dim. Howard still whispering to Celia--Em rose unsteadily from the

table.

“I’m going, Howard,” she said in a hysterical undertone.

The Critic paused in the middle of a word and looked peevish.

“Why dearie--” Carmen expostulated breathily.

Howard turned.

“You can’t go now.” He spoke rapidly in a low voice and tried to pull her down. Her face was pale and she jerked her arm from Howard’s grasp. Pierre Gouvain’s beautiful eyes sent her a look that made her grateful. “You win,” said Howard with slow malice. He turned away from her and resumed his talk, trying not to acknowledge his confusion even to himself. She could humiliate him.

Mitra shot Howard a glance of feline hate, but was immediately again impassive. Trembling, Em adjusted a fur scarf about her neck. She tried to keep from seeing the eyes turned upon her, especially the eyes of Les’s girl friend, who looked frank and sympathetic.

“Are you ill? Shall I go with you?”

“No!” Em’s mouth quivered and she almost whimpered as she hastily left the table.

The P. P. was holding Stieg’s hand.

“I hope you--” Celia’s cool saint-eyes lingered on Howard’s.

“I’m not going,” he said shortly.

Carmen beckoned to the waiter.

“More wine, son,” she whispered shrilly.

As Em moved between the other tables toward the door, the group she had left relaxed into attitudes of relief. The Critic settled himself with dignity and resumed his oration.

“The rejection by the younger Scandinavian writers of the realistic formula--”

4

Em rushed rapidly, almost running, along the slate-colored side street. The cold wind flapped her dark skirt against her knees. She carried her gloves in one hand, her bare fingers felt like ice. The sky was unendurable, a gray that had no blue or pink in it, gray like a dead dilution of lampblack. The whole world was terror.

No happiness or unhappiness, only pain, nothing strong and beautiful. I _am_ an artist. Oh, I need--Where shall I seek? These people. The froth of life. This Howard with no mercy. Oh, Les--he servant of peace, dead in calm--Em was crying but she did not wipe away her tears.

She stopped short. I wonder if Howard and Celia went--_She_ can’t be hurt. Em hugged her own power of being hurt. She had to convince herself of life. I can get peace alone. I don’t want--The sky is dead.

Oh, I _won’t_ die, she said to herself. It was almost as if she had spoken the words aloud.

Several children paused in their play to look solemnly at her. Em turned and started for Howard’s apartment.

5

The thin sunshine thrust through the overhanging haze and waved its broad smoky-silver fans of light at all the strange pale windows of the city. In Howard’s apartment the small clock ticked garrulously to the secretive walls and to the something of silence that filled the rooms.

Celia’s birthday had been too symbolic.

Em and Howard both hurt for days. This morning after breakfast she sits wordless by a window. Medium height and slim, feet under her, body curved nicely into a chair. Lilac smock, flood of hair, too heavy brows, too thin nose, too narrow long chin, all lovely in profile. Les is right. Tongues in cheeks. No art. Life without conduct. The way to death. She was using Les’s thoughts unknowingly. Howard sulks, coarse wiry hair untidy, avian head thrust forward, walking back and forth with graceless steps. Wish she were never anything but profile! Em disenchanted! Rot! What pretentiousness! He felt he had been uselessly humiliated. Not enough, Em thought. Savagely helpless.

The clock ticked blithely and shamelessly.

“How long is this going to last?” he jerked out finally, pausing to light a cigarette.

“I don’t care how long it lasts, Howard.” Em did not look up. She was seeking for his weapons. “I’m perfectly satisfied.”

“You look it,” said Howard with a sarcasm that he knew to be feeble.

Em could be grim. Howard’s vanity needed that their relation should mean more to her than to him. I must be like them, she told herself.

“Well, I am. I never expected too much. You’re only an experience, young Mr. Story--I knew that when I took you--and you’ve _been_ one.”

It seemed sinister that Em should be flippant. Always so direct. I’m the one--Besides, he was suffering from silence. Howard was not coldly, but temperamentally superficial. He could be brilliant only when he was in the ascendant. He knew that Em had cried alone in the night, and now he looked at her with mingled curiosity and fear.

“What are you talking about, Em?”

“Women are cut off from different experiences. I don’t mean to be. You’ve taught me something. Not much. You play one tune, but it’s in different keys, you know. So my time’s not entirely wasted, is it?” Her face was hard. Oh, how can I, she groaned soundlessly. No real words to reach anyone. To feel only through hatred. To test life by its pain--She was tired of it.

Howard was silent. Tinkle of the door-bell. Em rose. A telegram. Howard received the envelope and handed it to her. She opened it.

“Oh, Howard!” She burst into tears.

“What is it?” he asked with nervous impatience.

“My pictures, my pictures!”

“Those we left in Paris with Lepelletier? What’s happened to them?”

“Yes! He got _three_ hung at the Munich show, and one received honorable mention! You remember the one, the purply-orange thing? Dear old Lepelletier! He _always_ believed in me.”

“Well, what are you crying for?” Howard was not gracious.

“For delight,” she wept.

“You seem delighted,” he remarked cuttingly.

Em was oblivious to his vexation.

“I am! Oh, I am, I am!” She laughed hysterically, tears still in her eyes and running down her cheeks. “Oh, Howard, I’m so _happy_!” She seized him in a bear’s hug and danced him unwillingly around the room. Em felt vindicated. This was the answer to her doubts. I can work now, she thought joyously. She was already far away from all pettiness. Life was resolved once more. Now her pride was untainted with artifice. She _felt_, without suffering. She loved Howard. The world was real again. I wish Les knew--“Isn’t it gorgeous?” She released Howard and dived contentedly among the feathery cushions on a couch, Her cheeks had a thin color and her eyes were softly brilliant. She lighted a cigarette and began to smoke briskly and with gusto.

Howard’s sex vanity had always, half-consciously, kept him from showing Em his reluctant admiration of her superiority as an artist. His etchings were not fine. They were workmanlike. That his temperament was for life and not for art hurt him. He felt maimed, and like a cripple he wanted to torture something for it. His appreciations were keen enough to see that Em’s passionate particularness in feeling was real art, and that his intellectual mood-stuff was formula. This added to the bitterness of his half-acknowledged jealousy that tried to destroy her, that his own art--which he secretly despised--might live. Now he was chafed by the addition of European tribute coming so soon after the light words she had used about his importance as a lover. His mightiness was raw, and he chose words with deliberation.

“Not surprising,” he said carelessly. “You’re in style. Women can adapt. I admit you’re clever, but of course this fad you excel in won’t last.”

Her beautiful teeth still showed in a happy smile. His jealousy was too obvious to take seriously. She almost loved him for it.

“Howard’s mad, And I’m glad, And I know what to p-l-e-a-s-e him,”

she sang impudently. Something in her again wanted her life with him. She wanted it simple. Howard never was. He had always to be playing to an audience in himself. He was afraid of his own self-criticism. He did not smile.

“Emotional language without meaning, a Rodin technique applied to nothing--”

“You’re very kind, Mr. National Arts Clubber!” Em tossed her head with lofty sarcasm.

“Kindness is an attempt to focus attention on oneself. I forego that to point out that being mentioned by a small bunch of esthetic quacks in Germany isn’t immortality.” Howard’s green-brown eyes sparkled and his mouth recovered its curve. He was tearing now, not being torn.

Em pointed a teasing finger at him.

“Sour grapes! Sour grapes! You formulated old etcher. You’re jealous. Booh!”

“I wish I were,” he retorted cruelly.

She flinched, but continued to smile.

“Well, let’s go out to lunch and celebrate, anyway. You might have thought of that, and not I.”

Em’s elation was broken but not dead. She still hoped, but belief was tainted. He didn’t mean it, she insisted to herself. I hadn’t been very nice to him. I don’t think he meant it. But she could no longer whole-heartedly delight in her good fortune.

Howard felt absurd. The blatancy of his outburst made him ridiculous to himself, and vicious toward Em. To be justified he had to discover the falseness of her art. He began to study her work with a warped bitterness of criticism. Complacency is the beginning of the end, he thought. At least I’m decently dissatisfied with myself.