ve known him for ten years. This is not something that has sprung into my mind since I learned that you. . . . You _must_ believe that I am honest! I love you! If it was anybody else but him. . . . I haven’t seen Joe but about half a dozen times in my life. From the first he has represented to me the principle of evil; that which destroys us! I have seen how he debauches everyone with whom he comes in contact. He calls to the evil in the natures of others. He goes on unharmed because he feels nothing. The thought that he might obtain a hold on you, a permanent hold. . . . Oh God! it won’t bear speaking of! It is too horrible. . . .”

He jumped up as if he were about to run out of the place.

“Steady!” whispered Elaine. “People are looking. . . .”

He dropped into his chair; his startled eyes darting around.

After a silence, she said sullenly: “This is just emotional stuff.” She turned her cheek on her palm, half averting her face from him. “. . . Anyhow, I’m not engaged to him.”

“I know the nature of the spell he exerts over you,” Wilfred went on more calmly. “I have seen it working; I have felt it myself in a different way. It is horrible and irresistible—yes, and delicious, too. Delicious! I say this, because I must force you to see that I understand. I don’t blame you for feeling it. . . . You think that I’m something less than a man—Oh, well, never mind about me! . . . But I want you to know that I never put you on any silly pedestal. I love you because you’re warm and human, and of the same flesh as me. I don’t blame you. . . .”

“Thanks!” drawled Elaine. Her eyes were hidden from him.

“. . . I don’t see how you’re going to resist it. A pure and passionate woman! But marriage. . . . Oh, God! . . .”

“What’s the alternative?” she murmured.

“Give yourself to him,” said Wilfred quickly.

Elaine jerked her head up, staring at him in pure amazement.

“That startles you?” he asked somberly.

“Not the suggestion,” she said. “I’m no bread and butter miss. But that it should come from you . . . !”

“Oh, leave me out of it! Look on me as a sort of disembodied voice. . . . It would be better than marriage, wouldn’t it?”

No answer from Elaine.

“This thing is strong only when you oppose it. Give in to it, and you’ll discover its insignificance. . . .”

Elaine looked at him startled; then closely hid her eyes again.

“. . . Bad morality, but good commonsense,” said Wilfred with a jangling laugh.

Elaine said in her casual voice: “They say that infatuation grows on what it feeds upon.”

“I don’t mean for a night,” he said bluntly. “Go away with him. Stay with him as long as you want. He could not take anything from you that mattered, if you were not bound. . . .”

She gave no sign.

“He might reject your offered sacrifice,” Wilfred went on grimly. “Marriage with you is what he wants. It would be a fine thing for him. You’d have to insist. . . .” Wilfred’s voice began to shake. “Ah, do not fight yourself until you are worn out! Beware of that fatal moment of weariness, when you are willing to give into anything!”

“Would you take me when I came back?” asked Elaine in an ironical voice without looking at him.

“Like a shot!—if you wanted me. However, I have no illusions about that. . . .”

Elaine laughed shakily, and bestirred herself. “What a lot of nonsense I’m letting you talk!” she said in an insincere voice. “One would think I only had to get on a train with a man to solve all problems! The Lord knows, I’m not squeamish; but after all, society is organized on a certain basis; and I’m not prepared to. . . .”

“Now who’s a coward!” cried Wilfred, facing her down. “You have accused me of it often enough—by implication. But at least I will face things . . . even this! . . . What do you want? The sanction and blessing of society on such a thing?”

She shook her lowered head. “Not really,” she said very low. “It’s just that I doubt the efficacy of your remedy. . . .” Then lower still: “I think . . . that you underrate the strength of such a feeling . . . in a woman . . . well, in me!”

“Perhaps I do,” he said with a dreadfully sinking heart. “I am not pure. I never was pure. . . . But, Elaine, not marriage! . . . Oh, not marriage . . . !”

“Come on,” she said. “The waiters are fidgeting. They want to close.”

VIII

She had a sweet, bell-like soprano, which commanded great applause; but Wilfred disliked to hear her sing. A little too bell-like perhaps; a suggestion of the metal, however silvery. He was reminded of huskier and less admirable voices, which nevertheless had the power to bring tears to his eyes. But of course he applauded Daisy with the rest. He had met her three times on the occasions of Ladies’ nights at the dinners of a little club to which he belonged. She sang for her dinner. He was not in the least attracted to her; but in a circle of serious-minded men, mostly married, it was up to him to prove his mettle. He could not have allowed one of the dull fellows to carry off the only girl in their midst. She was a girl; but not a particularly young one; fully Wilfred’s own age. So he had taken her home each time.

She was pretty enough to gratify his fastidiousness, especially as it was not an obvious prettiness. She wore glasses, which gave her rather the air of a young school-ma’am; and it was only after reaching a certain degree of intimacy, that you discovered there were lovely blue eyes behind the glass. She had too, an admirable straight, short nose, and a sweet-lipped mouth, a thought too small. Her body was well enough. She gave an impression of thinness which was illusory. She was a coquette, and a great fool; and conversation with her was a weariness to a young man who had a good conceit of himself, owing to her ridiculous assumptions. But old men and unattractive men crowded around her.

Wilfred had always found a certain stimulus in the society of a coquette. It would make him a little indignant to see other men willing to subserve their pretensions; and when opportunity offered, he was eager to undertake the rehabilitation of his sex. Moreover, it was amusing to observe the astonishment of a coquette when her queenship was coolly questioned. Derision was devastating to coquettes. Unfortunately, the game was too easy. There was no glory in making a conquest of a coquette. Dethroned, she forthwith grovelled.

Daisy lived far up-town. She shared a tiny flat with a girl who was a trained nurse. To-night in order to make the long journey tolerable, Wilfred set about provoking Daisy to wrath.

“What a pretty little wife Dexter has!” he remarked.

“Do you think so?” said Daisy melodiously.

“Such eyes, such teeth, such hair! I don’t blame him for keeping her close.”

“That is just what you would do, isn’t it?”

“You bet I would! . . . Sweet enough to eat! Think of having _that_ to fetch your slippers!”

“Yes, she looked like a slipper-fetcher,” said Daisy.

“You wouldn’t fetch a man’s slippers, would you?”

“You are merely being fatuous!” she said.

“. . . Like a delicious kitten!” said Wilfred. “All soft and downy!”

“They live in the Bronx, don’t they?” enquired Daisy, feeling of her back hair. “She looks as if she had her clothes made near home.”

Wilfred hooted. “You can’t bear to hear another woman praised!”

“Not at all!” said Daisy with dignity. “I enjoy looking at a pretty woman as much as a man does. I have always said so. Women are nicer to look at than men, any day. And a woman is a far better judge of another woman’s looks than any man is!”

“Maybe so,” said Wilfred. “But a pretty woman isn’t pretty for women.”

“No, only for the lords of creation, I suppose.”

“You’re rather pretty yourself,” he said casually appraising her.

“_Merci, monsieur!_”

“But you give yourself such airs!”

This line served very well for half a dozen stations on the elevated. Daisy stiffened her back as if she had swallowed the poker; and her eyes shot sparks of pure anger through the glasses. All very well; good fun as long as the sparks flew; but when, at last, she began to pull down the corners of her babyish mouth, Wilfred suddenly sickened.

Turning her blue eyes reproachfully on him, she murmured: “Why are you so hateful to me?”

His eyes bolted. Why can’t she play the game? he thought ill-temperedly. Lord! if she turned soft, she would be quite unendurable. He cast hastily about in his mind for some expedient to tide him over the remaining stations. He happened to remember that the trained nurse was engaged on night duty at the time. Affecting to yawn, he said:

“Gosh! I hate to think of the long trip back again!”

“It’s not my fault that you live so far down-town,” she said.

“Believe I’ll stay all night with you,” he said, very offhand.

Daisy was electrified. “How dare you say such a thing to me!” she cried. “How dare you . . . !”

This was splendid! It produced the briskest quarrel they had ever had; and the rest of the stations passed unnoticed. It carried them down the stairs, along Columbus avenue, and around the corner to the door of the apartment house where she lived. Wilfred was tired of it by this time; and hailed his approaching deliverance with relief. Never again! he promised himself. She wasn’t amusing even in her anger. What an unworthy and trumped-up business this girl-chasing was, anyhow!

“In all my life I have never been so insulted!” she was saying. “I never want to see you again until you are prepared to apologize. . . .”

This brought them to the steps of her house. They discovered that the darkened vestibule was already occupied by a couple engaged in the business of saying good-night. Daisy quickly caught hold of Wilfred’s sleeve, and pulled him by. A light broke upon him. She intended that he should stay! He trembled with internal laughter. His heart began to beat faster. They walked on a little way in silence. Wilfred, grinning, studied Daisy’s face in the light of a street lamp. It still bore an expression of ferocious outraged virtue. What somersaults women could perform without losing their faces!

When they got back, the vestibule was empty. He followed Daisy into the house without anything further being said; and into her own little place on the first floor above. She closed the door, and turning around, began in pathetic accents:

“Now that you’ve forced your way in here, I hope. . . .”

Wilfred laughed; and seized her rudely in his arms. An instinct told him that she adored being treated rudely. He carefully removed her glasses, and put them on a table. There was light enough for him to see her charming, vague, shy eyes. He discovered that he clasped within the too artful clothes, the body of a very nymph with slim, boyish legs, round arms, and small firm breasts.

“Ah, you pretty thing! you pretty thing!” he murmured, heartily enough.

“Oh, Wilfred, spare me!” she pleaded. “Not that . . . Wilfred!”

“What did you expect?” he asked, between his kisses. “That we’d sit here and hold hands?”

“But Wilfred, I’ve never . . . I’ve never. . . .”

“Then it’s high time you did!” he said, laughing and kissing her.

“Oh, you’re so masterful!” she breathed.

Wilfred’s arms relaxed. Startled, he tossed his head up, and stared into the dark. _Masterful!_ Of course, when one didn’t give a damn! What a horrid joke this business . . . !

However, there she waited, expectant. And after all she was very sweet. One couldn’t be wretched all the time. Here was a drug for wretchedness. He kissed her again.

“What was the matter?” she whispered.

“I thought I heard something,” he said with a lip that curled in self-mockery.

“We are quite safe,” she whispered, wreathing her white arms around his neck.

IX

—— Hospital, St. Louis.

Dear Wilfred:

I came here because it was a good way off, and I wanted to make a clean break with everything.

Besides, I was attracted by the reputation of Dr. Shales, whom they call the greatest surgeon in the world; the superhuman butcher. He’s the bright, particular star of this institution. It was rather a let-down to discover that dozens of other girls from all parts of the country had had the same idea. They flock here in droves. The majority are quickly sent home with fleas in their ears. But I was accepted. I suppose you’d say, you idealist, that there was something fine in this crusade of women to serve under the banner of pure intelligence and skill. But that’s not the half of it, dearie. There’s sex in it too. But not in my case. There’s sex in everything, isn’t there, like those horrid little bugs under damp wood. You’d understand what I mean if you could hear the nurses talking amongst themselves. Our God, the doctor, is the sole topic. But not much about his intelligence and skill. Not that you’d notice! Oh well, I suppose he’s only human. If you were to believe them, he’s a monster! Thank God! I’m no idealist! I’ve got no illusions to be shattered.

My family as you may guess, kicked up a horrid clamor at the idea of my entering for training here. The poor dears! I suppose it _was_ a shock! As usual, I was called absolutely hard, unfeeling, etc. However, they did not say the final word to prevent my coming, suspecting perhaps, an alternative even more dreadful. I didn’t tell them until my bag was packed, and I was ready to walk out of the house. Thus the scene was confined to one tempestuous half hour. I hadn’t told a soul else. Of course I have been getting letters in sheaves since I arrived. Sickening, isn’t it, how people give themselves away when they take their pens in hand? One or two of my friends wrote praising me for the step I had taken. Those letters infuriated me. I mean, that anybody should have the cheek to impute pious motives to me. I wrote deliberately insulting replies. Yet I suppose you’d call them my best friends. You don’t need to tell me that I am acting a bad part. I know it. How can I help myself? I have heard nothing from you. Perhaps you didn’t know where I was, since it has been kept out of the papers.

As a probationer they have set me to work cleaning up the diet kitchens, dispensaries, etc. I have learned to scrub. Actually! Right down on my marrow bones with brush and pail. If the Avenue could see me now! We work from seven to seven. It’s a ghastly grind, because they deliberately overwork us at first in order to weed out the weak sisters. Well, I’m strong. I can stand it, but I’m getting as gaunt as an alley cat. On my afternoons off, I dress up in my most flaunting clothes, and rouge my cheeks, and sally forth.—And then I come back again! Never let anybody persuade you that there’s any dignity in filthy labor! Nor that it conduces to serenity of mind! I wouldn’t mind if there was any _use_ in it. Oh, God! how I hate this place! I can’t imagine why I ever came here. I can’t give it up either, after all the fuss that everybody has kicked up. The girls of my lot here have made a sort of hero out of me. They’re poor creatures. This is bad for me, because it leads me into a swagger. I’ve been in hot water more than once. I can’t stomach these head nurses, etc. Take a barren, starved woman, and give her authority over a lot of blooming, sniggering girls, and the result is hellish.

Life seems to lead us into one trap after another. You notice I blame life. I’m so damn conceited. I suppose that’s what the matter with me. In my heart I still think there’s nobody in the world quite like me. Yet I hate myself too! You shook me a little, and I can’t thank you for it. Didn’t shake me hard enough, I guess. It hasn’t done any good; it’s only made life infinitely harder. I wish I’d never met you! Of course I don’t quite mean that. Once I was happy. Lord! what rosy illusions I had about life and love and playing the game. That was my slogan: To Play the Game! I never noticed that I was apt to make the rules to fit my own desires. Now I have flopped into a sort of sink where everything is smeary. . . . I grind my teeth and snarl. I have discovered that I am cowardly, too. That’s the bitterest pill of all. For if I could, I’d shut my eyes and eat lotuses. I would! I would! I’d crawl back into my fool’s paradise on any terms, only the crystal dome is busted. I know there is no escape _that_ way, and I can’t face the other.

Burn this Old Top, and forget me.

Yours, Elaine.

South Washington Square.

Dear Elaine:

When I read your letter my impulse was to jump on the first train. The pull was awful! A cry for help from _you_! Very likely you would deny now that it was a cry for help. You carefully avoided mentioning the things that were at the back of your mind. But I could read them. Don’t worry; I’m not going to drag them into the light. Call it just a cry of pain, then. I know what the pressure must have been that forced it from your lips.

But you see I have not come; and I am not coming. From the first my better sense warned me that it would only make things worse. If I saw you I would only lose my head, and babble weak, emotional stuff that would humiliate me, and disgust you. That’s the writer’s penalty. It is my business to express vicarious feelings. When my own heart froths up I am helpless. That arouses your contempt. What you do not consider is, that at the center of all this flutter there may be a firm core, worthy of your respect. I suffer horribly from the inability to express my feelings thoughtlessly. By staying away from you, perhaps I can remain a sort of fixed point in your confused horizon. The fact that you wrote to me at such a time shows that you regard me in some such light. I must take what satisfaction I can out of the assurance that you could not have let yourself go with anybody else like that. You know these things already. The ghastly part is, that knowing them doesn’t alter the situation. All we can do is to make private signals to each other across the gulf. So I am not coming. To see you now; to have you shrink from my touch, would about finish me. I am glad you let yourself go by letter, and not in speech. I could not have endured that! If I grovelled and stammered at your feet, your last illusion, which is me, would be gone.

I tried to write you last night, but I was too much confused. I was blind. I am not the one to help you. The only way I can help you is by being baldly honest. I had to force myself to think. Do not despise the man who is forced to stop and think when his feelings are rushing him away. It is the need of my nature. It is the one thing I have to hang on to in this whirling chaos. And the feelings are not necessarily any the less genuine. At least I am never finally deceived by the sound of my own roaring.

I walked all night. I don’t know that I’m any clearer in my mind this morning because of it, but I’m dog tired. I’m beyond the point of considering what I say. I tore up half a dozen letters last night. This one has just got to go, and God help us both. Whatever I say, or do not say, it will not mend the situation. One things stands out starkly: the touch of my hand revolts you. You made that fatally clear. Therefore, I’ve got to stay away from you. What did you write to me for? I can’t help you. I’m a man, the same as that other. I can’t be your confessor. You are contemptuous of my manhood. I’m not even going to try to give you any advice. Coming from me it would sound hollow. If you did what I told you to, you would just blame me for all the pain which followed. There’s got to be pain anyway. You’ve got to make up your mind what to do, and swallow the pain; just as I’ve got to swallow my pain. We haven’t had the best of luck, either of us. Well, I won’t die of it, and neither will you. I am in a deeper hell at this moment than you will ever know. You, at least, have kept yourself taut, while I have been wallowing. With no excuse; no excuse! Your letter coming at such a moment—Oh, well, I’ve said enough. I loathe myself.

Wilfred.

It was Wilfred’s newspaper that informed him of the romantic sudden marriage in St. Louis of Miss Elaine Sturges to Mr. Joseph Kaplan, both of New York. The popular society belle (so the account ran) tiring of the empty round of gaiety, and determined to do something useful in life, had gone to St. Louis without telling any of her friends of her intention, and had quietly entered the —— Hospital as a nurse. It was rumored that family opposition to the Boy Wonder of Wall Street may have had something to do with her sudden decision. The Sturgeses were one of the proudest families in New York, whereas young Mr. Kaplan was very much the self-made man, as everybody knew.

However that might be, Mr. Kaplan had finally learned of the whereabouts of his lost lady, and applying the same downright methods that had characterized his meteoric rise to fortune, had taken the first train to St. Louis. When he called at the Hospital, he had been refused permission to see Miss Sturges, since she was on duty. Nothing daunted, he refused to leave the place until she was produced, and the authorities were forced to yield. Miss Sturges was called out of the ward. A few rapid whispered words were sufficient. All in her nurse’s uniform as she was, Mr. Kaplan bundled her into a taxicab, and they were driven to the nearest preacher. . . . And so on, and so on, for a column or more. . . . All the world loves a lover! . . . The honeymoon was being spent in Southern Pines. Later the happy pair would sail for Italy. . . .

Wilfred felt no surprise upon reading this, nor any strong emotion. He had been through that. Just a bitter sickness of heart. “So _that_ is what it comes to!” he said to himself. Well, I suppose I may consider myself cured.

X

Upon his return to town in September, one of the first persons Wilfred met was Jessie Dartrey. She belonged to the Fifty-Ninth street crowd, though she herself had no pretensions either artistic or literary. She and Frances Mary Lore were great friends. Not exactly a pretty girl, Jessie had a highly individual charm. Long, dark eyes, and a crooked mouth of great sweetness. Wilfred liked her she was “such a little woman.” What was the right word for her; doughty? peppery? At any rate, discourse with her was stimulating. Wilfred had the impression that she cherished a particular scorn for himself; but he did not mind, it was so amusingly expressed. When Jessie was roused, she talked purest Saxon.

He met her on the Avenue as he was returning from a fruitless call at Frances Mary’s flat. He had found the glass in the door dusty; and a faded card still in place, with the tenant’s summer address.

“Hello!” said Wilfred. “I’ve just been up to see if Frances Mary was back.”

Jessie’s expressive mouth tightened for a flash at the mention of her friend’s name, and Wilfred wondered what was up. Had the two quarreled? “No,” said Jessie, readily. “She won’t be back for another month. The hills are too fine to leave, she writes. And her work is coming well.”

“Hard on us,” he said lightly.

Again that flicker of intense disapproval across Jessie’s face.

“Come and have tea somewhere,” urged Wilfred. “I’m just back myself. I’m starving for a little town talk.”

“So even I will do?” she said with heavy sarcasm.

Is she jealous? thought Wilfred. What a rum start that would be! “Your reasoning is faulty as usual,” he said. “There is great virtue in an accidental encounter. It has changed the fate of Kingdoms!”

“Sorry, I can’t give you the change to prove it,” said Jessie. “I’m booked for tea at a house in Forty-Seventh street. You can walk to the door with me if you want.”

He turned around, and accompanied her.

Presently she said with a sharp, sidelong glance of the sloe-black eyes: “You’re changed since I saw you.”

“How?” he asked, agreeably flattered.

“More conceited than ever!” said Jessie, suddenly changing her mind.

That was Jessie’s way. She had decided to conceal her real thought. In order to raise a dust, she rattled on: “You always look at me as much as to say: ‘Oh, mumma! look what the cat’s brought in!’”

Wilfred laughed, and felt uneasy. What had she seen? Was his face thus easily to be read in the afternoon sunshine of the Avenue? He made haste to give Jessie a humorous account of the boarding-house in the country that he had discovered for himself, and could not recommend. Jessie punctuated the story with scornful little snorts of laughter, shooting glances of her bright eyes into his face, that fairly snapped with some feeling mysterious to Wilfred.

Arriving before the house where she was expected, they paused at the foot of the steps. Said Wilfred, concluding his story:

“Above all, avoid a high-brow boarding-house. Intellectual table-talk is no compensation for watery hash.”

At that Jessie exploded. It was not a loud explosion, but it had force. “You make me sick, Wilfred! Does that reach you? I’d like to smack your grinning face . . . !”

“Why . . . go ahead!” said Wilfred, astonished, but grinning still.

“Don’t speak to me! Or you’ll make me say something I’ll regret! You’re a fool, do you hear? All men are fools, and you’re the greatest! Oh, I’d like to take you down a peg! I’d like to do something that would really _hurt_ you! But you’ve got no feelings! You’re just a conceited grinner! Stand there and laugh at me, do! Your mouth’s too big; why stretch it wider? Oh, you’re such a fool it’s past all bearing!”

And with that, she scampered up the steps without a backward look.

Wilfred walked home thoughtfully. He was not in the least angered at Jessie, for her tirade had touched no sore spot. There had been something beautiful in it; a human who could let all fly like that. Oh, Jessie was as sound as an apple! He supposed that her scorn would do him good; there was no tinge of contempt in it. But what on earth was biting her? He was obliged to reject the imputation of jealousy. She had rejoiced in showing him that he had no power over _her_. He carefully went over her words, but without obtaining any clue. Her speech had the quality of pure vituperation, which bears no relation to the thing at issue. “Fool” was simply a generic term for one who utterly disgusted you.

Then a light began to break over Wilfred, and he became more thoughtful still. How strange if it should be _that_! he thought. . . . He slipped into a dream.

XI

When in the course of time, Frances Mary’s door was opened to Wilfred, he experienced a disagreeable let-down. She was quite unchanged; just as good-looking; just as comradely. It was an offense in his eyes now. It might as well have been Stanny or Jasper; there was no thrill in it. What a fool he had been to let himself imagine things! . . . Why was he unable to fall in love with Frances Mary? It was because there was no trace of sex-consciousness in her to arouse a like feeling in him. In other words it was her finest quality which put him off. Same old vicious circle!

He was a little discomposed to find Jessie Dartrey sitting demurely in the warm-colored living-room. But her manner had undergone a metamorphosis. This afternoon the downright creature was almost anxiously friendly. Wilfred grinned at her mockingly; but even so, could not rouse her to battle. He interpreted her changed attitude as a plea to allow the little scene between them to be forgotten and buried—and especially not to let Frances Mary know about it. He was quite willing. He liked Jessie fine. Very soon she went.

Frances Mary brought out the tea-things; moving about the room in her large, graceful fashion. She was telling Wilfred about her summer in the Vermont hills. She had found a tiny shack, where she had lived alone, doing her own housekeeping. There were three delightful children who brought her supplies from the farmer’s nearby. Jean Ambrose and Aurora Page had had a house in the neighborhood. Frances Mary had made a new friend in a painter who had come to board at the farmer’s; a diffident girl, who had come out wonderfully in the end. Other girls had visited Jean and Aurora, who possessed a spare room.

An Adamless Eden thought Wilfred, with a tinge of scorn.

Frances Mary told Wilfred briefly, of the completed novel she had brought back with her. It was the story of a woman who had married too late. She did not suggest on this occasion that Wilfred might help her with criticism. He felt a little jealous and sore. Will I ever have the constancy to write a whole book? he asked himself with a sinking heart.

In return he told her about the genteel boarding-house; and about his long walks over the Ramapo Mountains, which had reduced his mind to a state of comfortable vacuity.

“How is your work?” she asked. “Hasn’t it been coming well?”

“It’s been going well,” he answered with a laugh. “I sold four stories in the Spring. That is how I was able to go to the country. I’ve got rid of three more since. I’ve been reeling them off.”

Frances Mary glanced at him, to see how this was to be taken.

“Oh, I know they’re putrid,” said Wilfred. “I’ve discovered the combination. You take a thoroughly nice fellow, and a thoroughly nice girl, and you invent difficulties to separate them; then you remove the difficulties. There are three old fables that you can work ad lib; the Cinderella motive; the Ugly Duckling Motive; and the Prince in Disguise. Work in a bit of novelty into the setting, and your story is hailed as Original; a sure go! That’s the sort of thing they fill the backs of the magazines with; they’ve got to have a lot of it.”

Frances Mary said nothing.

“Well, I had to be writing something,” he said; “or I’d have gone clean off my chump. That was the best I could fish up out of myself. The old keenness has gone.”

“How about the mountains?”

“The mountains did things to _me_,” he said flippantly; “but I couldn’t throw _them_!”

“Isn’t there good material in your social experiences last winter?”

“No,” said Wilfred quickly. Fearful of betraying his inward shiver, he added: “It’s been done too often. . . . There’s no lack of material. The lack is in me.”

She said no more on the subject.

Wilfred was sitting beside a little table covered with a scarf of coffee-colored Italian silk in alternate stripes, shiny and dull. On the table were some of Frances Mary’s precious gim-cracks. She loved little objects of all sorts, if they had beauty. On this table, a row of books still in their paper wrappers; a white Chinese bowl, decorated with red fish, and filled with apples; a small censer of pierced silver; an enamelled snuffbox; some miniature ivory grotesques; a bit of cloisonné. Wilfred knew every object in the room.

Opposite him, sat Frances Mary by the tea-table, watching the kettle, which at this season did its work suspended over an alcohol flame. With her bright hair banded round her head in a style of her own; and wearing a soft draped dress the same color as her hair, what a grateful sight to the eye! Purely feminine; ladylike—horrible word for a lovely quality. What was the color of her hair? Wilfred had always termed it sorrel, but was dissatisfied with the word. Now the right word leaped into his mind; fallow! Of course! the color of the fallow deer! Fallow! a delicious word!—But Frances Mary’s veiled level glance and reticent lips rejected passion. She seemed less sympathetic to him than usual.

In the silence Wilfred saw the abyss yawning at his feet, and shutting his eyes, leaped. His limbs were palsied; his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He said stammeringly:

“Frances Mary, how about you and I getting married?”

She looked at him quickly, her face dimpling with laughter. “Why, Wilfred! Just like that! . . . You’re not in love with me!”

“I’m fed up with love!” cried Wilfred, bitterly, before he thought of the implications of his speech. Panic seized him. “With the idea of love,” he hastily added, becoming aware at the same moment, that he was only making matters worse.

Frances Mary’s lashes were lowered. Her face showed no other change. There was a silence. Having taken the leap, and not having met with annihilation, Wilfred began to discover resources in himself. After all, the whole truth had to come out; and it didn’t so much matter if it came wrong end first.

“I don’t expect you to give me an answer out of hand,” he went on. “We must talk it out. I know that this must appear to you like just another of my artificial, self-conscious flights, but if you will only have a little patience with me, I will convince you.”

“Could one marry from conviction?” she asked lightly.

“Yes!” he cried. “That’s the very point! The notion that passion must decide is fatal. I know it! I know it!”

“You may be right,” she said with a half smile that he could not interpret. “By all means let us talk it out!” Her serene glance was raised again; but it did not rest on Wilfred. She was looking at the kettle, meditatively. “If you do not love me, why do you want to marry me?”

“I _do_ love you,” said Wilfred. “But not. . . .”

“Not passionately,” she quickly interposed, smiling and looking at him full; an extraordinary look of remote kindness.

Wilfred was silent. He was being put in the wrong, though he knew he was right.

“Well, your reasons?” she asked.

“You are the finest woman I know,” he said quickly. This was one of the questions he had imagined her asking. “I respect and admire you. My instinct tells me you will grow in my respect and admiration as long as I live. That’s the only thing that could hold me.”

She smiled again. He felt resentfully, that she was reading him through and through. It wasn’t fair, because he was all at sea respecting her. Still, everything had to come out!

“You feel that it is essential you should be held,” said Frances Mary, dryly.

“Oh Fanny, you make me feel so young!”

Again that smile from a distance. The kettle boiled; but instead of making tea, she put out the light. She looked about her. Fetching a little raffia basket, she commenced to sew a lace edging to a scrap of white stuff.

“To live with somebody you trusted!” said Wilfred, moved by his own words. “Somebody you could be yourself with; to whom you could reveal your innermost thoughts! To share the same tastes and pleasures! Somebody who could help you, and whom you might help a little—you have said it of me. Wouldn’t that be happiness?”

“You have pictured it all out!” she said smiling.

“Yes, I have!” he returned, goaded. “I have thought about it, and dreamed about it! I know you laugh at my mixed mental processes, at the way I deceive myself; well, I laugh too! Just the same you can build on dreams as well as thoughts. The soft stuff fades; but something collects little by little, just from one’s having been deceived so often.”

She disregarded this. “You do not know me,” she said quietly. “Nobody knows me. I have made a business of concealing myself. Even in my stories. Everything I write is just . . . bravura! . . . You only imagine those fine things about me. Nobody is any better than anybody else—in some ways. If you thought you were getting a paragon you’d be frightfully sold . . . so would I!”

“Not a paragon,” said Wilfred, smiling in his turn. “I know your faults.”

“What are they?” she challenged.

“You are afraid of life. You hate your own emotions. You dissect them while they are alive. You are much too refined. Occasionally you ought to be beaten. You have lived too long in your mind; you ought to give your blood a chance!”

“What makes you say that?” she demanded, startled and affronted.

Wilfred shrugged. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “It just came out.”

She quickly regained her equanimity. “Not bad as far as it goes,” she said. “But you haven’t touched on the worst things.”

Her quiet bitterness struck a little fear into Wilfred’s breast. _Was_ there an unsuspected worst in Frances Mary? Oh, well, he was committed now; no choice but to struggle on. “You have one quality that I hold to through all,” he said; “your disinterestedness. The finest quality of all!”

Her smile became still more remote. “Oh, it’s easy to be disinterested about things that don’t touch you too closely,” she said.

This was a facer for Wilfred. He strove not to show it. “I’ll take my chance of your soundness,” he said.

She shook her head. “Passion, preposterous as it is, is the only justification.”

“I could love you—if you gave me a chance,” he said sullenly.

Frances Mary laughed suddenly and merrily.

“I know I’m ridiculous,” he said blushing crimson; “but I mean to see it through. It’s all got to come out, absurdities and all.”

“Why marry at all?” she asked.

“I want you.”

She looked at him.

“Well . . . need you.”

“As a sort of antidote to passion, I take it,” said Frances Mary softly. All the kindness had suddenly gone out, leaving her soft face pinched and awry.

Wilfred was stung beyond endurance. “Yes!” he cried, jumping up. “An antidote to passion! I’ve seen it and what it ends in. Am I criminal or foolish to dream of something better? I looked on you as a woman above prejudice. It’s easy enough to make a joke of me because I’m not playing the old false game with you. You’ve got everything on your side, the whole weight of the ages! But I won’t be so easily shut up now; my foolishness has taught me something. There’s something to be said for my way, though I’m alone in it. It’s my real self I’m offering you; though I sound like a fool.”

She had risen too, and walked away to a table between the windows where she stood with her back turned. “I’m sorry, Wilfred,” she said in a muffled voice. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

When she apologized, it took all the fire out of him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said flatly.

Presently, she turned around; but, the light being behind her, he could not see her face clearly. “Your position is sound,” she said, “and you have stated it better than you think. . . . Still, what you ask is impossible. For two reasons; first, I am not the woman you think I am; second, I must think of myself a little.”

The cold voice completed Wilfred’s demoralization. “I only admit the second reason,” he said gloomily. “Of course you must think of yourself. I am seeking _my_ good.”

“Why should I marry you?”

“If you put it to me, the Lord knows!”

“I do not think you are the finest man I ever knew. In fact I have no illusions about you.”

“So much the better,” he mumbled.

“Then why? why?”

“Well, I thought. . . .”

“You thought I loved you?” she asked quickly.

“Not so far as that. I thought perhaps you might come to. There was sympathy. . . .”

She came away from the front table. Her hands were pressed against her breast; her face tormented. To Wilfred, who was wrought up too, that seemed natural. “Wilfred, tell me plainly what you have been doing these last months,” she said breathlessly.

“I’ll tell you,” he said quickly, “I . . .”

A cry escaped her. “No! Don’t tell me. . . . !”

But he was already under way. “I fell in love, as they put it, with a woman who preferred Joe Kaplan to me,” he said bitterly. “You know all about Joe Kaplan. She married him. Well, that cured that. Afterwards I slid into an affair with a woman whom I despised. That soon ran its course. Then I went to the country and tried to haul myself up by my own boot-straps without succeeding. That’s all.”

Frances Mary had returned to her chair. She was sitting forward in an attitude unnatural to her, her head lowered. “You experienced passion . . . for a woman you despised?” she murmured.

“Yes,” said Wilfred. “That’s the point I was trying to make. That’s how easy it is. . . .”

There was a silence. Then Frances Mary said in an uncertain voice: “You had better go.”

Wilfred stared. “I won’t go for any such reason as that!” he said hotly. “Are you raising the banner of conventional morality! _You_ . . . !”

She said: “Suppose I told you that _I_ . . . !”

“Rubbish!” cried Wilfred. “It would be better for you if you had!”

“Your ideas are loathsome!” cried Frances Mary with unexpected loudness.

“This is what I get for trying to be honest!”

“_Honest!_”

Simultaneously it struck them what exhibitions they were making of themselves. They laughed in bitter vexation, and fell silent. They avoided each other’s eyes.

“I apologize for shouting at you,” mumbled Wilfred.

Frances Mary did not apologize, though she had shouted too.

Presently something changed in her. She looked at Wilfred queerly. Settling back in her chair, she raised her head. “Wilfred, kiss me,” she said in a colorless voice.

He looked at her sharply. Her face was drawn and ugly. His instinct bade him refuse; but she had told him to do it. He was absurdly under her influence. He went to her with a hangdog air, and printed a cold kiss on her lips.

A little groan of rage was forced from Frances Mary. She sprang up so suddenly that her chair was knocked over backwards. All in the one movement, she fetched Wilfred such a smack on the cheek that his sight was blotted out for a moment. He fell back, covering the place, staring at her open-mouthed, clownishly. Frances Mary burst into tears; a catastrophic breakdown; her face working as absurdly and uglily as a small child’s; the tears fairly spurting from her eyes. Wilfred quickly recovered himself. He had to repress a desire to laugh. A load was lifted from his breast. She could feel! Frances Mary put her hands over her face, and turned away from him.

“Go! Go!” she murmured.

Wilfred walked to the other end of the room, and sat down on the couch. “I won’t go till I get to the bottom of this,” he said.

“You see . . . you see . . .” she gasped out in her torn voice.

She loves me! thought Wilfred in a maze. She feels passion for _me_! What a fatuous brute I have been! . . . Still, the bars had to be smashed down one way or another!

“Now you see what kind of a woman I am! . . . You’d better go!”

“I don’t think any of the worse of you,” said Wilfred, smiling to himself.

Careless of her ugly, tear-stained face, she flung around, and stamped her foot. “Don’t sit there and sneer!” she cried. “It’s intolerable!”

“Sneer . . . !” he echoed indignantly.

“Disinterested!” cried Frances Mary. “Oh, Heavens! . . . I don’t think much of it! Your so-called disinterestedness is revolting to me! You talk by rote! Prating of love and passion! What do you know about either? You’re light! What is passion to you? An interesting experience! You have suffered, you say. You’re quite healed, aren’t you, and ready for fresh experiments? You know nothing of the agony of repression. For years! For years! Everything comes out of you like a child’s babbling. You know nothing of the wolves that tear. . . . Oh, why don’t you go?”

Wilfred recognized the element of truth in her portrait of him, but was not dismayed. He could no longer repress the delighted grin. “I’m not afraid of your wolves,” he said. “. . . I hail them!”

“Be quiet!” cried Frances Mary. But the new quality in his grin arrested her. She stared; her angry face all at a pause.

Wilfred stood up.

“Don’t come near me!” she cried sharply.

He laughed outright. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go. But this is not the end, of course.”

She drew the old veil over her face. But it was somewhat torn now. Picking up the fallen chair, she set it on its feet. “I’ll never marry you now!” she said with extreme bitterness. “However it might be for your good! Women can’t forget things as conveniently as men seem to do. This scene would always be present with me. Even when you began to love me—as no doubt you would! no doubt you would! having resolved upon it. I should always be remembering how you decided beforehand that it would be a fine thing for you if you could bring yourself to it!”

She doesn’t mean a word of it! he thought with infinite relief and delight. She’s no better than me! He said: “You’re talking pure romantic nonsense! You might have got it out of one of my stories! . . . You’ve got something to learn too!”

“From your experience?” she asked with bitter nostrils.

* * * * *

Wilfred walked along Fifty-Ninth street, bemused with wonder. How extraordinary! How extraordinary! . . . Well, after all I didn’t do so badly, considering . . . !