THE KING IN YELLOW

BY

ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

Original publication date: 1895

THE KING IN YELLOWIS DEDICATEDTOMY BROTHER

 Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink beneath the lake, The shadows lengthen In Carcosa. 

 Strange is the night where black stars rise, And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still is Lost Carcosa. 

 Songs that the Hyades shall sing, Where flap the tatters of the King, Must die unheard in Dim Carcosa. 

 Song of my soul, my voice is dead; Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed Shall dry and die in Lost Carcosa. 

Cassilda's Song in "The King in Yellow, " Act i, Scene 2. 

THE REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS

I

"Ne raillons pas les fous; leur folie dure plus longtemps quela nôtre. .. . Voila toute la différence. "

Toward the end of the year 1920 the Government of the United States hadpractically completed the programme, adopted during the last months ofPresident Winthrop's administration. The country was apparently tranquil. Everybody knows how the Tariff and Labour questions were settled. The warwith Germany, incident on that country's seizure of the Samoan Islands, had left no visible scars upon the republic, and the temporary occupationof Norfolk by the invading army had been forgotten in the joy overrepeated naval victories, and the subsequent ridiculous plight of GeneralVon Gartenlaube's forces in the State of New Jersey. The Cuban andHawaiian investments had paid one hundred per cent and the territory ofSamoa was well worth its cost as a coaling station. The country was in asuperb state of defence. Every coast city had been well supplied with landfortifications; the army under the parental eye of the General Staff, organized according to the Prussian system, had been increased to 300, 000men, with a territorial reserve of a million; and six magnificentsquadrons of cruisers and battle-ships patrolled the six stations of thenavigable seas, leaving a steam reserve amply fitted to control homewaters. The gentlemen from the West had at last been constrained toacknowledge that a college for the training of diplomats was as necessaryas law schools are for the training of barristers; consequently we were nolonger represented abroad by incompetent patriots. The nation wasprosperous; Chicago, for a moment paralyzed after a second great fire, hadrisen from its ruins, white and imperial, and more beautiful than the whitecity which had been built for its plaything in 1893. Everywhere goodarchitecture was replacing bad, and even in New York, a sudden craving fordecency had swept away a great portion of the existing horrors. Streetshad been widened, properly paved and lighted, trees had been planted, squares laid out, elevated structures demolished and underground roadsbuilt to replace them. The new government buildings and barracks were finebits of architecture, and the long system of stone quays which completelysurrounded the island had been turned into parks which proved a god-sendto the population. The subsidizing of the state theatre and state operabrought its own reward. The United States National Academy of Design wasmuch like European institutions of the same kind. Nobody envied theSecretary of Fine Arts, either his cabinet position or his portfolio. TheSecretary of Forestry and Game Preservation had a much easier time, thanksto the new system of National Mounted Police. We had profited well by thelatest treaties with France and England; the exclusion of foreign-bornJews as a measure of self-preservation, the settlement of the newindependent negro state of Suanee, the checking of immigration, the newlaws concerning naturalization, and the gradual centralization of power inthe executive all contributed to national calm and prosperity. When theGovernment solved the Indian problem and squadrons of Indian cavalryscouts in native costume were substituted for the pitiable organizationstacked on to the tail of skeletonized regiments by a former Secretary ofWar, the nation drew a long sigh of relief. When, after the colossalCongress of Religions, bigotry and intolerance were laid in their gravesand kindness and charity began to draw warring sects together, manythought the millennium had arrived, at least in the new world which afterall is a world by itself. 

But self-preservation is the first law, and the United States had to lookon in helpless sorrow as Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium writhed in thethroes of Anarchy, while Russia, watching from the Caucasus, stooped andbound them one by one. 

In the city of New York the summer of 1899 was signalized by thedismantling of the Elevated Railroads. The summer of 1900 will live inthe memories of New York people for many a cycle; the Dodge Statue wasremoved in that year. In the following winter began that agitation forthe repeal of the laws prohibiting suicide which bore its final fruit inthe month of April, 1920, when the first Government Lethal Chamber wasopened on Washington Square. 

I had walked down that day from Dr. Archer's house on Madison Avenue, where I had been as a mere formality. Ever since that fall from my horse, four years before, I had been troubled at times with pains in the back ofmy head and neck, but now for months they had been absent, and the doctorsent me away that day saying there was nothing more to be cured in me. Itwas hardly worth his fee to be told that; I knew it myself. Still I didnot grudge him the money. What I minded was the mistake which he made atfirst. When they picked me up from the pavement where I lay unconscious, and somebody had mercifully sent a bullet through my horse's head, I wascarried to Dr. Archer, and he, pronouncing my brain affected, placed mein his private asylum where I was obliged to endure treatment forinsanity. At last he decided that I was well, and I, knowing that my mindhad always been as sound as his, if not sounder, "paid my tuition" as hejokingly called it, and left. I told him, smiling, that I would get evenwith him for his mistake, and he laughed heartily, and asked me to callonce in a while. I did so, hoping for a chance to even up accounts, buthe gave me none, and I told him I would wait. 

The fall from my horse had fortunately left no evil results; on thecontrary it had changed my whole character for the better. From a lazyyoung man about town, I had become active, energetic, temperate, andabove all--oh, above all else--ambitious. There was only one thing whichtroubled me, I laughed at my own uneasiness, and yet it troubled me. 

During my convalescence I had bought and read for the first time, _TheKing in Yellow_. I remember after finishing the first act that itoccurred to me that I had better stop. I started up and flung the bookinto the fireplace; the volume struck the barred grate and fell open onthe hearth in the firelight. If I had not caught a glimpse of the openingwords in the second act I should never have finished it, but as I stoopedto pick it up, my eyes became riveted to the open page, and with a cry ofterror, or perhaps it was of joy so poignant that I suffered in everynerve, I snatched the thing out of the coals and crept shaking to mybedroom, where I read it and reread it, and wept and laughed and trembledwith a horror which at times assails me yet. This is the thing thattroubles me, for I cannot forget Carcosa where black stars hang in theheavens; where the shadows of men's thoughts lengthen in the afternoon, when the twin suns sink into the lake of Hali; and my mind will bear forever the memory of the Pallid Mask. I pray God will curse the writer, asthe writer has cursed the world with this beautiful, stupendous creation, terrible in its simplicity, irresistible in its truth--a world which nowtrembles before the King in Yellow. When the French Government seized thetranslated copies which had just arrived in Paris, London, of course, became eager to read it. It is well known how the book spread like aninfectious disease, from city to city, from continent to continent, barred out here, confiscated there, denounced by Press and pulpit, censured even by the most advanced of literary anarchists. No definiteprinciples had been violated in those wicked pages, no doctrinepromulgated, no convictions outraged. It could not be judged by any knownstandard, yet, although it was acknowledged that the supreme note of arthad been struck in _The King in Yellow_, all felt that human naturecould not bear the strain, nor thrive on words in which the essence ofpurest poison lurked. The very banality and innocence of the first actonly allowed the blow to fall afterward with more awful effect. 

It was, I remember, the 13th day of April, 1920, that the firstGovernment Lethal Chamber was established on the south side of WashingtonSquare, between Wooster Street and South Fifth Avenue. The block whichhad formerly consisted of a lot of shabby old buildings, used as cafésand restaurants for foreigners, had been acquired by the Government inthe winter of 1898. The French and Italian cafés and restaurants weretorn down; the whole block was enclosed by a gilded iron railing, andconverted into a lovely garden with lawns, flowers and fountains. In thecentre of the garden stood a small, white building, severely classical inarchitecture, and surrounded by thickets of flowers. Six Ionic columnssupported the roof, and the single door was of bronze. A splendid marblegroup of the "Fates" stood before the door, the work of a young Americansculptor, Boris Yvain, who had died in Paris when only twenty-three yearsold. 

The inauguration ceremonies were in progress as I crossed UniversityPlace and entered the square. I threaded my way through the silent throngof spectators, but was stopped at Fourth Street by a cordon of police. Aregiment of United States lancers were drawn up in a hollow square roundthe Lethal Chamber. On a raised tribune facing Washington Park stood theGovernor of New York, and behind him were grouped the Mayor of NewYork and Brooklyn, the Inspector-General of Police, the Commandant ofthe state troops, Colonel Livingston, military aid to the President of theUnited States, General Blount, commanding at Governor's Island, Major-General Hamilton, commanding the garrison of New York and Brooklyn, Admiral Buffby of the fleet in the North River, Surgeon-GeneralLanceford, the staff of the National Free Hospital, Senators Wyse andFranklin of New York, and the Commissioner of Public Works. The tribunewas surrounded by a squadron of hussars of the National Guard. 

The Governor was finishing his reply to the short speech of theSurgeon-General. I heard him say: "The laws prohibiting suicide andproviding punishment for any attempt at self-destruction have beenrepealed. The Government has seen fit to acknowledge the right of man toend an existence which may have become intolerable to him, throughphysical suffering or mental despair. It is believed that the communitywill be benefited by the removal of such people from their midst. Sincethe passage of this law, the number of suicides in the United States hasnot increased. Now the Government has determined to establish a LethalChamber in every city, town and village in the country, it remains to beseen whether or not that class of human creatures from whose despondingranks new victims of self-destruction fall daily will accept the reliefthus provided. " He paused, and turned to the white Lethal Chamber. Thesilence in the street was absolute. "There a painless death awaits himwho can no longer bear the sorrows of this life. If death is welcome lethim seek it there. " Then quickly turning to the military aid of thePresident's household, he said, "I declare the Lethal Chamber open, " andagain facing the vast crowd he cried in a clear voice: "Citizens of NewYork and of the United States of America, through me the Governmentdeclares the Lethal Chamber to be open. "

The solemn hush was broken by a sharp cry of command, the squadron ofhussars filed after the Governor's carriage, the lancers wheeled andformed along Fifth Avenue to wait for the commandant of the garrison, andthe mounted police followed them. I left the crowd to gape and stare atthe white marble Death Chamber, and, crossing South Fifth Avenue, walkedalong the western side of that thoroughfare to Bleecker Street. Then Iturned to the right and stopped before a dingy shop which bore the sign:

HAWBERK, ARMOURER. 

I glanced in at the doorway and saw Hawberk busy in his little shop atthe end of the hall. He looked up, and catching sight of me cried in hisdeep, hearty voice, "Come in, Mr. Castaigne!" Constance, his daughter, rose to meet me as I crossed the threshold, and held out her prettyhand, but I saw the blush of disappointment on her cheeks, and knewthat it was another Castaigne she had expected, my cousin Louis. Ismiled at her confusion and complimented her on the banner she wasembroidering from a coloured plate. Old Hawberk sat riveting the worngreaves of some ancient suit of armour, and the ting! ting! ting! of hislittle hammer sounded pleasantly in the quaint shop. Presently hedropped his hammer, and fussed about for a moment with a tiny wrench. The soft clash of the mail sent a thrill of pleasure through me. Iloved to hear the music of steel brushing against steel, the mellowshock of the mallet on thigh pieces, and the jingle of chain armour. That was the only reason I went to see Hawberk. He had never interestedme personally, nor did Constance, except for the fact of her being inlove with Louis. This did occupy my attention, and sometimes even keptme awake at night. But I knew in my heart that all would come right, and that I should arrange their future as I expected to arrange that ofmy kind doctor, John Archer. However, I should never have troubledmyself about visiting them just then, had it not been, as I say, thatthe music of the tinkling hammer had for me this strong fascination. Iwould sit for hours, listening and listening, and when a stray sunbeamstruck the inlaid steel, the sensation it gave me was almost too keento endure. My eyes would become fixed, dilating with a pleasure thatstretched every nerve almost to breaking, until some movement of theold armourer cut off the ray of sunlight, then, still thrillingsecretly, I leaned back and listened again to the sound of thepolishing rag, swish! swish! rubbing rust from the rivets. 

Constance worked with the embroidery over her knees, now and then pausingto examine more closely the pattern in the coloured plate from theMetropolitan Museum. 

"Who is this for?" I asked. 

Hawberk explained, that in addition to the treasures of armour in theMetropolitan Museum of which he had been appointed armourer, he alsohad charge of several collections belonging to rich amateurs. This was themissing greave of a famous suit which a client of his had traced to alittle shop in Paris on the Quai d'Orsay. He, Hawberk, had negotiated forand secured the greave, and now the suit was complete. He laid down hishammer and read me the history of the suit, traced since 1450 from ownerto owner until it was acquired by Thomas Stainbridge. When his superbcollection was sold, this client of Hawberk's bought the suit, and sincethen the search for the missing greave had been pushed until it was, almost by accident, located in Paris. 

"Did you continue the search so persistently without any certainty of thegreave being still in existence?" I demanded. 

"Of course, " he replied coolly. 

Then for the first time I took a personal interest in Hawberk. 

"It was worth something to you, " I ventured. 

"No, " he replied, laughing, "my pleasure in finding it was my reward. "

"Have you no ambition to be rich?" I asked, smiling. 

"My one ambition is to be the best armourer in the world, " he answeredgravely. 

Constance asked me if I had seen the ceremonies at the Lethal Chamber. She herself had noticed cavalry passing up Broadway that morning, and hadwished to see the inauguration, but her father wanted the bannerfinished, and she had stayed at his request. 

"Did you see your cousin, Mr. Castaigne, there?" she asked, with theslightest tremor of her soft eyelashes. 

"No, " I replied carelessly. "Louis' regiment is manoeuvring out inWestchester County. " I rose and picked up my hat and cane. 

"Are you going upstairs to see the lunatic again?" laughed old Hawberk. If Hawberk knew how I loathe that word "lunatic, " he would never use itin my presence. It rouses certain feelings within me which I do not careto explain. However, I answered him quietly: "I think I shall drop in andsee Mr. Wilde for a moment or two. "

"Poor fellow, " said Constance, with a shake of the head, "it must be hardto live alone year after year poor, crippled and almost demented. It isvery good of you, Mr. Castaigne, to visit him as often as you do. "

"I think he is vicious, " observed Hawberk, beginning again with hishammer. I listened to the golden tinkle on the greave plates; when he hadfinished I replied:

"No, he is not vicious, nor is he in the least demented. His mind is awonder chamber, from which he can extract treasures that you and I wouldgive years of our life to acquire. "'

Hawberk laughed. 

I continued a little impatiently: "He knows history as no one else couldknow it. Nothing, however trivial, escapes his search, and his memory isso absolute, so precise in details, that were it known in New York thatsuch a man existed, the people could not honour him enough. "

"Nonsense, " muttered Hawberk, searching on the floor for a fallen rivet. 

"Is it nonsense, " I asked, managing to suppress what I felt, "is itnonsense when he says that the tassets and cuissards of the enamelledsuit of armour commonly known as the 'Prince's Emblazoned' can be foundamong a mass of rusty theatrical properties, broken stoves andragpicker's refuse in a garret in Pell Street?"

Hawberk's hammer fell to the ground, but he picked it up and asked, witha great deal of calm, how I knew that the tassets and left cuissard weremissing from the "Prince's Emblazoned. "

"I did not know until Mr. Wilde mentioned it to me the other day. He saidthey were in the garret of 998 Pell Street. "

"Nonsense, " he cried, but I noticed his hand trembling under his leathernapron. 

"Is this nonsense too?" I asked pleasantly, "is it nonsense when Mr. Wilde continually speaks of you as the Marquis of Avonshire and of MissConstance--"

I did not finish, for Constance had started to her feet with terrorwritten on every feature. Hawberk looked at me and slowly smoothed hisleathern apron. 

"That is impossible, " he observed, "Mr. Wilde may know a great manythings--"

"About armour, for instance, and the 'Prince's Emblazoned, '" Iinterposed, smiling. 

"Yes, " he continued, slowly, "about armour also--may be--but he is wrongin regard to the Marquis of Avonshire, who, as you know, killed hiswife's traducer years ago, and went to Australia where he did not longsurvive his wife. "

"Mr. Wilde is wrong, " murmured Constance. Her lips were blanched, but hervoice was sweet and calm. 

"Let us agree, if you please, that in this one circumstance Mr. Wilde iswrong, " I said. 

II

I climbed the three dilapidated flights of stairs, which I had so oftenclimbed before, and knocked at a small door at the end of the corridor. Mr. Wilde opened the door and I walked in. 

When he had double-locked the door and pushed a heavy chest against it, he came and sat down beside me, peering up into my face with his littlelight-coloured eyes. Half a dozen new scratches covered his nose andcheeks, and the silver wires which supported his artificial ears hadbecome displaced. I thought I had never seen him so hideouslyfascinating. He had no ears. The artificial ones, which now stood out atan angle from the fine wire, were his one weakness. They were made of waxand painted a shell pink, but the rest of his face was yellow. He mightbetter have revelled in the luxury of some artificial fingers for hisleft hand, which was absolutely fingerless, but it seemed to cause him noinconvenience, and he was satisfied with his wax ears. He was very small, scarcely higher than a child of ten, but his arms were magnificentlydeveloped, and his thighs as thick as any athlete's. Still, the mostremarkable thing about Mr. Wilde was that a man of his marvellousintelligence and knowledge should have such a head. It was flat andpointed, like the heads of many of those unfortunates whom peopleimprison in asylums for the weak-minded. Many called him insane, but Iknew him to be as sane as I was. 

I do not deny that he was eccentric; the mania he had for keeping thatcat and teasing her until she flew at his face like a demon, wascertainly eccentric. I never could understand why he kept the creature, nor what pleasure he found in shutting himself up in his room with thissurly, vicious beast. I remember once, glancing up from the manuscript Iwas studying by the light of some tallow dips, and seeing Mr. Wildesquatting motionless on his high chair, his eyes fairly blazing withexcitement, while the cat, which had risen from her place before thestove, came creeping across the floor right at him. Before I could moveshe flattened her belly to the ground, crouched, trembled, and spranginto his face. Howling and foaming they rolled over and over on thefloor, scratching and clawing, until the cat screamed and fled under thecabinet, and Mr. Wilde turned over on his back, his limbs contracting andcurling up like the legs of a dying spider. He _was_ eccentric. 

Mr. Wilde had climbed into his high chair, and, after studying my face, picked up a dog's-eared ledger and opened it. 

"Henry B. Matthews, " he read, "book-keeper with Whysot Whysot andCompany, dealers in church ornaments. Called April 3rd. Reputationdamaged on the race-track. Known as a welcher. Reputation to be repairedby August 1st. Retainer Five Dollars. " He turned the page and ran hisfingerless knuckles down the closely-written columns. 

"P. Greene Dusenberry, Minister of the Gospel, Fairbeach, New Jersey. Reputation damaged in the Bowery. To be repaired as soon as possible. Retainer $100. "

He coughed and added, "Called, April 6th. "

"Then you are not in need of money, Mr. Wilde, " I inquired. 

"Listen, " he coughed again. 

"Mrs. C. Hamilton Chester, of Chester Park, New York City. Called April7th. Reputation damaged at Dieppe, France. To be repaired by October 1stRetainer $500. 

"Note. --C. Hamilton Chester, Captain U. S. S. 'Avalanche', ordered homefrom South Sea Squadron October 1st. "

"Well, " I said, "the profession of a Repairer of Reputations islucrative. "

His colourless eyes sought mine, "I only wanted to demonstrate that Iwas correct. You said it was impossible to succeed as a Repairer ofReputations; that even if I did succeed in certain cases it would costme more than I would gain by it. To-day I have five hundred men in myemploy, who are poorly paid, but who pursue the work with an enthusiasmwhich possibly may be born of fear. These men enter every shade and gradeof society; some even are pillars of the most exclusive social temples;others are the prop and pride of the financial world; still others, holdundisputed sway among the 'Fancy and the Talent. ' I choose them at myleisure from those who reply to my advertisements. It is easy enough, they are all cowards. I could treble the number in twenty days if Iwished. So you see, those who have in their keeping the reputations oftheir fellow-citizens, I have in my pay. "

"They may turn on you, " I suggested. 

He rubbed his thumb over his cropped ears, and adjusted the waxsubstitutes. "I think not, " he murmured thoughtfully, "I seldom have toapply the whip, and then only once. Besides they like their wages. "

"How do you apply the whip?" I demanded. 

His face for a moment was awful to look upon. His eyes dwindled to a pairof green sparks. 

"I invite them to come and have a little chat with me, " he said in a softvoice. 

A knock at the door interrupted him, and his face resumed its amiableexpression. 

"Who is it?" he inquired. 

"Mr. Steylette, " was the answer. 

"Come to-morrow, " replied Mr. Wilde. 

"Impossible, " began the other, but was silenced by a sort of bark fromMr. Wilde. 

"Come to-morrow, " he repeated. 

We heard somebody move away from the door and turn the corner by thestairway. 

"Who is that?" I asked. 

"Arnold Steylette, Owner and Editor in Chief of the great New Yorkdaily. "

He drummed on the ledger with his fingerless hand adding: "I pay him verybadly, but he thinks it a good bargain. "

"Arnold Steylette!" I repeated amazed. 

"Yes, " said Mr. Wilde, with a self-satisfied cough. 

The cat, which had entered the room as he spoke, hesitated, looked up athim and snarled. He climbed down from the chair and squatting on thefloor, took the creature into his arms and caressed her. The cat ceasedsnarling and presently began a loud purring which seemed to increase intimbre as he stroked her. "Where are the notes?" I asked. He pointed tothe table, and for the hundredth time I picked up the bundle ofmanuscript entitled--

"THE IMPERIAL DYNASTY OF AMERICA. "

One by one I studied the well-worn pages, worn only by my own handling, and although I knew all by heart, from the beginning, "When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Hastur, and Aldebaran, " to "Castaigne, Louis de Calvados, born December 19th, 1877, " I read it with an eager, rapt attention, pausing to repeat parts of it aloud, and dwelling especially on "Hildredde Calvados, only son of Hildred Castaigne and Edythe Landes Castaigne, first in succession, " etc. , etc. 

When I finished, Mr. Wilde nodded and coughed. 

"Speaking of your legitimate ambition, " he said, "how do Constance andLouis get along?"

"She loves him, " I replied simply. 

The cat on his knee suddenly turned and struck at his eyes, and he flungher off and climbed on to the chair opposite me. 

"And Dr. Archer! But that's a matter you can settle any time you wish, "he added. 

"Yes, " I replied, "Dr. Archer can wait, but it is time I saw my cousinLouis. "

"It is time, " he repeated. Then he took another ledger from the table andran over the leaves rapidly. "We are now in communication with tenthousand men, " he muttered. "We can count on one hundred thousand withinthe first twenty-eight hours, and in forty-eight hours the state willrise _en masse_. The country follows the state, and the portion thatwill not, I mean California and the Northwest, might better never havebeen inhabited. I shall not send them the Yellow Sign. "

The blood rushed to my head, but I only answered, "A new broom sweepsclean. "

"The ambition of Caesar and of Napoleon pales before that which could notrest until it had seized the minds of men and controlled even theirunborn thoughts, " said Mr. Wilde. 

"You are speaking of the King in Yellow, " I groaned, with a shudder. 

"He is a king whom emperors have served. "

"I am content to serve him, " I replied. 

Mr. Wilde sat rubbing his ears with his crippled hand. "Perhaps Constancedoes not love him, " he suggested. 

I started to reply, but a sudden burst of military music from the streetbelow drowned my voice. The twentieth dragoon regiment, formerly ingarrison at Mount St. Vincent, was returning from the manoeuvres inWestchester County, to its new barracks on East Washington Square. It wasmy cousin's regiment. They were a fine lot of fellows, in their paleblue, tight-fitting jackets, jaunty busbys and white riding breeches withthe double yellow stripe, into which their limbs seemed moulded. Everyother squadron was armed with lances, from the metal points of whichfluttered yellow and white pennons. The band passed, playing theregimental march, then came the colonel and staff, the horses crowdingand trampling, while their heads bobbed in unison, and the pennonsfluttered from their lance points. The troopers, who rode with thebeautiful English seat, looked brown as berries from their bloodlesscampaign among the farms of Westchester, and the music of their sabresagainst the stirrups, and the jingle of spurs and carbines was delightfulto me. I saw Louis riding with his squadron. He was as handsome anofficer as I have ever seen. Mr. Wilde, who had mounted a chair by thewindow, saw him too, but said nothing. Louis turned and looked straightat Hawberk's shop as he passed, and I could see the flush on his browncheeks. I think Constance must have been at the window. When the lasttroopers had clattered by, and the last pennons vanished into South FifthAvenue, Mr. Wilde clambered out of his chair and dragged the chest awayfrom the door. 

"Yes, " he said, "it is time that you saw your cousin Louis. "

He unlocked the door and I picked up my hat and stick and stepped intothe corridor. The stairs were dark. Groping about, I set my foot onsomething soft, which snarled and spit, and I aimed a murderous blow atthe cat, but my cane shivered to splinters against the balustrade, andthe beast scurried back into Mr. Wilde's room. 

Passing Hawberk's door again I saw him still at work on the armour, butI did not stop, and stepping out into Bleecker Street, I followed it toWooster, skirted the grounds of the Lethal Chamber, and crossingWashington Park went straight to my rooms in the Benedick. Here I lunchedcomfortably, read the _Herald_ and the _Meteor_, and finally wentto the steel safe in my bedroom and set the time combination. Thethree and three-quarter minutes which it is necessary to wait, while thetime lock is opening, are to me golden moments. From the instant I setthe combination to the moment when I grasp the knobs and swing backthe solid steel doors, I live in an ecstasy of expectation. Those momentsmust be like moments passed in Paradise. I know what I am to find atthe end of the time limit. I know what the massive safe holds secure forme, for me alone, and the exquisite pleasure of waiting is hardly enhancedwhen the safe opens and I lift, from its velvet crown, a diadem of purestgold, blazing with diamonds. I do this every day, and yet the joy ofwaiting and at last touching again the diadem, only seems to increase asthe days pass. It is a diadem fit for a King among kings, an Emperoramong emperors. The King in Yellow might scorn it, but it shall be wornby his royal servant. 

I held it in my arms until the alarm in the safe rang harshly, and thentenderly, proudly, I replaced it and shut the steel doors. I walkedslowly back into my study, which faces Washington Square, and leaned onthe window sill. The afternoon sun poured into my windows, and a gentlebreeze stirred the branches of the elms and maples in the park, nowcovered with buds and tender foliage. A flock of pigeons circled aboutthe tower of the Memorial Church; sometimes alighting on the purple tiledroof, sometimes wheeling downward to the lotos fountain in front of themarble arch. The gardeners were busy with the flower beds around thefountain, and the freshly turned earth smelled sweet and spicy. A lawnmower, drawn by a fat white horse, clinked across the green sward, andwatering-carts poured showers of spray over the asphalt drives. Aroundthe statue of Peter Stuyvesant, which in 1897 had replaced themonstrosity supposed to represent Garibaldi, children played in thespring sunshine, and nurse girls wheeled elaborate baby carriages with areckless disregard for the pasty-faced occupants, which could probably beexplained by the presence of half a dozen trim dragoon troopers languidlylolling on the benches. Through the trees, the Washington Memorial Archglistened like silver in the sunshine, and beyond, on the easternextremity of the square the grey stone barracks of the dragoons, and thewhite granite artillery stables were alive with colour and motion. 

I looked at the Lethal Chamber on the corner of the square opposite. Afew curious people still lingered about the gilded iron railing, butinside the grounds the paths were deserted. I watched the fountainsripple and sparkle; the sparrows had already found this new bathing nook, and the basins were covered with the dusty-feathered little things. Twoor three white peacocks picked their way across the lawns, and a drabcoloured pigeon sat so motionless on the arm of one of the "Fates, " thatit seemed to be a part of the sculptured stone. 

As I was turning carelessly away, a slight commotion in the group ofcurious loiterers around the gates attracted my attention. A young manhad entered, and was advancing with nervous strides along the gravel pathwhich leads to the bronze doors of the Lethal Chamber. He paused a momentbefore the "Fates, " and as he raised his head to those three mysteriousfaces, the pigeon rose from its sculptured perch, circled about for amoment and wheeled to the east. The young man pressed his hand to hisface, and then with an undefinable gesture sprang up the marble steps, the bronze doors closed behind him, and half an hour later the loiterersslouched away, and the frightened pigeon returned to its perch in thearms of Fate. 

I put on my hat and went out into the park for a little walk beforedinner. As I crossed the central driveway a group of officers passed, andone of them called out, "Hello, Hildred, " and came back to shake handswith me. It was my cousin Louis, who stood smiling and tapping hisspurred heels with his riding-whip. 

"Just back from Westchester, " he said; "been doing the bucolic; milk andcurds, you know, dairy-maids in sunbonnets, who say 'haeow' and 'I don'tthink' when you tell them they are pretty. I'm nearly dead for a squaremeal at Delmonico's. What's the news?"

"There is none, " I replied pleasantly. "I saw your regiment coming in thismorning. "

"Did you? I didn't see you. Where were you?"

"In Mr. Wilde's window. "

"Oh, hell!" he began impatiently, "that man is stark mad! I don'tunderstand why you--"

He saw how annoyed I felt by this outburst, and begged my pardon. 

"Really, old chap, " he said, "I don't mean to run down a man you like, but for the life of me I can't see what the deuce you find in common withMr. Wilde. He's not well bred, to put it generously; he is hideouslydeformed; his head is the head of a criminally insane person. You knowyourself he's been in an asylum--"

"So have I, " I interrupted calmly. 

Louis looked startled and confused for a moment, but recovered andslapped me heartily on the shoulder. "You were completely cured, " hebegan; but I stopped him again. 

"I suppose you mean that I was simply acknowledged never to have beeninsane. "

"Of course that--that's what I meant, " he laughed. 

I disliked his laugh because I knew it was forced, but I nodded gaily andasked him where he was going. Louis looked after his brother officers whohad now almost reached Broadway. 

"We had intended to sample a Brunswick cocktail, but to tell you thetruth I was anxious for an excuse to go and see Hawberk instead. Comealong, I'll make you my excuse. "

We found old Hawberk, neatly attired in a fresh spring suit, standing atthe door of his shop and sniffing the air. 

"I had just decided to take Constance for a little stroll before dinner, "he replied to the impetuous volley of questions from Louis. "We thoughtof walking on the park terrace along the North River. "

At that moment Constance appeared and grew pale and rosy by turns asLouis bent over her small gloved fingers. I tried to excuse myself, alleging an engagement uptown, but Louis and Constance would not listen, and I saw I was expected to remain and engage old Hawberk's attention. After all it would be just as well if I kept my eye on Louis, I thought, and when they hailed a Spring Street horse-car, I got in after them andtook my seat beside the armourer. 

The beautiful line of parks and granite terraces overlooking the wharvesalong the North River, which were built in 1910 and finished in theautumn of 1917, had become one of the most popular promenades in themetropolis. They extended from the battery to 190th Street, overlookingthe noble river and affording a fine view of the Jersey shore and theHighlands opposite. Cafés and restaurants were scattered here and thereamong the trees, and twice a week military bands from the garrison playedin the kiosques on the parapets. 

We sat down in the sunshine on the bench at the foot of the equestrianstatue of General Sheridan. Constance tipped her sunshade to shield hereyes, and she and Louis began a murmuring conversation which wasimpossible to catch. Old Hawberk, leaning on his ivory headed cane, lighted an excellent cigar, the mate to which I politely refused, andsmiled at vacancy. The sun hung low above the Staten Island woods, andthe bay was dyed with golden hues reflected from the sun-warmed sails ofthe shipping in the harbour. 

Brigs, schooners, yachts, clumsy ferry-boats, their decks swarming withpeople, railroad transports carrying lines of brown, blue and whitefreight cars, stately sound steamers, déclassé tramp steamers, coasters, dredgers, scows, and everywhere pervading the entire bay impudent littletugs puffing and whistling officiously;--these were the craft whichchurned the sunlight waters as far as the eye could reach. In calmcontrast to the hurry of sailing vessel and steamer a silent fleet ofwhite warships lay motionless in midstream. 

Constance's merry laugh aroused me from my reverie. 

"What _are_ you staring at?" she inquired. 

"Nothing--the fleet, " I smiled. 

Then Louis told us what the vessels were, pointing out each by itsrelative position to the old Red Fort on Governor's Island. 

"That little cigar shaped thing is a torpedo boat, " he explained; "thereare four more lying close together. They are the _Tarpon_, the _Falcon_, the _Sea Fox_, and the _Octopus_. The gun-boats just above are the_Princeton_, the _Champlain_, the _Still Water_ and the _Erie_. Next tothem lie the cruisers _Faragut_ and _Los Angeles_, and above them thebattle ships _California_, and _Dakota_, and the _Washington_ which isthe flag ship. Those two squatty looking chunks of metal which areanchored there off Castle William are the double turreted monitors_Terrible_ and _Magnificent_; behind them lies the ram, _Osceola_. "

Constance looked at him with deep approval in her beautiful eyes. "Whatloads of things you know for a soldier, " she said, and we all joined inthe laugh which followed. 

Presently Louis rose with a nod to us and offered his arm to Constance, and they strolled away along the river wall. Hawberk watched them for amoment and then turned to me. 

"Mr. Wilde was right, " he said. "I have found the missing tassets andleft cuissard of the 'Prince's Emblazoned, ' in a vile old junk garret inPell Street. "

"998?" I inquired, with a smile. 

"Yes. "

"Mr. Wilde is a very intelligent man, " I observed. 

"I want to give him the credit of this most important discovery, "continued Hawberk. "And I intend it shall be known that he is entitledto the fame of it. "

"He won't thank you for that, " I answered sharply; "please say nothingabout it. "

"Do you know what it is worth?" said Hawberk. 

"No, fifty dollars, perhaps. "

"It is valued at five hundred, but the owner of the 'Prince's Emblazoned'will give two thousand dollars to the person who completes his suit; thatreward also belongs to Mr. Wilde. "

"He doesn't want it! He refuses it!" I answered angrily. "What do youknow about Mr. Wilde? He doesn't need the money. He is rich--or willbe--richer than any living man except myself. What will we care for moneythen--what will we care, he and I, when--when--"

"When what?" demanded Hawberk, astonished. 

"You will see, " I replied, on my guard again. 

He looked at me narrowly, much as Doctor Archer used to, and I knew hethought I was mentally unsound. Perhaps it was fortunate for him that hedid not use the word lunatic just then. 

"No, " I replied to his unspoken thought, "I am not mentally weak; my mindis as healthy as Mr. Wilde's. I do not care to explain just yet what Ihave on hand, but it is an investment which will pay more than mere gold, silver and precious stones. It will secure the happiness and prosperityof a continent--yes, a hemisphere!"

"Oh, " said Hawberk. 

"And eventually, " I continued more quietly, "it will secure the happinessof the whole world. "

"And incidentally your own happiness and prosperity as well as Mr. Wilde's?"

"Exactly, " I smiled. But I could have throttled him for taking that tone. 

He looked at me in silence for a while and then said very gently, "Whydon't you give up your books and studies, Mr. Castaigne, and take a trampamong the mountains somewhere or other? You used to be fond of fishing. Take a cast or two at the trout in the Rangelys. "

"I don't care for fishing any more, " I answered, without a shade ofannoyance in my voice. 

"You used to be fond of everything, " he continued; "athletics, yachting, shooting, riding--"

"I have never cared to ride since my fall, " I said quietly. 

"Ah, yes, your fall, " he repeated, looking away from me. 

I thought this nonsense had gone far enough, so I brought theconversation back to Mr. Wilde; but he was scanning my face again in amanner highly offensive to me. 

"Mr. Wilde, " he repeated, "do you know what he did this afternoon? Hecame downstairs and nailed a sign over the hall door next to mine; itread:

"MR. WILDE, REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS. Third Bell. 

"Do you know what a Repairer of Reputations can be?"

"I do, " I replied, suppressing the rage within. 

"Oh, " he said again. 

Louis and Constance came strolling by and stopped to ask if we would jointhem. Hawberk looked at his watch. At the same moment a puff of smokeshot from the casemates of Castle William, and the boom of the sunset gunrolled across the water and was re-echoed from the Highlands opposite. The flag came running down from the flag-pole, the bugles sounded on thewhite decks of the warships, and the first electric light sparkled outfrom the Jersey shore. 

As I turned into the city with Hawberk I heard Constance murmur somethingto Louis which I did not understand; but Louis whispered "My darling, " inreply; and again, walking ahead with Hawberk through the square I heard amurmur of "sweetheart, " and "my own Constance, " and I knew the time hadnearly arrived when I should speak of important matters with my cousinLouis. 

III

One morning early in May I stood before the steel safe in my bedroom, trying on the golden jewelled crown. The diamonds flashed fire as Iturned to the mirror, and the heavy beaten gold burned like a halo aboutmy head. I remembered Camilla's agonized scream and the awful wordsechoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines inthe first act, and I dared not think of what followed--dared not, evenin the spring sunshine, there in my own room, surrounded with familiarobjects, reassured by the bustle from the street and the voices of theservants in the hallway outside. For those poisoned words had droppedslowly into my heart, as death-sweat drops upon a bed-sheet and isabsorbed. Trembling, I put the diadem from my head and wiped my forehead, but I thought of Hastur and of my own rightful ambition, and I rememberedMr. Wilde as I had last left him, his face all torn and bloody from theclaws of that devil's creature, and what he said--ah, what he said. Thealarm bell in the safe began to whirr harshly, and I knew my time was up;but I would not heed it, and replacing the flashing circlet upon my headI turned defiantly to the mirror. I stood for a long time absorbed in thechanging expression of my own eyes. The mirror reflected a face which waslike my own, but whiter, and so thin that I hardly recognized it And allthe time I kept repeating between my clenched teeth, "The day has come!the day has come!" while the alarm in the safe whirred and clamoured, andthe diamonds sparkled and flamed above my brow. I heard a door open butdid not heed it. It was only when I saw two faces in the mirror:--it wasonly when another face rose over my shoulder, and two other eyes metmine. I wheeled like a flash and seized a long knife from mydressing-table, and my cousin sprang back very pale, crying: "Hildred!for God's sake!" then as my hand fell, he said: "It is I, Louis, don'tyou know me?" I stood silent. I could not have spoken for my life. Hewalked up to me and took the knife from my hand. 

"What is all this?" he inquired, in a gentle voice. "Are you ill?"

"No, " I replied. But I doubt if he heard me. 

"Come, come, old fellow, " he cried, "take off that brass crown and toddleinto the study. Are you going to a masquerade? What's all this theatricaltinsel anyway?"

I was glad he thought the crown was made of brass and paste, yet I didn'tlike him any the better for thinking so. I let him take it from my hand, knowing it was best to humour him. He tossed the splendid diadem in theair, and catching it, turned to me smiling. 

"It's dear at fifty cents, " he said. "What's it for?"

I did not answer, but took the circlet from his hands, and placing it inthe safe shut the massive steel door. The alarm ceased its infernal dinat once. He watched me curiously, but did not seem to notice the suddenceasing of the alarm. He did, however, speak of the safe as a biscuitbox. Fearing lest he might examine the combination I led the way into mystudy. Louis threw himself on the sofa and flicked at flies with hiseternal riding-whip. He wore his fatigue uniform with the braided jacketand jaunty cap, and I noticed that his riding-boots were all splashedwith red mud. 

"Where have you been?" I inquired. 

"Jumping mud creeks in Jersey, " he said. "I haven't had time to changeyet; I was rather in a hurry to see you. Haven't you got a glass ofsomething? I'm dead tired; been in the saddle twenty-four hours. "

I gave him some brandy from my medicinal store, which he drank with agrimace. 

"Damned bad stuff, " he observed. "I'll give you an address where theysell brandy that is brandy. "

"It's good enough for my needs, " I said indifferently. "I use it to rubmy chest with. " He stared and flicked at another fly. 

"See here, old fellow, " he began, "I've got something to suggest to you. It's four years now that you've shut yourself up here like an owl, nevergoing anywhere, never taking any healthy exercise, never doing a damnthing but poring over those books up there on the mantelpiece. "

He glanced along the row of shelves. "Napoleon, Napoleon, Napoleon!" heread. "For heaven's sake, have you nothing but Napoleons there?"

"I wish they were bound in gold, " I said. "But wait, yes, there isanother book, _The King in Yellow_. " I looked him steadily in theeye. 

"Have you never read it?" I asked. 

"I? No, thank God! I don't want to be driven crazy. "

I saw he regretted his speech as soon as he had uttered it. There is onlyone word which I loathe more than I do lunatic and that word is crazy. But I controlled myself and asked him why he thought _The King inYellow_ dangerous. 

"Oh, I don't know, " he said, hastily. "I only remember the excitement itcreated and the denunciations from pulpit and Press. I believe the authorshot himself after bringing forth this monstrosity, didn't he?"

"I understand he is still alive, " I answered. 

"That's probably true, " he muttered; "bullets couldn't kill a fiend likethat. "

"It is a book of great truths, " I said. 

"Yes, " he replied, "of 'truths' which send men frantic and blast theirlives. I don't care if the thing is, as they say, the very supremeessence of art. It's a crime to have written it, and I for one shallnever open its pages. "

"Is that what you have come to tell me?" I asked. 

"No, " he said, "I came to tell you that I am going to be married. "

I believe for a moment my heart ceased to beat, but I kept my eyes on hisface. 

"Yes, " he continued, smiling happily, "married to the sweetest girl onearth. "

"Constance Hawberk, " I said mechanically. 

"How did you know?" he cried, astonished. "I didn't know it myself untilthat evening last April, when we strolled down to the embankment beforedinner. "

"When is it to be?" I asked. 

"It was to have been next September, but an hour ago a despatch cameordering our regiment to the Presidio, San Francisco. We leave at noonto-morrow. To-morrow, " he repeated. "Just think, Hildred, to-morrow Ishall be the happiest fellow that ever drew breath in this jolly world, for Constance will go with me. "

I offered him my hand in congratulation, and he seized and shook it likethe good-natured fool he was--or pretended to be. 

"I am going to get my squadron as a wedding present, " he rattled on. "Captain and Mrs. Louis Castaigne, eh, Hildred?"

Then he told me where it was to be and who were to be there, and made mepromise to come and be best man. I set my teeth and listened to hisboyish chatter without showing what I felt, but--

I was getting to the limit of my endurance, and when he jumped up, and, switching his spurs till they jingled, said he must go, I did not detainhim. 

"There's one thing I want to ask of you, " I said quietly. 

"Out with it, it's promised, " he laughed. 

"I want you to meet me for a quarter of an hour's talk to-night. "

"Of course, if you wish, " he said, somewhat puzzled. "Where?"

"Anywhere, in the park there. "

"What time, Hildred?"

"Midnight. "

"What in the name of--" he began, but checked himself and laughinglyassented. I watched him go down the stairs and hurry away, his sabrebanging at every stride. He turned into Bleecker Street, and I knew hewas going to see Constance. I gave him ten minutes to disappear and thenfollowed in his footsteps, taking with me the jewelled crown and thesilken robe embroidered with the Yellow Sign. When I turned into BleeckerStreet, and entered the doorway which bore the sign--

MR. WILDE, REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS. Third Bell. 

I saw old Hawberk moving about in his shop, and imagined I heardConstance's voice in the parlour; but I avoided them both and hurried upthe trembling stairways to Mr. Wilde's apartment. I knocked and enteredwithout ceremony. Mr. Wilde lay groaning on the floor, his face coveredwith blood, his clothes torn to shreds. Drops of blood were scatteredabout over the carpet, which had also been ripped and frayed in theevidently recent struggle. 

"It's that cursed cat, " he said, ceasing his groans, and turning hiscolourless eyes to me; "she attacked me while I was asleep. I believe shewill kill me yet. "

This was too much, so I went into the kitchen, and, seizing a hatchetfrom the pantry, started to find the infernal beast and settle her thenand there. My search was fruitless, and after a while I gave it up andcame back to find Mr. Wilde squatting on his high chair by the table. Hehad washed his face and changed his clothes. The great furrows which thecat's claws had ploughed up in his face he had filled with collodion, anda rag hid the wound in his throat. I told him I should kill the cat whenI came across her, but he only shook his head and turned to the openledger before him. He read name after name of the people who had come tohim in regard to their reputation, and the sums he had amassed werestartling. 

"I put on the screws now and then, " he explained. 

"One day or other some of these people will assassinate you, " I insisted. 

"Do you think so?" he said, rubbing his mutilated ears. 

It was useless to argue with him, so I took down the manuscript entitledImperial Dynasty of America, for the last time I should ever take it downin Mr. Wilde's study. I read it through, thrilling and trembling withpleasure. When I had finished Mr. Wilde took the manuscript and, turningto the dark passage which leads from his study to his bed-chamber, called out in a loud voice, "Vance. " Then for the first time, I noticed aman crouching there in the shadow. How I had overlooked him during mysearch for the cat, I cannot imagine. 

"Vance, come in, " cried Mr. Wilde. 

The figure rose and crept towards us, and I shall never forget the facethat he raised to mine, as the light from the window illuminated it. 

"Vance, this is Mr. Castaigne, " said Mr. Wilde. Before he had finishedspeaking, the man threw himself on the ground before the table, cryingand grasping, "Oh, God! Oh, my God! Help me! Forgive me! Oh, Mr. Castaigne, keep that man away. You cannot, you cannot mean it! You aredifferent--save me! I am broken down--I was in a madhouse and now--whenall was coming right--when I had forgotten the King--the King in Yellowand--but I shall go mad again--I shall go mad--"

His voice died into a choking rattle, for Mr. Wilde had leapt on him andhis right hand encircled the man's throat. When Vance fell in a heap onthe floor, Mr. Wilde clambered nimbly into his chair again, and rubbinghis mangled ears with the stump of his hand, turned to me and asked mefor the ledger. I reached it down from the shelf and he opened it. Aftera moment's searching among the beautifully written pages, he coughedcomplacently, and pointed to the name Vance. 

"Vance, " he read aloud, "Osgood Oswald Vance. " At the sound of his name, the man on the floor raised his head and turned a convulsed face to Mr. Wilde. His eyes were injected with blood, his lips tumefied. "CalledApril 28th, " continued Mr. Wilde. "Occupation, cashier in the SeaforthNational Bank; has served a term of forgery at Sing Sing, from whence hewas transferred to the Asylum for the Criminal Insane. Pardoned by theGovernor of New York, and discharged from the Asylum, January 19, 1918. Reputation damaged at Sheepshead Bay. Rumours that he lives beyond hisincome. Reputation to be repaired at once. Retainer $1, 500. 

"Note. --Has embezzled sums amounting to $30, 000 since March 20, 1919, excellent family, and secured present position through uncle's influence. Father, President of Seaforth Bank. "

I looked at the man on the floor. 

"Get up, Vance, " said Mr. Wilde in a gentle voice. Vance rose as ifhypnotized. "He will do as we suggest now, " observed Mr. Wilde, andopening the manuscript, he read the entire history of the ImperialDynasty of America. Then in a kind and soothing murmur he ran over theimportant points with Vance, who stood like one stunned. His eyes were soblank and vacant that I imagined he had become half-witted, and remarkedit to Mr. Wilde who replied that it was of no consequence anyway. Verypatiently we pointed out to Vance what his share in the affair would be, and he seemed to understand after a while. Mr. Wilde explained themanuscript, using several volumes on Heraldry, to substantiate the resultof his researches. He mentioned the establishment of the Dynasty inCarcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the mystery ofthe Hyades. He spoke of Cassilda and Camilla, and sounded the cloudydepths of Demhe, and the Lake of Hali. "The scolloped tatters of the Kingin Yellow must hide Yhtill forever, " he muttered, but I do not believeVance heard him. Then by degrees he led Vance along the ramifications ofthe Imperial family, to Uoht and Thale, from Naotalba and Phantom ofTruth, to Aldones, and then tossing aside his manuscript and notes, hebegan the wonderful story of the Last King. Fascinated and thrilled Iwatched him. He threw up his head, his long arms were stretched out in amagnificent gesture of pride and power, and his eyes blazed deep in theirsockets like two emeralds. Vance listened stupefied. As for me, when atlast Mr. Wilde had finished, and pointing to me, cried, "The cousin ofthe King!" my head swam with excitement. 

Controlling myself with a superhuman effort, I explained to Vance why Ialone was worthy of the crown and why my cousin must be exiled or die. I made him understand that my cousin must never marry, even afterrenouncing all his claims, and how that least of all he should marry thedaughter of the Marquis of Avonshire and bring England into the question. I showed him a list of thousands of names which Mr. Wilde had drawn up;every man whose name was there had received the Yellow Sign which noliving human being dared disregard. The city, the state, the whole land, were ready to rise and tremble before the Pallid Mask. 

The time had come, the people should know the son of Hastur, and thewhole world bow to the black stars which hang in the sky over Carcosa. 

Vance leaned on the table, his head buried in his hands. Mr. Wilde drewa rough sketch on the margin of yesterday's _Herald_ with a bit oflead pencil. It was a plan of Hawberk's rooms. Then he wrote out theorder and affixed the seal, and shaking like a palsied man I signed myfirst writ of execution with my name Hildred-Rex. 

Mr. Wilde clambered to the floor and unlocking the cabinet, took a longsquare box from the first shelf. This he brought to the table and opened. A new knife lay in the tissue paper inside and I picked it up and handedit to Vance, along with the order and the plan of Hawberk's apartment. Then Mr. Wilde told Vance he could go; and he went, shambling like anoutcast of the slums. 

I sat for a while watching the daylight fade behind the square tower ofthe Judson Memorial Church, and finally, gathering up the manuscript andnotes, took my hat and started for the door. 

Mr. Wilde watched me in silence. When I had stepped into the hall Ilooked back. Mr. Wilde's small eyes were still fixed on me. Behind him, the shadows gathered in the fading light. Then I closed the door behindme and went out into the darkening streets. 

I had eaten nothing since breakfast, but I was not hungry. A wretched, half-starved creature, who stood looking across the street at the LethalChamber, noticed me and came up to tell me a tale of misery. I gave himmoney, I don't know why, and he went away without thanking me. Anhour later another outcast approached and whined his story. I had a blankbit of paper in my pocket, on which was traced the Yellow Sign, and Ihanded it to him. He looked at it stupidly for a moment, and then with anuncertain glance at me, folded it with what seemed to me exaggerated careand placed it in his bosom. 

The electric lights were sparkling among the trees, and the new moonshone in the sky above the Lethal Chamber. It was tiresome waiting in thesquare; I wandered from the Marble Arch to the artillery stables and backagain to the lotos fountain. The flowers and grass exhaled a fragrancewhich troubled me. The jet of the fountain played in the moonlight, andthe musical splash of falling drops reminded me of the tinkle of chainedmail in Hawberk's shop. But it was not so fascinating, and the dullsparkle of the moonlight on the water brought no such sensations ofexquisite pleasure, as when the sunshine played over the polished steelof a corselet on Hawberk's knee. I watched the bats darting and turningabove the water plants in the fountain basin, but their rapid, jerkyflight set my nerves on edge, and I went away again to walk aimlessly toand fro among the trees. 

The artillery stables were dark, but in the cavalry barracks theofficers' windows were brilliantly lighted, and the sallyport wasconstantly filled with troopers in fatigue, carrying straw and harnessand baskets filled with tin dishes. 

Twice the mounted sentry at the gates was changed while I wandered up anddown the asphalt walk. I looked at my watch. It was nearly time. Thelights in the barracks went out one by one, the barred gate was closed, and every minute or two an officer passed in through the side wicket, leaving a rattle of accoutrements and a jingle of spurs on the night air. The square had become very silent. The last homeless loiterer had beendriven away by the grey-coated park policeman, the car tracks alongWooster Street were deserted, and the only sound which broke thestillness was the stamping of the sentry's horse and the ring of hissabre against the saddle pommel. In the barracks, the officers' quarterswere still lighted, and military servants passed and repassed before thebay windows. Twelve o'clock sounded from the new spire of St. FrancisXavier, and at the last stroke of the sad-toned bell a figure passedthrough the wicket beside the portcullis, returned the salute of thesentry, and crossing the street entered the square and advanced towardthe Benedick apartment house. 

"Louis, " I called. 

The man pivoted on his spurred heels and came straight toward me. 

"Is that you, Hildred?"

"Yes, you are on time. "

I took his offered hand, and we strolled toward the Lethal Chamber. 

He rattled on about his wedding and the graces of Constance, and theirfuture prospects, calling my attention to his captain's shoulder-straps, and the triple gold arabesque on his sleeve and fatigue cap. I believe Ilistened as much to the music of his spurs and sabre as I did to hisboyish babble, and at last we stood under the elms on the Fourth Streetcorner of the square opposite the Lethal Chamber. Then he laughed andasked me what I wanted with him. I motioned him to a seat on a benchunder the electric light, and sat down beside him. He looked at mecuriously, with that same searching glance which I hate and fear so indoctors. I felt the insult of his look, but he did not know it, and Icarefully concealed my feelings. 

"Well, old chap, " he inquired, "what can I do for you?"

I drew from my pocket the manuscript and notes of the Imperial Dynastyof America, and looking him in the eye said:

"I will tell you. On your word as a soldier, promise me to read thismanuscript from beginning to end, without asking me a question. Promiseme to read these notes in the same way, and promise me to listen to whatI have to tell later. "

"I promise, if you wish it, " he said pleasantly. "Give me the paper, Hildred. "

He began to read, raising his eyebrows with a puzzled, whimsical air, which made me tremble with suppressed anger. As he advanced his, eyebrowscontracted, and his lips seemed to form the word "rubbish. "

Then he looked slightly bored, but apparently for my sake read, with anattempt at interest, which presently ceased to be an effort He startedwhen in the closely written pages he came to his own name, and when hecame to mine he lowered the paper, and looked sharply at me for a momentBut he kept his word, and resumed his reading, and I let the half-formedquestion die on his lips unanswered. When he came to the end and read thesignature of Mr. Wilde, he folded the paper carefully and returned it tome. I handed him the notes, and he settled back, pushing his fatigue capup to his forehead, with a boyish gesture, which I remembered so well inschool. I watched his face as he read, and when he finished I took thenotes with the manuscript, and placed them in my pocket. Then I unfoldeda scroll marked with the Yellow Sign. He saw the sign, but he did notseem to recognize it, and I called his attention to it somewhat sharply. 

"Well, " he said, "I see it. What is it?"

"It is the Yellow Sign, " I said angrily. 

"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Louis, in that flattering voice, whichDoctor Archer used to employ with me, and would probably have employedagain, had I not settled his affair for him. 

I kept my rage down and answered as steadily as possible, "Listen, youhave engaged your word?"

"I am listening, old chap, " he replied soothingly. 

I began to speak very calmly. 

"Dr. Archer, having by some means become possessed of the secret of theImperial Succession, attempted to deprive me of my right, alleging thatbecause of a fall from my horse four years ago, I had become mentallydeficient. He presumed to place me under restraint in his own house inhopes of either driving me insane or poisoning me. I have not forgottenit. I visited him last night and the interview was final. "

Louis turned quite pale, but did not move. I resumed triumphantly, "Thereare yet three people to be interviewed in the interests of Mr. Wilde andmyself. They are my cousin Louis, Mr. Hawberk, and his daughterConstance. "

Louis sprang to his feet and I arose also, and flung the paper markedwith the Yellow Sign to the ground. 

"Oh, I don't need that to tell you what I have to say, " I cried, with alaugh of triumph. "You must renounce the crown to me, do you hear, to_me_. "

Louis looked at me with a startled air, but recovering himself saidkindly, "Of course I renounce the--what is it I must renounce?"

"The crown, " I said angrily. 

"Of course, " he answered, "I renounce it. Come, old chap, I'll walk backto your rooms with you. "

"Don't try any of your doctor's tricks on me, " I cried, trembling withfury. "Don't act as if you think I am insane. "

"What nonsense, " he replied. "Come, it's getting late, Hildred. "

"No, " I shouted, "you must listen. You cannot marry, I forbid it. Do youhear? I forbid it. You shall renounce the crown, and in reward I grantyou exile, but if you refuse you shall die. "

He tried to calm me, but I was roused at last, and drawing my long knifebarred his way. 

Then I told him how they would find Dr. Archer in the cellar with histhroat open, and I laughed in his face when I thought of Vance and hisknife, and the order signed by me. 

"Ah, you are the King, " I cried, "but I shall be King. Who are you tokeep me from Empire over all the habitable earth! I was born the cousinof a king, but I shall be King!"

Louis stood white and rigid before me. Suddenly a man came running upFourth Street, entered the gate of the Lethal Temple, traversed the pathto the bronze doors at full speed, and plunged into the death chamberwith the cry of one demented, and I laughed until I wept tears, for I hadrecognized Vance, and knew that Hawberk and his daughter were no longerin my way. 

"Go, " I cried to Louis, "you have ceased to be a menace. You will nevermarry Constance now, and if you marry any one else in your exile, I willvisit you as I did my doctor last night. Mr. Wilde takes charge of youto-morrow. " Then I turned and darted into South Fifth Avenue, and with acry of terror Louis dropped his belt and sabre and followed me like thewind. I heard him close behind me at the corner of Bleecker Street, and Idashed into the doorway under Hawberk's sign. He cried, "Halt, or Ifire!" but when he saw that I flew up the stairs leaving Hawberk's shopbelow, he left me, and I heard him hammering and shouting at their dooras though it were possible to arouse the dead. 

Mr. Wilde's door was open, and I entered crying, "It is done, it is done!Let the nations rise and look upon their King!" but I could not find Mr. Wilde, so I went to the cabinet and took the splendid diadem from itscase. Then I drew on the white silk robe, embroidered with the YellowSign, and placed the crown upon my head. At last I was King, King by myright in Hastur, King because I knew the mystery of the Hyades, and mymind had sounded the depths of the Lake of Hali. I was King! The firstgrey pencillings of dawn would raise a tempest which would shake twohemispheres. Then as I stood, my every nerve pitched to the highesttension, faint with the joy and splendour of my thought, without, in thedark passage, a man groaned. 

I seized the tallow dip and sprang to the door. The cat passed me like ademon, and the tallow dip went out, but my long knife flew swifter thanshe, and I heard her screech, and I knew that my knife had found her. Fora moment I listened to her tumbling and thumping about in the darkness, and then when her frenzy ceased, I lighted a lamp and raised it over myhead. Mr. Wilde lay on the floor with his throat torn open. At first Ithought he was dead, but as I looked, a green sparkle came into hissunken eyes, his mutilated hand trembled, and then a spasm stretched hismouth from ear to ear. For a moment my terror and despair gave place tohope, but as I bent over him his eyeballs rolled clean around in hishead, and he died. Then while I stood, transfixed with rage and despair, seeing my crown, my empire, every hope and every ambition, my very life, lying prostrate there with the dead master, _they_ came, seized mefrom behind, and bound me until my veins stood out like cords, and myvoice failed with the paroxysms of my frenzied screams. But I stillraged, bleeding and infuriated among them, and more than one policemanfelt my sharp teeth. Then when I could no longer move they came nearer; Isaw old Hawberk, and behind him my cousin Louis' ghastly face, andfarther away, in the corner, a woman, Constance, weeping softly. 

"Ah! I see it now!" I shrieked. "You have seized the throne and theempire. Woe! woe to you who are crowned with the crown of the King inYellow!"

[EDITOR'S NOTE. --Mr. Castaigne died yesterday in the Asylum for CriminalInsane. ]

THE MASK

CAMILLA: You, sir, should unmask. 

STRANGER: Indeed?

CASSILDA: Indeed it's time. We all have laid aside disguise but you. 

STRANGER: I wear no mask. 

CAMILLA: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda. ) No mask? No mask!

_The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2_. 

I

Although I knew nothing of chemistry, I listened fascinated. He picked upan Easter lily which Geneviève had brought that morning from Notre Dame, and dropped it into the basin. Instantly the liquid lost its crystallineclearness. For a second the lily was enveloped in a milk-white foam, which disappeared, leaving the fluid opalescent. Changing tints of orangeand crimson played over the surface, and then what seemed to be a ray ofpure sunlight struck through from the bottom where the lily was resting. At the same instant he plunged his hand into the basin and drew out theflower. "There is no danger, " he explained, "if you choose the rightmoment. That golden ray is the signal. "

He held the lily toward me, and I took it in my hand. It had turned tostone, to the purest marble. 

"You see, " he said, "it is without a flaw. What sculptor could reproduceit?"

The marble was white as snow, but in its depths the veins of the lilywere tinged with palest azure, and a faint flush lingered deep in itsheart. 

"Don't ask me the reason of that, " he smiled, noticing my wonder. "I haveno idea why the veins and heart are tinted, but they always are. Yesterday I tried one of Geneviève's gold-fish, --there it is. "

The fish looked as if sculptured in marble. But if you held it to thelight the stone was beautifully veined with a faint blue, and fromsomewhere within came a rosy light like the tint which slumbers in anopal. I looked into the basin. Once more it seemed filled with clearestcrystal. 

"If I should touch it now?" I demanded. 

"I don't know, " he replied, "but you had better not try. "

"There is one thing I'm curious about, " I said, "and that is where theray of sunlight came from. "

"It looked like a sunbeam true enough, " he said. "I don't know, it alwayscomes when I immerse any living thing. Perhaps, " he continued, smiling, "perhaps it is the vital spark of the creature escaping to the sourcefrom whence it came. "

I saw he was mocking, and threatened him with a mahl-stick, but he onlylaughed and changed the subject. 

"Stay to lunch. Geneviève will be here directly. "

"I saw her going to early mass, " I said, "and she looked as fresh andsweet as that lily--before you destroyed it. "

"Do you think I destroyed it?" said Boris gravely. 

"Destroyed, preserved, how can we tell?"

We sat in the corner of a studio near his unfinished group of the"Fates. " He leaned back on the sofa, twirling a sculptor's chisel andsquinting at his work. 

"By the way, " he said, "I have finished pointing up that old academicAriadne, and I suppose it will have to go to the Salon. It's all I haveready this year, but after the success the 'Madonna' brought me I feelashamed to send a thing like that. "

The "Madonna, " an exquisite marble for which Geneviève had sat, had beenthe sensation of last year's Salon. I looked at the Ariadne. It was amagnificent piece of technical work, but I agreed with Boris that theworld would expect something better of him than that. Still, it wasimpossible now to think of finishing in time for the Salon that splendidterrible group half shrouded in the marble behind me. The "Fates" wouldhave to wait. 

We were proud of Boris Yvain. We claimed him and he claimed us on thestrength of his having been born in America, although his father wasFrench and his mother was a Russian. Every one in the Beaux Arts calledhim Boris. And yet there were only two of us whom he addressed in thesame familiar way--Jack Scott and myself. 

Perhaps my being in love with Geneviève had something to do with hisaffection for me. Not that it had ever been acknowledged between us. Butafter all was settled, and she had told me with tears in her eyes that itwas Boris whom she loved, I went over to his house and congratulated him. The perfect cordiality of that interview did not deceive either of us, Ialways believed, although to one at least it was a great comfort. I donot think he and Geneviève ever spoke of the matter together, but Borisknew. 

Geneviève was lovely. The Madonna-like purity of her face might have beeninspired by the Sanctus in Gounod's Mass. But I was always glad when shechanged that mood for what we called her "April Manoeuvres. " She wasoften as variable as an April day. In the morning grave, dignified andsweet, at noon laughing, capricious, at evening whatever one leastexpected. I preferred her so rather than in that Madonna-liketranquillity which stirred the depths of my heart. I was dreaming ofGeneviève when he spoke again. 

"What do you think of my discovery, Alec?"

"I think it wonderful. "

"I shall make no use of it, you know, beyond satisfying my own curiosityso far as may be, and the secret will die with me. "

"It would be rather a blow to sculpture, would it not? We painters losemore than we ever gain by photography. "

Boris nodded, playing with the edge of the chisel. 

"This new vicious discovery would corrupt the world of art. No, I shallnever confide the secret to any one, " he said slowly. 

It would be hard to find any one less informed about such phenomena thanmyself; but of course I had heard of mineral springs so saturated withsilica that the leaves and twigs which fell into them were turned tostone after a time. I dimly comprehended the process, how the silicareplaced the vegetable matter, atom by atom, and the result was aduplicate of the object in stone. This, I confess, had never interestedme greatly, and as for the ancient fossils thus produced, they disgustedme. Boris, it appeared, feeling curiosity instead of repugnance, hadinvestigated the subject, and had accidentally stumbled on a solutionwhich, attacking the immersed object with a ferocity unheard of, in asecond did the work of years. This was all I could make out of thestrange story he had just been telling me. He spoke again after a longsilence. 

"I am almost frightened when I think what I have found. Scientists wouldgo mad over the discovery. It was so simple too; it discovered itself. When I think of that formula, and that new element precipitated inmetallic scales--"

"What new element?"

"Oh, I haven't thought of naming it, and I don't believe I ever shall. There are enough precious metals now in the world to cut throats over. "

I pricked up my ears. "Have you struck gold, Boris?"

"No, better;--but see here, Alec!" he laughed, starting up. "You and Ihave all we need in this world. Ah! how sinister and covetous you lookalready!" I laughed too, and told him I was devoured by the desire forgold, and we had better talk of something else; so when Geneviève came inshortly after, we had turned our backs on alchemy. 

Geneviève was dressed in silvery grey from head to foot. The lightglinted along the soft curves of her fair hair as she turned her cheek toBoris; then she saw me and returned my greeting. She had never beforefailed to blow me a kiss from the tips of her white fingers, and Ipromptly complained of the omission. She smiled and held out her hand, which dropped almost before it had touched mine; then she said, lookingat Boris--

"You must ask Alec to stay for luncheon. " This also was something new. She had always asked me herself until to-day. 

"I did, " said Boris shortly. 

"And you said yes, I hope?" She turned to me with a charming conventionalsmile. I might have been an acquaintance of the day before yesterday. Imade her a low bow. "J'avais bien l'honneur, madame, " but refusing totake up our usual bantering tone, she murmured a hospitable commonplaceand disappeared. Boris and I looked at one another. 

"I had better go home, don't you think?" I asked. 

"Hanged if I know, " he replied frankly. 

While we were discussing the advisability of my departure Genevièvereappeared in the doorway without her bonnet. She was wonderfullybeautiful, but her colour was too deep and her lovely eyes were toobright. She came straight up to me and took my arm. 

"Luncheon is ready. Was I cross, Alec? I thought I had a headache, but Ihaven't. Come here, Boris;" and she slipped her other arm through his. "Alec knows that after you there is no one in the world whom I like aswell as I like him, so if he sometimes feels snubbed it won't hurt him. "

"À la bonheur!" I cried, "who says there are no thunderstorms in April?"

"Are you ready?" chanted Boris. "Aye ready;" and arm-in-arm we raced intothe dining-room, scandalizing the servants. After all we were not so muchto blame; Geneviève was eighteen, Boris was twenty-three, and I not quitetwenty-one. 

II

Some work that I was doing about this time on the decorations forGeneviève's boudoir kept me constantly at the quaint little hotel in theRue Sainte-Cécile. Boris and I in those days laboured hard but as wepleased, which was fitfully, and we all three, with Jack Scott, idled agreat deal together. 

One quiet afternoon I had been wandering alone over the house examiningcurios, prying into odd corners, bringing out sweetmeats and cigars fromstrange hiding-places, and at last I stopped in the bathing-room. Boris, all over clay, stood there washing his hands. 

The room was built of rose-coloured marble excepting the floor, which wastessellated in rose and grey. In the centre was a square pool sunkenbelow the surface of the floor; steps led down into it, sculpturedpillars supported a frescoed ceiling. A delicious marble Cupid appearedto have just alighted on his pedestal at the upper end of the room. Thewhole interior was Boris' work and mine. Boris, in his working-clothes ofwhite canvas, scraped the traces of clay and red modelling wax from hishandsome hands, and coquetted over his shoulder with the Cupid. 

"I see you, " he insisted, "don't try to look the other way and pretendnot to see me. You know who made you, little humbug!"

It was always my rôle to interpret Cupid's sentiments in theseconversations, and when my turn came I responded in such a manner, thatBoris seized my arm and dragged me toward the pool, declaring he wouldduck me. Next instant he dropped my arm and turned pale. "Good God!" hesaid, "I forgot the pool is full of the solution!"

I shivered a little, and dryly advised him to remember better where hehad stored the precious liquid. 

"In Heaven's name, why do you keep a small lake of that gruesome stuffhere of all places?" I asked. 

"I want to experiment on something large, " he replied. 

"On me, for instance?"

"Ah! that came too close for jesting; but I do want to watch the actionof that solution on a more highly organized living body; there is thatbig white rabbit, " he said, following me into the studio. 

Jack Scott, wearing a paint-stained jacket, came wandering in, appropriated all the Oriental sweetmeats he could lay his hands on, looted the cigarette case, and finally he and Boris disappeared togetherto visit the Luxembourg Gallery, where a new silver bronze by Rodin and alandscape of Monet's were claiming the exclusive attention of artisticFrance. I went back to the studio, and resumed my work. It was aRenaissance screen, which Boris wanted me to paint for Geneviève'sboudoir. But the small boy who was unwillingly dawdling through a seriesof poses for it, to-day refused all bribes to be good. He never rested aninstant in the same position, and inside of five minutes I had as manydifferent outlines of the little beggar. 

"Are you posing, or are you executing a song and dance, my friend?" Iinquired. 

"Whichever monsieur pleases, " he replied, with an angelic smile. 

Of course I dismissed him for the day, and of course I paid him for thefull time, that being the way we spoil our models. 

After the young imp had gone, I made a few perfunctory daubs at my work, but was so thoroughly out of humour, that it took me the rest of theafternoon to undo the damage I had done, so at last I scraped my palette, stuck my brushes in a bowl of black soap, and strolled into thesmoking-room. I really believe that, excepting Geneviève's apartments, noroom in the house was so free from the perfume of tobacco as this one. Itwas a queer chaos of odds and ends, hung with threadbare tapestry. Asweet-toned old spinet in good repair stood by the window. There werestands of weapons, some old and dull, others bright and modern, festoonsof Indian and Turkish armour over the mantel, two or three good pictures, and a pipe-rack. It was here that we used to come for new sensations insmoking. I doubt if any type of pipe ever existed which was notrepresented in that rack. When we had selected one, we immediatelycarried it somewhere else and smoked it; for the place was, on the whole, more gloomy and less inviting than any in the house. But this afternoon, the twilight was very soothing, the rugs and skins on the floor lookedbrown and soft and drowsy; the big couch was piled with cushions--I foundmy pipe and curled up there for an unaccustomed smoke in thesmoking-room. I had chosen one with a long flexible stem, and lighting itfell to dreaming. After a while it went out, but I did not stir. Idreamed on and presently fell asleep. 

I awoke to the saddest music I had ever heard. The room was quite dark, Ihad no idea what time it was. A ray of moonlight silvered one edge of theold spinet, and the polished wood seemed to exhale the sounds as perfumefloats above a box of sandalwood. Some one rose in the darkness, and cameaway weeping quietly, and I was fool enough to cry out "Geneviève!"

She dropped at my voice, and, I had time to curse myself while I made alight and tried to raise her from the floor. She shrank away with amurmur of pain. She was very quiet, and asked for Boris. I carried her tothe divan, and went to look for him, but he was not in the house, and theservants were gone to bed. Perplexed and anxious, I hurried back toGeneviève. She lay where I had left her, looking very white. 

"I can't find Boris nor any of the servants, " I said. 

"I know, " she answered faintly, "Boris has gone to Ept with Mr. Scott. Idid not remember when I sent you for him just now. "

"But he can't get back in that case before to-morrow afternoon, and--areyou hurt? Did I frighten you into falling? What an awful fool I am, but Iwas only half awake. "

"Boris thought you had gone home before dinner. Do please excuse us forletting you stay here all this time. "

"I have had a long nap, " I laughed, "so sound that I did not know whetherI was still asleep or not when I found myself staring at a figure thatwas moving toward me, and called out your name. Have you been trying theold spinet? You must have played very softly. "

I would tell a thousand more lies worse than that one to see the look ofrelief that came into her face. She smiled adorably, and said in hernatural voice: "Alec, I tripped on that wolf's head, and I think my ankleis sprained. Please call Marie, and then go home. "

I did as she bade me, and left her there when the maid came in. 

III

At noon next day when I called, I found Boris walking restlessly abouthis studio. 

"Geneviève is asleep just now, " he told me, "the sprain is nothing, butwhy should she have such a high fever? The doctor can't account for it;or else he will not, " he muttered. 

"Geneviève has a fever?" I asked. 

"I should say so, and has actually been a little light-headed atintervals all night. The idea! gay little Geneviève, without a care inthe world, --and she keeps saying her heart's broken, and she wants todie!"

My own heart stood still. 

Boris leaned against the door of his studio, looking down, his hands inhis pockets, his kind, keen eyes clouded, a new line of trouble drawn"over the mouth's good mark, that made the smile. " The maid had orders tosummon him the instant Geneviève opened her eyes. We waited and waited, and Boris, growing restless, wandered about, fussing with modelling waxand red clay. Suddenly he started for the next room. "Come and see myrose-coloured bath full of death!" he cried. 

"Is it death?" I asked, to humour his mood. 

"You are not prepared to call it life, I suppose, " he answered. As hespoke he plucked a solitary goldfish squirming and twisting out of itsglobe. "We'll send this one after the other--wherever that is, " he said. There was feverish excitement in his voice. A dull weight of fever lay onmy limbs and on my brain as I followed him to the fair crystal pool withits pink-tinted sides; and he dropped the creature in. Falling, itsscales flashed with a hot orange gleam in its angry twistings andcontortions; the moment it struck the liquid it became rigid and sankheavily to the bottom. Then came the milky foam, the splendid huesradiating on the surface and then the shaft of pure serene light brokethrough from seemingly infinite depths. Boris plunged in his hand anddrew out an exquisite marble thing, blue-veined, rose-tinted, andglistening with opalescent drops. 

"Child's play, " he muttered, and looked wearily, longingly at me, --as ifI could answer such questions! But Jack Scott came in and entered intothe "game, " as he called it, with ardour. Nothing would do but to try theexperiment on the white rabbit then and there. I was willing that Borisshould find distraction from his cares, but I hated to see the life goout of a warm, living creature and I declined to be present. Picking up abook at random, I sat down in the studio to read. Alas! I had found_The King in Yellow_. After a few moments, which seemed ages, I wasputting it away with a nervous shudder, when Boris and Jack came inbringing their marble rabbit. At the same time the bell rang above, and acry came from the sick-room. Boris was gone like a flash, and the nextmoment he called, "Jack, run for the doctor; bring him back with you. Alec, come here. "

I went and stood at her door. A frightened maid came out in haste and ranaway to fetch some remedy. Geneviève, sitting bolt upright, with crimsoncheeks and glittering eyes, babbled incessantly and resisted Boris'gentle restraint. He called me to help. At my first touch she sighed andsank back, closing her eyes, and then--then--as we still bent above her, she opened them again, looked straight into Boris' face--poorfever-crazed girl!--and told her secret. At the same instant our threelives turned into new channels; the bond that held us so long togethersnapped for ever and a new bond was forged in its place, for she hadspoken my name, and as the fever tortured her, her heart poured out itsload of hidden sorrow. Amazed and dumb I bowed my head, while my faceburned like a live coal, and the blood surged in my ears, stupefying mewith its clamour. Incapable of movement, incapable of speech, I listenedto her feverish words in an agony of shame and sorrow. I could notsilence her, I could not look at Boris. Then I felt an arm upon myshoulder, and Boris turned a bloodless face to mine. 

"It is not your fault, Alec; don't grieve so if she loves you--" but hecould not finish; and as the doctor stepped swiftly into the room, saying--"Ah, the fever!" I seized Jack Scott and hurried him to thestreet, saying, "Boris would rather be alone. " We crossed the street toour own apartments, and that night, seeing I was going to be ill too, hewent for the doctor again. The last thing I recollect with anydistinctness was hearing Jack say, "For Heaven's sake, doctor, what ailshim, to wear a face like that?" and I thought of _The King inYellow_ and the Pallid Mask. 

I was very ill, for the strain of two years which I had endured sincethat fatal May morning when Geneviève murmured, "I love you, but I thinkI love Boris best, " told on me at last. I had never imagined that itcould become more than I could endure. Outwardly tranquil, I had deceivedmyself. Although the inward battle raged night after night, and I, lyingalone in my room, cursed myself for rebellious thoughts unloyal to Borisand unworthy of Geneviève, the morning always brought relief, and Ireturned to Geneviève and to my dear Boris with a heart washed clean bythe tempests of the night. 

Never in word or deed or thought while with them had I betrayed my sorroweven to myself. 

The mask of self-deception was no longer a mask for me, it was a part ofme. Night lifted it, laying bare the stifled truth below; but there wasno one to see except myself, and when the day broke the mask fell backagain of its own accord. These thoughts passed through my troubled mindas I lay sick, but they were hopelessly entangled with visions of whitecreatures, heavy as stone, crawling about in Boris' basin, --of the wolf'shead on the rug, foaming and snapping at Geneviève, who lay smilingbeside it. I thought, too, of the King in Yellow wrapped in the fantasticcolours of his tattered mantle, and that bitter cry of Cassilda, "Notupon us, oh King, not upon us!" Feverishly I struggled to put it from me, but I saw the lake of Hali, thin and blank, without a ripple or wind tostir it, and I saw the towers of Carcosa behind the moon. Aldebaran, theHyades, Alar, Hastur, glided through the cloud-rifts which fluttered andflapped as they passed like the scolloped tatters of the King in Yellow. Among all these, one sane thought persisted. It never wavered, no matterwhat else was going on in my disordered mind, that my chief reason forexisting was to meet some requirement of Boris and Geneviève. What thisobligation was, its nature, was never clear; sometimes it seemed to beprotection, sometimes support, through a great crisis. Whatever it seemedto be for the time, its weight rested only on me, and I was never so illor so weak that I did not respond with my whole soul. There were alwayscrowds of faces about me, mostly strange, but a few I recognized, Borisamong them. Afterward they told me that this could not have been, but Iknow that once at least he bent over me. It was only a touch, a faintecho of his voice, then the clouds settled back on my senses, and I losthim, but he _did_ stand there and bend over me _once_ at least. 

At last, one morning I awoke to find the sunlight falling across my bed, and Jack Scott reading beside me. I had not strength enough to speakaloud, neither could I think, much less remember, but I could smilefeebly, as Jack's eye met mine, and when he jumped up and asked eagerlyif I wanted anything, I could whisper, "Yes--Boris. " Jack moved to thehead of my bed, and leaned down to arrange my pillow: I did not see hisface, but he answered heartily, "You must wait, Alec; you are too weak tosee even Boris. "

I waited and I grew strong; in a few days I was able to see whom I would, but meanwhile I had thought and remembered. From the moment when all thepast grew clear again in my mind, I never doubted what I should do whenthe time came, and I felt sure that Boris would have resolved upon thesame course so far as he was concerned; as for what pertained to mealone, I knew he would see that also as I did. I no longer asked for anyone. I never inquired why no message came from them; why during the weekI lay there, waiting and growing stronger, I never heard their namespoken. Preoccupied with my own searchings for the right way, and with myfeeble but determined fight against despair, I simply acquiesced inJack's reticence, taking for granted that he was afraid to speak of them, lest I should turn unruly and insist on seeing them. Meanwhile I saidover and over to myself, how would it be when life began again for usall? We would take up our relations exactly as they were before Genevièvefell ill. Boris and I would look into each other's eyes, and there wouldbe neither rancour nor cowardice nor mistrust in that glance. I would bewith them again for a little while in the dear intimacy of their home, and then, without pretext or explanation, I would disappear from theirlives for ever. Boris would know; Geneviève--the only comfort was thatshe would never know. It seemed, as I thought it over, that I had foundthe meaning of that sense of obligation which had persisted all throughmy delirium, and the only possible answer to it. So, when I was quiteready, I beckoned Jack to me one day, and said--

"Jack, I want Boris at once; and take my dearest greeting toGeneviève. .. . "

When at last he made me understand that they were both dead, I fell intoa wild rage that tore all my little convalescent strength to atoms. Iraved and cursed myself into a relapse, from which I crawled forth someweeks afterward a boy of twenty-one who believed that his youth was gonefor ever. I seemed to be past the capability of further suffering, andone day when Jack handed me a letter and the keys to Boris' house, I tookthem without a tremor and asked him to tell me all. It was cruel of me toask him, but there was no help for it, and he leaned wearily on his thinhands, to reopen the wound which could never entirely heal. He began veryquietly--

"Alec, unless you have a clue that I know nothing about, you will not beable to explain any more than I what has happened. I suspect that youwould rather not hear these details, but you must learn them, else Iwould spare you the relation. God knows I wish I could be spared thetelling. I shall use few words. 

"That day when I left you in the doctor's care and came back to Boris, Ifound him working on the 'Fates. ' Geneviève, he said, was sleeping underthe influence of drugs. She had been quite out of her mind, he said. Hekept on working, not talking any more, and I watched him. Before long, Isaw that the third figure of the group--the one looking straight ahead, out over the world--bore his face; not as you ever saw it, but as itlooked then and to the end. This is one thing for which I should like tofind an explanation, but I never shall. 

"Well, he worked and I watched him in silence, and we went on that wayuntil nearly midnight. Then we heard the door open and shut sharply, anda swift rush in the next room. Boris sprang through the doorway and Ifollowed; but we were too late. She lay at the bottom of the pool, herhands across her breast. Then Boris shot himself through the heart. " Jackstopped speaking, drops of sweat stood under his eyes, and his thincheeks twitched. "I carried Boris to his room. Then I went back and letthat hellish fluid out of the pool, and turning on all the water, washedthe marble clean of every drop. When at length I dared descend the steps, I found her lying there as white as snow. At last, when I had decidedwhat was best to do, I went into the laboratory, and first emptied thesolution in the basin into the waste-pipe; then I poured the contents ofevery jar and bottle after it. There was wood in the fire-place, so Ibuilt a fire, and breaking the locks of Boris' cabinet I burnt everypaper, notebook and letter that I found there. With a mallet from thestudio I smashed to pieces all the empty bottles, then loading them intoa coal-scuttle, I carried them to the cellar and threw them over thered-hot bed of the furnace. Six times I made the journey, and at last, not a vestige remained of anything which might again aid in seeking forthe formula which Boris had found. Then at last I dared call the doctor. He is a good man, and together we struggled to keep it from the public. Without him I never could have succeeded. At last we got the servantspaid and sent away into the country, where old Rosier keeps them quietwith stones of Boris' and Geneviève's travels in distant lands, fromwhence they will not return for years. We buried Boris in the littlecemetery of Sèvres. The doctor is a good creature, and knows when to pitya man who can bear no more. He gave his certificate of heart disease andasked no questions of me. "

Then, lifting his head from his hands, he said, "Open the letter, Alec;it is for us both. "

I tore it open. It was Boris' will dated a year before. He lefteverything to Geneviève, and in case of her dying childless, I was totake control of the house in the Rue Sainte-Cécile, and Jack Scott themanagement at Ept. On our deaths the property reverted to his mother'sfamily in Russia, with the exception of the sculptured marbles executedby himself. These he left to me. 

The page blurred under our eyes, and Jack got up and walked to thewindow. Presently he returned and sat down again. I dreaded to hear whathe was going to say, but he spoke with the same simplicity andgentleness. 

"Geneviève lies before the Madonna in the marble room. The Madonna bendstenderly above her, and Geneviève smiles back into that calm face thatnever would have been except for her. "

His voice broke, but he grasped my hand, saying, "Courage, Alec. " Nextmorning he left for Ept to fulfil his trust. 

IV

The same evening I took the keys and went into the house I had known sowell. Everything was in order, but the silence was terrible. Though Iwent twice to the door of the marble room, I could not force myself toenter. It was beyond my strength. I went into the smoking-room and satdown before the spinet. A small lace handkerchief lay on the keys, and Iturned away, choking. It was plain I could not stay, so I locked everydoor, every window, and the three front and back gates, and went away. Next morning Alcide packed my valise, and leaving him in charge of myapartments I took the Orient express for Constantinople. During the twoyears that I wandered through the East, at first, in our letters, wenever mentioned Geneviève and Boris, but gradually their names crept in. I recollect particularly a passage in one of Jack's letters replying toone of mine--

"What you tell me of seeing Boris bending over you while you lay ill, andfeeling his touch on your face, and hearing his voice, of course troublesme. This that you describe must have happened a fortnight after he died. I say to myself that you were dreaming, that it was part of yourdelirium, but the explanation does not satisfy me, nor would it you. "

Toward the end of the second year a letter came from Jack to me in Indiaso unlike anything that I had ever known of him that I decided to returnat once to Paris. He wrote: "I am well, and sell all my pictures asartists do who have no need of money. I have not a care of my own, but Iam more restless than if I had. I am unable to shake off a strangeanxiety about you. It is not apprehension, it is rather a breathlessexpectancy--of what, God knows! I can only say it is wearing me out. Nights I dream always of you and Boris. I can never recall anythingafterward, but I wake in the morning with my heart beating, and all daythe excitement increases until I fall asleep at night to recall the sameexperience. I am quite exhausted by it, and have determined to break upthis morbid condition. I must see you. Shall I go to Bombay, or will youcome to Paris?"

I telegraphed him to expect me by the next steamer. 

When we met I thought he had changed very little; I, he insisted, lookedin splendid health. It was good to hear his voice again, and as we satand chatted about what life still held for us, we felt that it waspleasant to be alive in the bright spring weather. 

We stayed in Paris together a week, and then I went for a week to Eptwith him, but first of all we went to the cemetery at Sèvres, where Borislay. 

"Shall we place the 'Fates' in the little grove above him?" Jack asked, and I answered--

"I think only the 'Madonna' should watch over Boris' grave. " But Jack wasnone the better for my home-coming. The dreams of which he could notretain even the least definite outline continued, and he said that attimes the sense of breathless expectancy was suffocating. 

"You see I do you harm and not good, " I said. "Try a change without me. "So he started alone for a ramble among the Channel Islands, and I wentback to Paris. I had not yet entered Boris' house, now mine, since myreturn, but I knew it must be done. It had been kept in order by Jack;there were servants there, so I gave up my own apartment and went thereto live. Instead of the agitation I had feared, I found myself able topaint there tranquilly. I visited all the rooms--all but one. I could notbring myself to enter the marble room where Geneviève lay, and yet I feltthe longing growing daily to look upon her face, to kneel beside her. 

One April afternoon, I lay dreaming in the smoking-room, just as I hadlain two years before, and mechanically I looked among the tawny Easternrugs for the wolf-skin. At last I distinguished the pointed ears and flatcruel head, and I thought of my dream where I saw Geneviève lying besideit. The helmets still hung against the threadbare tapestry, among themthe old Spanish morion which I remembered Geneviève had once put on whenwe were amusing ourselves with the ancient bits of mail. I turned my eyesto the spinet; every yellow key seemed eloquent of her caressing hand, and I rose, drawn by the strength of my life's passion to the sealed doorof the marble room. The heavy doors swung inward under my tremblinghands. Sunlight poured through the window, tipping with gold the wings ofCupid, and lingered like a nimbus over the brows of the Madonna. Hertender face bent in compassion over a marble form so exquisitely purethat I knelt and signed myself. Geneviève lay in the shadow under theMadonna, and yet, through her white arms, I saw the pale azure vein, andbeneath her softly clasped hands the folds of her dress were tinged withrose, as if from some faint warm light within her breast. 

Bending, with a breaking heart, I touched the marble drapery with mylips, then crept back into the silent house. 

A maid came and brought me a letter, and I sat down in the littleconservatory to read it; but as I was about to break the seal, seeing thegirl lingering, I asked her what she wanted. 

She stammered something about a white rabbit that had been caught in thehouse, and asked what should be done with it I told her to let it loosein the walled garden behind the house, and opened my letter. It was fromJack, but so incoherent that I thought he must have lost his reason. Itwas nothing but a series of prayers to me not to leave the house until hecould get back; he could not tell me why, there were the dreams, hesaid--he could explain nothing, but he was sure that I must not leave thehouse in the Rue Sainte-Cécile. 

As I finished reading I raised my eyes and saw the same maid-servantstanding in the doorway holding a glass dish in which two gold-fish wereswimming: "Put them back into the tank and tell me what you mean byinterrupting me, " I said. 

With a half-suppressed whimper she emptied water and fish into anaquarium at the end of the conservatory, and turning to me asked mypermission to leave my service. She said people were playing tricks onher, evidently with a design of getting her into trouble; the marblerabbit had been stolen and a live one had been brought into the house;the two beautiful marble fish were gone, and she had just found thosecommon live things flopping on the dining-room floor. I reassured her andsent her away, saying I would look about myself. I went into the studio;there was nothing there but my canvases and some casts, except the marbleof the Easter lily. I saw it on a table across the room. Then I strodeangrily over to it. But the flower I lifted from the table was fresh andfragile and filled the air with perfume. 

Then suddenly I comprehended, and sprang through the hall-way to themarble room. The doors flew open, the sunlight streamed into my face, andthrough it, in a heavenly glory, the Madonna smiled, as Geneviève liftedher flushed face from her marble couch and opened her sleepy eyes. 

IN THE COURT OF THE DRAGON

 "Oh, thou who burn'st in heart for those who burn In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn; How long be crying--'Mercy on them. ' God! Why, who art thou to teach and He to learn?"

In the Church of St. Barnabé vespers were over; the clergy left thealtar; the little choir-boys flocked across the chancel and settled inthe stalls. A Suisse in rich uniform marched down the south aisle, sounding his staff at every fourth step on the stone pavement; behind himcame that eloquent preacher and good man, Monseigneur C----. 

My chair was near the chancel rail, I now turned toward the west end ofthe church. The other people between the altar and the pulpit turned too. There was a little scraping and rustling while the congregation seateditself again; the preacher mounted the pulpit stairs, and the organvoluntary ceased. 

I had always found the organ-playing at St. Barnabé highly interesting. Learned and scientific it was, too much so for my small knowledge, butexpressing a vivid if cold intelligence. Moreover, it possessed theFrench quality of taste: taste reigned supreme, self-controlled, dignified and reticent. 

To-day, however, from the first chord I had felt a change for the worse, a sinister change. During vespers it had been chiefly the chancel organwhich supported the beautiful choir, but now and again, quite wantonly asit seemed, from the west gallery where the great organ stands, a heavyhand had struck across the church at the serene peace of those clearvoices. It was something more than harsh and dissonant, and it betrayedno lack of skill. As it recurred again and again, it set me thinking ofwhat my architect's books say about the custom in early times toconsecrate the choir as soon as it was built, and that the nave, beingfinished sometimes half a century later, often did not get any blessingat all: I wondered idly if that had been the case at St. Barnabé, andwhether something not usually supposed to be at home in a Christianchurch might have entered undetected and taken possession of the westgallery. I had read of such things happening, too, but not in works onarchitecture. 

Then I remembered that St. Barnabé was not much more than a hundred yearsold, and smiled at the incongruous association of mediaeval superstitionswith that cheerful little piece of eighteenth-century rococo. 

But now vespers were over, and there should have followed a few quietchords, fit to accompany meditation, while we waited for the sermon. Instead of that, the discord at the lower end of the church broke outwith the departure of the clergy, as if now nothing could control it. 

I belong to those children of an older and simpler generation who do notlove to seek for psychological subtleties in art; and I have ever refusedto find in music anything more than melody and harmony, but I felt thatin the labyrinth of sounds now issuing from that instrument there wassomething being hunted. Up and down the pedals chased him, while themanuals blared approval. Poor devil! whoever he was, there seemed smallhope of escape!

My nervous annoyance changed to anger. Who was doing this? How dare heplay like that in the midst of divine service? I glanced at the peoplenear me: not one appeared to be in the least disturbed. The placid browsof the kneeling nuns, still turned towards the altar, lost none of theirdevout abstraction under the pale shadow of their white head-dress. Thefashionable lady beside me was looking expectantly at Monseigneur C----. For all her face betrayed, the organ might have been singing an AveMaria. 

But now, at last, the preacher had made the sign of the cross, andcommanded silence. I turned to him gladly. Thus far I had not found therest I had counted on when I entered St. Barnabé that afternoon. 

I was worn out by three nights of physical suffering and mental trouble:the last had been the worst, and it was an exhausted body, and a mindbenumbed and yet acutely sensitive, which I had brought to my favouritechurch for healing. For I had been reading _The King in Yellow_. 

"The sun ariseth; they gather themselves together and lay them down intheir dens. " Monseigneur C---- delivered his text in a calm voice, glancing quietly over the congregation. My eyes turned, I knew not why, toward the lower end of the church. The organist was coming from behindhis pipes, and passing along the gallery on his way out, I saw himdisappear by a small door that leads to some stairs which descenddirectly to the street. He was a slender man, and his face was as whiteas his coat was black. "Good riddance!" I thought, "with your wickedmusic! I hope your assistant will play the closing voluntary. "

With a feeling of relief--with a deep, calm feeling of relief, I turnedback to the mild face in the pulpit and settled myself to listen. Here, at last, was the ease of mind I longed for. 

"My children, " said the preacher, "one truth the human soul finds hardestof all to learn: that it has nothing to fear. It can never be made to seethat nothing can really harm it. "

"Curious doctrine!" I thought, "for a Catholic priest. Let us see how hewill reconcile that with the Fathers. "

"Nothing can really harm the soul, " he went on, in, his coolest, clearesttones, "because----"

But I never heard the rest; my eye left his face, I knew not for whatreason, and sought the lower end of the church. The same man was comingout from behind the organ, and was passing along the gallery _the sameway_. But there had not been time for him to return, and if he hadreturned, I must have seen him. I felt a faint chill, and my heart sank;and yet, his going and coming were no affair of mine. I looked at him: Icould not look away from his black figure and his white face. When he wasexactly opposite to me, he turned and sent across the church straightinto my eyes, a look of hate, intense and deadly: I have never seen anyother like it; would to God I might never see it again! Then hedisappeared by the same door through which I had watched him depart lessthan sixty seconds before. 

I sat and tried to collect my thoughts. My first sensation was like thatof a very young child badly hurt, when it catches its breath beforecrying out. 

To suddenly find myself the object of such hatred was exquisitelypainful: and this man was an utter stranger. Why should he hate meso?--me, whom he had never seen before? For the moment all othersensation was merged in this one pang: even fear was subordinate togrief, and for that moment I never doubted; but in the next I began toreason, and a sense of the incongruous came to my aid. 

As I have said, St. Barnabé is a modern church. It is small and welllighted; one sees all over it almost at a glance. The organ gallery getsa strong white light from a row of long windows in the clerestory, whichhave not even coloured glass. 

The pulpit being in the middle of the church, it followed that, when Iwas turned toward it, whatever moved at the west end could not fail toattract my eye. When the organist passed it was no wonder that I saw him:I had simply miscalculated the interval between his first and his secondpassing. He had come in that last time by the other side-door. As for thelook which had so upset me, there had been no such thing, and I was anervous fool. 

I looked about. This was a likely place to harbour supernatural horrors!That clear-cut, reasonable face of Monseigneur C----, his collectedmanner and easy, graceful gestures, were they not just a littlediscouraging to the notion of a gruesome mystery? I glanced above hishead, and almost laughed. That flyaway lady supporting one corner of thepulpit canopy, which looked like a fringed damask table-cloth in a highwind, at the first attempt of a basilisk to pose up there in the organloft, she would point her gold trumpet at him, and puff him out ofexistence! I laughed to myself over this conceit, which, at the time, Ithought very amusing, and sat and chaffed myself and everything else, from the old harpy outside the railing, who had made me pay ten centimesfor my chair, before she would let me in (she was more like a basilisk, Itold myself, than was my organist with the anaemic complexion): from thatgrim old dame, to, yes, alas! Monseigneur C---- himself. For alldevoutness had fled. I had never yet done such a thing in my life, butnow I felt a desire to mock. 

As for the sermon, I could not hear a word of it for the jingle in myears of

 "The skirts of St. Paul has reached. Having preached us those six Lent lectures, More unctuous than ever he preached, "

keeping time to the most fantastic and irreverent thoughts. 

It was no use to sit there any longer: I must get out of doors and shakemyself free from this hateful mood. I knew the rudeness I was committing, but still I rose and left the church. 

A spring sun was shining on the Rue St. Honoré, as I ran down the churchsteps. On one corner stood a barrow full of yellow jonquils, pale violetsfrom the Riviera, dark Russian violets, and white Roman hyacinths in agolden cloud of mimosa. The street was full of Sunday pleasure-seekers. Iswung my cane and laughed with the rest. Some one overtook and passed me. He never turned, but there was the same deadly malignity in his whiteprofile that there had been in his eyes. I watched him as long as I couldsee him. His lithe back expressed the same menace; every step thatcarried him away from me seemed to bear him on some errand connected withmy destruction. 

I was creeping along, my feet almost refusing to move. There began todawn in me a sense of responsibility for something long forgotten. Itbegan to seem as if I deserved that which he threatened: it reached along way back--a long, long way back. It had lain dormant all theseyears: it was there, though, and presently it would rise and confront me. But I would try to escape; and I stumbled as best I could into the Rue deRivoli, across the Place de la Concorde and on to the Quai. I looked withsick eyes upon the sun, shining through the white foam of the fountain, pouring over the backs of the dusky bronze river-gods, on the far-awayArc, a structure of amethyst mist, on the countless vistas of grey stemsand bare branches faintly green. Then I saw him again coming down one ofthe chestnut alleys of the Cours la Reine. 

I left the river-side, plunged blindly across to the Champs Elysées andturned toward the Arc. The setting sun was sending its rays along thegreen sward of the Rond-point: in the full glow he sat on a bench, children and young mothers all about him. He was nothing but a Sundaylounger, like the others, like myself. I said the words almost aloud, andall the while I gazed on the malignant hatred of his face. But he was notlooking at me. I crept past and dragged my leaden feet up the Avenue. Iknew that every time I met him brought him nearer to the accomplishmentof his purpose and my fate. And still I tried to save myself. 

The last rays of sunset were pouring through the great Arc. I passedunder it, and met him face to face. I had left him far down the ChampsElysées, and yet he came in with a stream of people who were returningfrom the Bois de Boulogne. He came so close that he brushed me. Hisslender frame felt like iron inside its loose black covering. He showedno signs of haste, nor of fatigue, nor of any human feeling. His wholebeing expressed one thing: the will, and the power to work me evil. 

In anguish I watched him where he went down the broad crowded Avenue, that was all flashing with wheels and the trappings of horses and thehelmets of the Garde Republicaine. 

He was soon lost to sight; then I turned and fled. Into the Bois, and farout beyond it--I know not where I went, but after a long while as itseemed to me, night had fallen, and I found myself sitting at a tablebefore a small café. I had wandered back into the Bois. It was hours nowsince I had seen him. Physical fatigue and mental suffering had left meno power to think or feel. I was tired, so tired! I longed to hide awayin my own den. I resolved to go home. But that was a long way off. 

I live in the Court of the Dragon, a narrow passage that leads from theRue de Rennes to the Rue du Dragon. 

It is an "impasse"; traversable only for foot passengers. Over theentrance on the Rue de Rennes is a balcony, supported by an iron dragon. Within the court tall old houses rise on either side, and close the endsthat give on the two streets. Huge gates, swung back during the day intothe walls of the deep archways, close this court, after midnight, and onemust enter then by ringing at certain small doors on the side. The sunkenpavement collects unsavoury pools. Steep stairways pitch down to doorsthat open on the court. The ground floors are occupied by shops ofsecond-hand dealers, and by iron workers. All day long the place ringswith the clink of hammers and the clang of metal bars. 

Unsavoury as it is below, there is cheerfulness, and comfort, and hard, honest work above. 

Five flights up are the ateliers of architects and painters, and thehiding-places of middle-aged students like myself who want to live alone. When I first came here to live I was young, and not alone. 

I had to walk a while before any conveyance appeared, but at last, when Ihad almost reached the Arc de Triomphe again, an empty cab came along andI took it. 

From the Arc to the Rue de Rennes is a drive of more than half an hour, especially when one is conveyed by a tired cab horse that has been at themercy of Sunday fete-makers. 

There had been time before I passed under the Dragon's wings to meet myenemy over and over again, but I never saw him once, and now refuge wasclose at hand. 

Before the wide gateway a small mob of children were playing. Ourconcierge and his wife walked among them, with their black poodle, keeping order; some couples were waltzing on the side-walk. I returnedtheir greetings and hurried in. 

All the inhabitants of the court had trooped out into the street. Theplace was quite deserted, lighted by a few lanterns hung high up, inwhich the gas burned dimly. 

My apartment was at the top of a house, halfway down the court, reachedby a staircase that descended almost into the street, with only a bit ofpassage-way intervening, I set my foot on the threshold of the open door, the friendly old ruinous stairs rose before me, leading up to rest andshelter. Looking back over my right shoulder, I saw _him, _ ten pacesoff. He must have entered the court with me. 

He was coming straight on, neither slowly, nor swiftly, but straight onto me. And now he was looking at me. For the first time since our eyesencountered across the church they met now again, and I knew that thetime had come. 

Retreating backward, down the court, I faced him. I meant to escape bythe entrance on the Rue du Dragon. His eyes told me that I never shouldescape. 

It seemed ages while we were going, I retreating, he advancing, down thecourt in perfect silence; but at last I felt the shadow of the archway, and the next step brought me within it. I had meant to turn here andspring through into the street. But the shadow was not that of anarchway; it was that of a vault. The great doors on the Rue du Dragonwere closed. I felt this by the blackness which surrounded me, and at thesame instant I read it in his face. How his face gleamed in the darkness, drawing swiftly nearer! The deep vaults, the huge closed doors, theircold iron clamps were all on his side. The thing which he had threatenedhad arrived: it gathered and bore down on me from the fathomless shadows;the point from which it would strike was his infernal eyes. Hopeless, Iset my back against the barred doors and defied him. 

There was a scraping of chairs on the stone floor, and a rustling as thecongregation rose. I could hear the Suisse's staff in the south aisle, preceding Monseigneur C---- to the sacristy. 

The kneeling nuns, roused from their devout abstraction, made theirreverence and went away. The fashionable lady, my neighbour, rose also, with graceful reserve. As she departed her glance just flitted over myface in disapproval. 

Half dead, or so it seemed to me, yet intensely alive to every trifle, Isat among the leisurely moving crowd, then rose too and went toward thedoor. 

I had slept through the sermon. Had I slept through the sermon? I lookedup and saw him passing along the gallery to his place. Only his side Isaw; the thin bent arm in its black covering looked like one of thosedevilish, nameless instruments which lie in the disused torture-chambersof mediaeval castles. 

But I had escaped him, though his eyes had said I should not. _Had_I escaped him? That which gave him the power over me came back out ofoblivion, where I had hoped to keep it. For I knew him now. Death and theawful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago had senthim--they had changed him for every other eye, but not for mine. I hadrecognized him almost from the first; I had never doubted what he wascome to do; and now I knew while my body sat safe in the cheerful littlechurch, he had been hunting my soul in the Court of the Dragon. 

I crept to the door: the organ broke out overhead with a blare. Adazzling light filled the church, blotting the altar from my eyes. Thepeople faded away, the arches, the vaulted roof vanished. I raised myseared eyes to the fathomless glare, and I saw the black stars hanging inthe heavens: and the wet winds from the lake of Hali chilled my face. 

And now, far away, over leagues of tossing cloud-waves, I saw the moondripping with spray; and beyond, the towers of Carcosa rose behind themoon. 

Death and the awful abode of lost souls, whither my weakness long ago hadsent him, had changed him for every other eye but mine. And now I heard_his voice_, rising, swelling, thundering through the flaring light, and as I fell, the radiance increasing, increasing, poured over me inwaves of flame. Then I sank into the depths, and I heard the King inYellow whispering to my soul: "It is a fearful thing to fall into thehands of the living God!"

THE YELLOW SIGN

 "Let the red dawn surmise What we shall do, When this blue starlight dies And all is through. "

I

There are so many things which are impossible to explain! Why shouldcertain chords in music make me think of the brown and golden tints ofautumn foliage? Why should the Mass of Sainte Cécile bend my thoughtswandering among caverns whose walls blaze with ragged masses of virginsilver? What was it in the roar and turmoil of Broadway at six o'clockthat flashed before my eyes the picture of a still Breton forest wheresunlight filtered through spring foliage and Sylvia bent, half curiously, half tenderly, over a small green lizard, murmuring: "To think that thisalso is a little ward of God!"

When I first saw the watchman his back was toward me. I looked at himindifferently until he went into the church. I paid no more attention tohim than I had to any other man who lounged through Washington Squarethat morning, and when I shut my window and turned back into my studio Ihad forgotten him. Late in the afternoon, the day being warm, I raisedthe window again and leaned out to get a sniff of air. A man was standingin the courtyard of the church, and I noticed him again with as littleinterest as I had that morning. I looked across the square to where thefountain was playing and then, with my mind filled with vague impressionsof trees, asphalt drives, and the moving groups of nursemaids andholiday-makers, I started to walk back to my easel. As I turned, mylistless glance included the man below in the churchyard. His face wastoward me now, and with a perfectly involuntary movement I bent to seeit. At the same moment he raised his head and looked at me. Instantly Ithought of a coffin-worm. Whatever it was about the man that repelled meI did not know, but the impression of a plump white grave-worm was sointense and nauseating that I must have shown it in my expression, for heturned his puffy face away with a movement which made me think of adisturbed grub in a chestnut. 

I went back to my easel and motioned the model to resume her pose. Afterworking a while I was satisfied that I was spoiling what I had done asrapidly as possible, and I took up a palette knife and scraped the colourout again. The flesh tones were sallow and unhealthy, and I did notunderstand how I could have painted such sickly colour into a study whichbefore that had glowed with healthy tones. 

I looked at Tessie. She had not changed, and the clear flush of healthdyed her neck and cheeks as I frowned. 

"Is it something I've done?" she said. 

"No, --I've made a mess of this arm, and for the life of me I can't seehow I came to paint such mud as that into the canvas, " I replied. 

"Don't I pose well?" she insisted. 

"Of course, perfectly. "

"Then it's not my fault?"

"No. It's my own. "

"I am very sorry, " she said. 

I told her she could rest while I applied rag and turpentine to theplague spot on my canvas, and she went off to smoke a cigarette and lookover the illustrations in the _Courrier Français_. 

I did not know whether it was something in the turpentine or a defect inthe canvas, but the more I scrubbed the more that gangrene seemed tospread. I worked like a beaver to get it out, and yet the diseaseappeared to creep from limb to limb of the study before me. Alarmed, Istrove to arrest it, but now the colour on the breast changed and thewhole figure seemed to absorb the infection as a sponge soaks up water. Vigorously I plied palette-knife, turpentine, and scraper, thinking allthe time what a _séance_ I should hold with Duval who had sold methe canvas; but soon I noticed that it was not the canvas which wasdefective nor yet the colours of Edward. "It must be the turpentine, " Ithought angrily, "or else my eyes have become so blurred and confused bythe afternoon light that I can't see straight. " I called Tessie, themodel. She came and leaned over my chair blowing rings of smoke into theair. 

"What _have_ you been doing to it?" she exclaimed

"Nothing, " I growled, "it must be this turpentine!"

"What a horrible colour it is now, " she continued. "Do you think my fleshresembles green cheese?"

"No, I don't, " I said angrily; "did you ever know me to paint like thatbefore?"

"No, indeed!"

"Well, then!"

"It must be the turpentine, or something, " she admitted. 

She slipped on a Japanese robe and walked to the window. I scraped andrubbed until I was tired, and finally picked up my brushes and hurledthem through the canvas with a forcible expression, the tone alone ofwhich reached Tessie's ears. 

Nevertheless she promptly began: "That's it! Swear and act silly and ruinyour brushes! You have been three weeks on that study, and now look!What's the good of ripping the canvas? What creatures artists are!"

I felt about as much ashamed as I usually did after such an outbreak, andI turned the ruined canvas to the wall. Tessie helped me clean mybrushes, and then danced away to dress. From the screen she regaled mewith bits of advice concerning whole or partial loss of temper, until, thinking, perhaps, I had been tormented sufficiently, she came out toimplore me to button her waist where she could not reach it on theshoulder. 

"Everything went wrong from the time you came back from the window andtalked about that horrid-looking man you saw in the churchyard, " sheannounced. 

"Yes, he probably bewitched the picture, " I said, yawning. I looked at mywatch. 

"It's after six, I know, " said Tessie, adjusting her hat before themirror. 

"Yes, " I replied, "I didn't mean to keep you so long. " I leaned out ofthe window but recoiled with disgust, for the young man with the pastyface stood below in the churchyard. Tessie saw my gesture of disapprovaland leaned from the window. 

"Is that the man you don't like?" she whispered. 

I nodded. 

"I can't see his face, but he does look fat and soft. Someway or other, "she continued, turning to look at me, "he reminds me of a dream, --anawful dream I once had. Or, " she mused, looking down at her shapelyshoes, "was it a dream after all?"

"How should I know?" I smiled. 

Tessie smiled in reply. 

"You were in it, " she said, "so perhaps you might know something aboutit. "

"Tessie! Tessie!" I protested, "don't you dare flatter by saying that youdream about me!"

"But I did, " she insisted; "shall I tell you about it?"

"Go ahead, " I replied, lighting a cigarette. 

Tessie leaned back on the open window-sill and began very seriously. 

"One night last winter I was lying in bed thinking about nothing at allin particular. I had been posing for you and I was tired out, yet itseemed impossible for me to sleep. I heard the bells in the city ringten, eleven, and midnight. I must have fallen asleep about midnightbecause I don't remember hearing the bells after that. It seemed to methat I had scarcely closed my eyes when I dreamed that something impelledme to go to the window. I rose, and raising the sash leaned out. Twenty-fifth Street was deserted as far as I could see. I began to beafraid; everything outside seemed so--so black and uncomfortable. Thenthe sound of wheels in the distance came to my ears, and it seemed to meas though that was what I must wait for. Very slowly the wheelsapproached, and, finally, I could make out a vehicle moving along thestreet. It came nearer and nearer, and when it passed beneath my window Isaw it was a hearse. Then, as I trembled with fear, the driver turned andlooked straight at me. When I awoke I was standing by the open windowshivering with cold, but the black-plumed hearse and the driver weregone. I dreamed this dream again in March last, and again awoke besidethe open window. Last night the dream came again. You remember how it wasraining; when I awoke, standing at the open window, my night-dress wassoaked. "

"But where did I come into the dream?" I asked. 

"You--you were in the coffin; but you were not dead. "

"In the coffin?"

"Yes. "

"How did you know? Could you see me?"

"No; I only knew you were there. "

"Had you been eating Welsh rarebits, or lobster salad?" I began, laughing, but the girl interrupted me with a frightened cry. 

"Hello! What's up?" I said, as she shrank into the embrasure by thewindow. 

"The--the man below in the churchyard;--he drove the hearse. "

"Nonsense, " I said, but Tessie's eyes were wide with terror. I went tothe window and looked out. The man was gone. "Come, Tessie, " I urged, "don't be foolish. You have posed too long; you are nervous. "

"Do you think I could forget that face?" she murmured. "Three times I sawthe hearse pass below my window, and every time the driver turned andlooked up at me. Oh, his face was so white and--and soft? It lookeddead--it looked as if it had been dead a long time. "

I induced the girl to sit down and swallow a glass of Marsala. Then I satdown beside her, and tried to give her some advice. 

"Look here, Tessie, " I said, "you go to the country for a week or two, and you'll have no more dreams about hearses. You pose all day, and whennight comes your nerves are upset. You can't keep this up. Then again, instead of going to bed when your day's work is done, you run off topicnics at Sulzer's Park, or go to the Eldorado or Coney Island, and whenyou come down here next morning you are fagged out. There was no realhearse. There was a soft-shell crab dream. "

She smiled faintly. 

"What about the man in the churchyard?"

"Oh, he's only an ordinary unhealthy, everyday creature. "

"As true as my name is Tessie Reardon, I swear to you, Mr. Scott, thatthe face of the man below in the churchyard is the face of the man whodrove the hearse!"

"What of it?" I said. "It's an honest trade. "

"Then you think I _did_ see the hearse?"

"Oh, " I said diplomatically, "if you really did, it might not be unlikelythat the man below drove it. There is nothing in that. "

Tessie rose, unrolled her scented handkerchief, and taking a bit of gumfrom a knot in the hem, placed it in her mouth. Then drawing on hergloves she offered me her hand, with a frank, "Good-night, Mr. Scott, "and walked out. 

II

The next morning, Thomas, the bell-boy, brought me the _Herald_ anda bit of news. The church next door had been sold. I thanked Heaven forit, not that being a Catholic I had any repugnance for the congregationnext door, but because my nerves were shattered by a blatant exhorter, whose every word echoed through the aisle of the church as if it had beenmy own rooms, and who insisted on his r's with a nasal persistence whichrevolted my every instinct. Then, too, there was a fiend in human shape, an organist, who reeled off some of the grand old hymns with aninterpretation of his own, and I longed for the blood of a creature whocould play the doxology with an amendment of minor chords which one hearsonly in a quartet of very young undergraduates. I believe the ministerwas a good man, but when he bellowed: "And the Lorrrrd said unto Moses, the Lorrrd is a man of war; the Lorrrd is his name. My wrath shall waxhot and I will kill you with the sworrrrd!" I wondered how many centuriesof purgatory it would take to atone for such a sin. 

"Who bought the property?" I asked Thomas. 

"Nobody that I knows, sir. They do say the gent wot owns this 'ere'Amilton flats was lookin' at it. 'E might be a bildin' more studios. "

I walked to the window. The young man with the unhealthy face stood bythe churchyard gate, and at the mere sight of him the same overwhelmingrepugnance took possession of me. 

"By the way, Thomas, " I said, "who is that fellow down there?"

Thomas sniffed. "That there worm, sir? 'Es night-watchman of the church, sir. 'E maikes me tired a-sittin' out all night on them steps and lookin'at you insultin' like. I'd a punched 'is 'ed, sir--beg pardon, sir--"

"Go on, Thomas. "

"One night a comin' 'ome with Arry, the other English boy, I sees 'im asittin' there on them steps. We 'ad Molly and Jen with us, sir, the twogirls on the tray service, an' 'e looks so insultin' at us that I up andsez: 'Wat you looking hat, you fat slug?'--beg pardon, sir, but that's'ow I sez, sir. Then 'e don't say nothin' and I sez: 'Come out and I'llpunch that puddin' 'ed. ' Then I hopens the gate an' goes in, but 'e don'tsay nothin', only looks insultin' like. Then I 'its 'im one, but, ugh!'is 'ed was that cold and mushy it ud sicken you to touch 'im. "

"What did he do then?" I asked curiously. 

"'Im? Nawthin'. "

"And you, Thomas?"

The young fellow flushed with embarrassment and smiled uneasily. 

"Mr. Scott, sir, I ain't no coward, an' I can't make it out at all why Irun. I was in the 5th Lawncers, sir, bugler at Tel-el-Kebir, an' was shotby the wells. "

"You don't mean to say you ran away?"

"Yes, sir; I run. "

"Why?"

"That's just what I want to know, sir. I grabbed Molly an' run, an' therest was as frightened as I. "

"But what were they frightened at?"

Thomas refused to answer for a while, but now my curiosity was arousedabout the repulsive young man below and I pressed him. Three years'sojourn in America had not only modified Thomas' cockney dialect but hadgiven him the American's fear of ridicule. 

"You won't believe me, Mr. Scott, sir?"

"Yes, I will. "

"You will lawf at me, sir?"

"Nonsense!"

He hesitated. "Well, sir, it's Gawd's truth that when I 'it 'im 'egrabbed me wrists, sir, and when I twisted 'is soft, mushy fist one of'is fingers come off in me 'and. "

The utter loathing and horror of Thomas' face must have been reflected inmy own, for he added:

"It's orful, an' now when I see 'im I just go away. 'E maikes me hill. "

When Thomas had gone I went to the window. The man stood beside thechurch-railing with both hands on the gate, but I hastily retreated to myeasel again, sickened and horrified, for I saw that the middle finger ofhis right hand was missing. 

At nine o'clock Tessie appeared and vanished behind the screen with amerry "Good morning, Mr. Scott. " When she had reappeared and taken herpose upon the model-stand I started a new canvas, much to her delight. She remained silent as long as I was on the drawing, but as soon as thescrape of the charcoal ceased and I took up my fixative she began tochatter. 

"Oh, I had such a lovely time last night. We went to Tony Pastor's. "

"Who are 'we'?" I demanded. 

"Oh, Maggie, you know, Mr. Whyte's model, and Pinkie McCormick--we callher Pinkie because she's got that beautiful red hair you artists like somuch--and Lizzie Burke. "

I sent a shower of spray from the fixative over the canvas, and said:"Well, go on. "

"We saw Kelly and Baby Barnes the skirt-dancer and--and all the rest. Imade a mash. "

"Then you have gone back on me, Tessie?"

She laughed and shook her head. 

"He's Lizzie Burke's brother, Ed. He's a perfect gen'l'man. "

I felt constrained to give her some parental advice concerning mashing, which she took with a bright smile. 

"Oh, I can take care of a strange mash, " she said, examining her chewinggum, "but Ed is different. Lizzie is my best friend. "

Then she related how Ed had come back from the stocking mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, to find her and Lizzie grown up, and what an accomplishedyoung man he was, and how he thought nothing of squandering half-a-dollarfor ice-cream and oysters to celebrate his entry as clerk into thewoollen department of Macy's. Before she finished I began to paint, andshe resumed the pose, smiling and chattering like a sparrow. By noon Ihad the study fairly well rubbed in and Tessie came to look at it. 

"That's better, " she said. 

I thought so too, and ate my lunch with a satisfied feeling that all wasgoing well. Tessie spread her lunch on a drawing table opposite me and wedrank our claret from the same bottle and lighted our cigarettes from thesame match. I was very much attached to Tessie. I had watched her shootup into a slender but exquisitely formed woman from a frail, awkwardchild. She had posed for me during the last three years, and among all mymodels she was my favourite. It would have troubled me very much indeedhad she become "tough" or "fly, " as the phrase goes, but I never noticedany deterioration of her manner, and felt at heart that she was allright. She and I never discussed morals at all, and I had no intention ofdoing so, partly because I had none myself, and partly because I knew shewould do what she liked in spite of me. Still I did hope she would steerclear of complications, because I wished her well, and then also I had aselfish desire to retain the best model I had. I knew that mashing, asshe termed it, had no significance with girls like Tessie, and that suchthings in America did not resemble in the least the same things in Paris. Yet, having lived with my eyes open, I also knew that somebody would takeTessie away some day, in one manner or another, and though I professed tomyself that marriage was nonsense, I sincerely hoped that, in this case, there would be a priest at the end of the vista. I am a Catholic. When Ilisten to high mass, when I sign myself, I feel that everything, including myself, is more cheerful, and when I confess, it does me good. A man who lives as much alone as I do, must confess to somebody. Then, again, Sylvia was Catholic, and it was reason enough for me. But I wasspeaking of Tessie, which is very different. Tessie also was Catholic andmuch more devout than I, so, taking it all in all, I had little fear formy pretty model until she should fall in love. But _then_ I knewthat fate alone would decide her future for her, and I prayed inwardlythat fate would keep her away from men like me and throw into her pathnothing but Ed Burkes and Jimmy McCormicks, bless her sweet face!

Tessie sat blowing rings of smoke up to the ceiling and tinkling the icein her tumbler. 

"Do you know that I also had a dream last night?" I observed. 

"Not about that man, " she laughed. 

"Exactly. A dream similar to yours, only much worse. "

It was foolish and thoughtless of me to say this, but you know how littletact the average painter has. "I must have fallen asleep about teno'clock, " I continued, "and after a while I dreamt that I awoke. Soplainly did I hear the midnight bells, the wind in the tree-branches, andthe whistle of steamers from the bay, that even now I can scarcelybelieve I was not awake. I seemed to be lying in a box which had a glasscover. Dimly I saw the street lamps as I passed, for I must tell you, Tessie, the box in which I reclined appeared to lie in a cushioned wagonwhich jolted me over a stony pavement. After a while I became impatientand tried to move, but the box was too narrow. My hands were crossed onmy breast, so I could not raise them to help myself. I listened and thentried to call. My voice was gone. I could hear the trample of the horsesattached to the wagon, and even the breathing of the driver. Then anothersound broke upon my ears like the raising of a window sash. I managed toturn my head a little, and found I could look, not only through the glasscover of my box, but also through the glass panes in the side of thecovered vehicle. I saw houses, empty and silent, with neither light norlife about any of them excepting one. In that house a window was open onthe first floor, and a figure all in white stood looking down into thestreet. It was you. "

Tessie had turned her face away from me and leaned on the table with herelbow. 

"I could see your face, " I resumed, "and it seemed to me to be verysorrowful. Then we passed on and turned into a narrow black lane. Presently the horses stopped. I waited and waited, closing my eyes withear and impatience, but all was silent as the grave. After what seemed tome hours, I began to feel uncomfortable. A sense that somebody was closeto me made me unclose my eyes. Then I saw the white face of thehearse-driver looking at me through the coffin-lid----"

A sob from Tessie interrupted me. She was trembling like a leaf. I saw Ihad made an ass of myself and attempted to repair the damage. 

"Why, Tess, " I said, "I only told you this to show you what influenceyour story might have on another person's dreams. You don't suppose Ireally lay in a coffin, do you? What are you trembling for? Don't you seethat your dream and my unreasonable dislike for that inoffensive watchmanof the church simply set my brain working as soon as I fell asleep?"

She laid her head between her arms, and sobbed as if her heart wouldbreak. What a precious triple donkey I had made of myself! But I wasabout to break my record. I went over and put my arm about her. 

"Tessie dear, forgive me, " I said; "I had no business to frighten youwith such nonsense. You are too sensible a girl, too good a Catholic tobelieve in dreams. "

Her hand tightened on mine and her head fell back upon my shoulder, butshe still trembled and I petted her and comforted her. 

"Come, Tess, open your eyes and smile. "

Her eyes opened with a slow languid movement and met mine, but theirexpression was so queer that I hastened to reassure her again. 

"It's all humbug, Tessie; you surely are not afraid that any harm willcome to you because of that. "

"No, " she said, but her scarlet lips quivered. 

"Then, what's the matter? Are you afraid?"

"Yes. Not for myself. "

"For me, then?" I demanded gaily. 

"For you, " she murmured in a voice almost inaudible. "I--I care for you. "

At first I started to laugh, but when I understood her, a shock passedthrough me, and I sat like one turned to stone. This was the crowning bitof idiocy I had committed. During the moment which elapsed between herreply and my answer I thought of a thousand responses to that innocentconfession. I could pass it by with a laugh, I could misunderstand herand assure her as to my health, I could simply point out that it wasimpossible she could love me. But my reply was quicker than my thoughts, and I might think and think now when it was too late, for I had kissedher on the mouth. 

That evening I took my usual walk in Washington Park, pondering over theoccurrences of the day. I was thoroughly committed. There was no back outnow, and I stared the future straight in the face. I was not good, noteven scrupulous, but I had no idea of deceiving either myself or Tessie. The one passion of my life lay buried in the sunlit forests of Brittany. Was it buried for ever? Hope cried "No!" For three years I had beenlistening to the voice of Hope, and for three years I had waited for afootstep on my threshold. Had Sylvia forgotten? "No!" cried Hope. 

I said that I was no good. That is true, but still I was not exactly acomic opera villain. I had led an easy-going reckless life, taking whatinvited me of pleasure, deploring and sometimes bitterly regrettingconsequences. In one thing alone, except my painting, was I serious, andthat was something which lay hidden if not lost in the Breton forests. 

It was too late for me to regret what had occurred during the day. Whatever it had been, pity, a sudden tenderness for sorrow, or the morebrutal instinct of gratified vanity, it was all the same now, and unlessI wished to bruise an innocent heart, my path lay marked before me. Thefire and strength, the depth of passion of a love which I had never evensuspected, with all my imagined experience in the world, left me noalternative but to respond or send her away. Whether because I am socowardly about giving pain to others, or whether it was that I havelittle of the gloomy Puritan in me, I do not know, but I shrank fromdisclaiming responsibility for that thoughtless kiss, and in fact had notime to do so before the gates of her heart opened and the flood pouredforth. Others who habitually do their duty and find a sullen satisfactionin making themselves and everybody else unhappy, might have withstood it. I did not. I dared not. After the storm had abated I did tell her thatshe might better have loved Ed Burke and worn a plain gold ring, but shewould not hear of it, and I thought perhaps as long as she had decided tolove somebody she could not marry, it had better be me. I, at least, could treat her with an intelligent affection, and whenever she becametired of her infatuation she could go none the worse for it. For I wasdecided on that point although I knew how hard it would be. I rememberedthe usual termination of Platonic liaisons, and thought how disgusted Ihad been whenever I heard of one. I knew I was undertaking a great dealfor so unscrupulous a man as I was, and I dreamed the future, but neverfor one moment did I doubt that she was safe with me. Had it been anybodybut Tessie I should not have bothered my head about scruples. For it didnot occur to me to sacrifice Tessie as I would have sacrificed a woman ofthe world. I looked the future squarely in the face and saw the severalprobable endings to the affair. She would either tire of the whole thing, or become so unhappy that I should have either to marry her or go away. If I married her we would be unhappy. I with a wife unsuited to me, andshe with a husband unsuitable for any woman. For my past life couldscarcely entitle me to marry. If I went away she might either fall ill, recover, and marry some Eddie Burke, or she might recklessly ordeliberately go and do something foolish. On the other hand, if she tiredof me, then her whole life would be before her with beautiful vistas ofEddie Burkes and marriage rings and twins and Harlem flats and Heavenknows what. As I strolled along through the trees by the Washington Arch, I decided that she should find a substantial friend in me, anyway, andthe future could take care of itself. Then I went into the house and puton my evening dress, for the little faintly-perfumed note on my dressersaid, "Have a cab at the stage door at eleven, " and the note was signed"Edith Carmichel, Metropolitan Theatre. "

I took supper that night, or rather we took supper, Miss Carmichel and I, at Solari's, and the dawn was just beginning to gild the cross on theMemorial Church as I entered Washington Square after leaving Edith at theBrunswick. There was not a soul in the park as I passed along the treesand took the walk which leads from the Garibaldi statue to the HamiltonApartment House, but as I passed the churchyard I saw a figure sitting onthe stone steps. In spite of myself a chill crept over me at the sight ofthe white puffy face, and I hastened to pass. Then he said somethingwhich might have been addressed to me or might merely have been a mutterto himself, but a sudden furious anger flamed up within me that such acreature should address me. For an instant I felt like wheeling about andsmashing my stick over his head, but I walked on, and entering theHamilton went to my apartment. For some time I tossed about the bedtrying to get the sound of his voice out of my ears, but could not. Itfilled my head, that muttering sound, like thick oily smoke from afat-rendering vat or an odour of noisome decay. And as I lay and tossedabout, the voice in my ears seemed more distinct, and I began tounderstand the words he had muttered. They came to me slowly as if I hadforgotten them, and at last I could make some sense out of the sounds. Itwas this:

"Have you found the Yellow Sign?"

"Have you found the Yellow Sign?"

"Have you found the Yellow Sign?"

I was furious. What did he mean by that? Then with a curse upon him andhis I rolled over and went to sleep, but when I awoke later I looked paleand haggard, for I had dreamed the dream of the night before, and ittroubled me more than I cared to think. 

I dressed and went down into my studio. Tessie sat by the window, but asI came in she rose and put both arms around my neck for an innocent kiss. She looked so sweet and dainty that I kissed her again and then sat downbefore the easel. 

"Hello! Where's the study I began yesterday?" I asked. 

Tessie looked conscious, but did not answer. I began to hunt among thepiles of canvases, saying, "Hurry up, Tess, and get ready; we must takeadvantage of the morning light. "

When at last I gave up the search among the other canvases and turned tolook around the room for the missing study I noticed Tessie standing bythe screen with her clothes still on. 

"What's the matter, " I asked, "don't you feel well?"

"Yes. "

"Then hurry. "

"Do you want me to pose as--as I have always posed?"

Then I understood. Here was a new complication. I had lost, of course, the best nude model I had ever seen. I looked at Tessie. Her face wasscarlet. Alas! Alas! We had eaten of the tree of knowledge, and Eden andnative innocence were dreams of the past--I mean for her. 

I suppose she noticed the disappointment on my face, for she said: "Iwill pose if you wish. The study is behind the screen here where I putit. "

"No, " I said, "we will begin something new;" and I went into my wardrobeand picked out a Moorish costume which fairly blazed with tinsel. It wasa genuine costume, and Tessie retired to the screen with it enchanted. When she came forth again I was astonished. Her long black hair was boundabove her forehead with a circlet of turquoises, and the ends, curledabout her glittering girdle. Her feet were encased in the embroideredpointed slippers and the skirt of her costume, curiously wrought witharabesques in silver, fell to her ankles. The deep metallic blue vestembroidered with silver and the short Mauresque jacket spangled and sewnwith turquoises became her wonderfully. She came up to me and held up herface smiling. I slipped my hand into my pocket, and drawing out a goldchain with a cross attached, dropped it over her head. 

"It's yours, Tessie. "

"Mine?" she faltered. 

"Yours. Now go and pose, " Then with a radiant smile she ran behind thescreen and presently reappeared with a little box on which was written myname. 

"I had intended to give it to you when I went home to-night, " she said, "but I can't wait now. "

I opened the box. On the pink cotton inside lay a clasp of black onyx, onwhich was inlaid a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neitherArabic nor Chinese, nor, as I found afterwards, did it belong to anyhuman script. 

"It's all I had to give you for a keepsake, " she said timidly. 

I was annoyed, but I told her how much I should prize it, and promised towear it always. She fastened it on my coat beneath the lapel. 

"How foolish, Tess, to go and buy me such a beautiful thing as this, " Isaid. 

"I did not buy it, " she laughed. 

"Where did you get it?"

Then she told me how she had found it one day while coming from theAquarium in the Battery, how she had advertised it and watched thepapers, but at last gave up all hopes of finding the owner. 

"That was last winter, " she said, "the very day I had the first horriddream about the hearse. "

I remembered my dream of the previous night but said nothing, andpresently my charcoal was flying over a new canvas, and Tessie stoodmotionless on the model-stand. 

III

The day following was a disastrous one for me. While moving a framedcanvas from one easel to another my foot slipped on the polished floor, and I fell heavily on both wrists. They were so badly sprained that itwas useless to attempt to hold a brush, and I was obliged to wander aboutthe studio, glaring at unfinished drawings and sketches, until despairseized me and I sat down to smoke and twiddle my thumbs with rage. Therain blew against the windows and rattled on the roof of the church, driving me into a nervous fit with its interminable patter. Tessie satsewing by the window, and every now and then raised her head and lookedat me with such innocent compassion that I began to feel ashamed of myirritation and looked about for something to occupy me. I had read allthe papers and all the books in the library, but for the sake ofsomething to do I went to the bookcases and shoved them open with myelbow. I knew every volume by its colour and examined them all, passingslowly around the library and whistling to keep up my spirits. I wasturning to go into the dining-room when my eye fell upon a book bound inserpent skin, standing in a corner of the top shelf of the last bookcase. I did not remember it, and from the floor could not decipher the palelettering on the back, so I went to the smoking-room and called Tessie. She came in from the studio and climbed up to reach the book. 

"What is it?" I asked. 

"_The King in Yellow. _"

I was dumfounded. Who had placed it there? How came it in my rooms? I hadlong ago decided that I should never open that book, and nothing on earthcould have persuaded me to buy it. Fearful lest curiosity might tempt meto open it, I had never even looked at it in book-stores. If I ever hadhad any curiosity to read it, the awful tragedy of young Castaigne, whomI knew, prevented me from exploring its wicked pages. I had alwaysrefused to listen to any description of it, and indeed, nobody everventured to discuss the second part aloud, so I had absolutely noknowledge of what those leaves might reveal. I stared at the poisonousmottled binding as I would at a snake. 

"Don't touch it, Tessie, " I said; "come down. "

Of course my admonition was enough to arouse her curiosity, and before Icould prevent it she took the book and, laughing, danced off into thestudio with it. I called to her, but she slipped away with a tormentingsmile at my helpless hands, and I followed her with some impatience. 

"Tessie!" I cried, entering the library, "listen, I am serious. Put thatbook away. I do not wish you to open it!" The library was empty. I wentinto both drawing-rooms, then into the bedrooms, laundry, kitchen, andfinally returned to the library and began a systematic search. She hadhidden herself so well that it was half-an-hour later when I discoveredher crouching white and silent by the latticed window in the store-roomabove. At the first glance I saw she had been punished for herfoolishness. _The King in Yellow_ lay at her feet, but the book wasopen at the second part. I looked at Tessie and saw it was too late. Shehad opened _The King in Yellow_. Then I took her by the hand and ledher into the studio. She seemed dazed, and when I told her to lie down onthe sofa she obeyed me without a word. After a while she closed her eyesand her breathing became regular and deep, but I could not determinewhether or not she slept. For a long while I sat silently beside her, butshe neither stirred nor spoke, and at last I rose, and, entering theunused store-room, took the book in my least injured hand. It seemedheavy as lead, but I carried it into the studio again, and sitting downon the rug beside the sofa, opened it and read it through from beginningto end. 

When, faint with excess of my emotions, I dropped the volume and leanedwearily back against the sofa, Tessie opened her eyes and looked atme. .. . 

We had been speaking for some time in a dull monotonous strain before Irealized that we were discussing _The King in Yellow_. Oh the sin ofwriting such words, --words which are clear as crystal, limpid and musicalas bubbling springs, words which sparkle and glow like the poisoneddiamonds of the Medicis! Oh the wickedness, the hopeless damnation of asoul who could fascinate and paralyze human creatures with suchwords, --words understood by the ignorant and wise alike, words which aremore precious than jewels, more soothing than music, more awful thandeath!

We talked on, unmindful of the gathering shadows, and she was begging meto throw away the clasp of black onyx quaintly inlaid with what we nowknew to be the Yellow Sign. I never shall know why I refused, though evenat this hour, here in my bedroom as I write this confession, I should beglad to know _what_ it was that prevented me from tearing the YellowSign from my breast and casting it into the fire. I am sure I wished todo so, and yet Tessie pleaded with me in vain. Night fell and the hoursdragged on, but still we murmured to each other of the King and thePallid Mask, and midnight sounded from the misty spires in thefog-wrapped city. We spoke of Hastur and of Cassilda, while outside thefog rolled against the blank window-panes as the cloud waves roll andbreak on the shores of Hali. 

The house was very silent now, and not a sound came up from the mistystreets. Tessie lay among the cushions, her face a grey blot in thegloom, but her hands were clasped in mine, and I knew that she knew andread my thoughts as I read hers, for we had understood the mystery of theHyades and the Phantom of Truth was laid. Then as we answered each other, swiftly, silently, thought on thought, the shadows stirred in the gloomabout us, and far in the distant streets we heard a sound. Nearer andnearer it came, the dull crunching of wheels, nearer and yet nearer, andnow, outside before the door it ceased, and I dragged myself to thewindow and saw a black-plumed hearse. The gate below opened and shut, andI crept shaking to my door and bolted it, but I knew no bolts, no locks, could keep that creature out who was coming for the Yellow Sign. And nowI heard him moving very softly along the hall. Now he was at the door, and the bolts rotted at his touch. Now he had entered. With eyes startingfrom my head I peered into the darkness, but when he came into the room Idid not see him. It was only when I felt him envelope me in his cold softgrasp that I cried out and struggled with deadly fury, but my hands wereuseless and he tore the onyx clasp from my coat and struck me full in theface. Then, as I fell, I heard Tessie's soft cry and her spirit fled: andeven while falling I longed to follow her, for I knew that the King inYellow had opened his tattered mantle and there was only God to cry tonow. 

I could tell more, but I cannot see what help it will be to the world. Asfor me, I am past human help or hope. As I lie here, writing, carelesseven whether or not I die before I finish, I can see the doctor gatheringup his powders and phials with a vague gesture to the good priest besideme, which I understand. 

They will be very curious to know the tragedy--they of the outside worldwho write books and print millions of newspapers, but I shall write nomore, and the father confessor will seal my last words with the seal ofsanctity when his holy office is done. They of the outside world may sendtheir creatures into wrecked homes and death-smitten firesides, and theirnewspapers will batten on blood and tears, but with me their spies musthalt before the confessional. They know that Tessie is dead and that I amdying. They know how the people in the house, aroused by an infernalscream, rushed into my room and found one living and two dead, but theydo not know what I shall tell them now; they do not know that the doctorsaid as he pointed to a horrible decomposed heap on the floor--the lividcorpse of the watchman from the church: "I have no theory, no explanation. That man must have been dead for months!"

I think I am dying. I wish the priest would--

THE DEMOISELLE D'YS

 "Mais je croy que je Suis descendu on puiz Ténébreux onquel disoit Heraclytus estre Vereté cachée. "

"There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which Iknow not:

"The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; theway of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid. "

I

The utter desolation of the scene began to have its effect; I sat down toface the situation and, if possible, recall to mind some landmark whichmight aid me in extricating myself from my present position. If I couldonly find the ocean again all would be clear, for I knew one could seethe island of Groix from the cliffs. 

I laid down my gun, and kneeling behind a rock lighted a pipe. Then Ilooked at my watch. It was nearly four o'clock. I might have wandered farfrom Kerselec since daybreak. 

Standing the day before on the cliffs below Kerselec with Goulven, looking out over the sombre moors among which I had now lost my way, these downs had appeared to me level as a meadow, stretching to thehorizon, and although I knew how deceptive is distance, I could notrealize that what from Kerselec seemed to be mere grassy hollows weregreat valleys covered with gorse and heather, and what looked likescattered boulders were in reality enormous cliffs of granite. 

"It's a bad place for a stranger, " old Goulven had said: "you'd bettertake a guide;" and I had replied, "I shall not lose myself. " Now I knewthat I had lost myself, as I sat there smoking, with the sea-wind blowingin my face. On every side stretched the moorland, covered with floweringgorse and heath and granite boulders. There was not a tree in sight, muchless a house. After a while, I picked up the gun, and turning my back onthe sun tramped on again. 

There was little use in following any of the brawling streams which everynow and then crossed my path, for, instead of flowing into the sea, theyran inland to reedy pools in the hollows of the moors. I had followedseveral, but they all led me to swamps or silent little ponds from whichthe snipe rose peeping and wheeled away in an ecstasy of fright I beganto feel fatigued, and the gun galled my shoulder in spite of the doublepads. The sun sank lower and lower, shining level across yellow gorse andthe moorland pools. 

As I walked my own gigantic shadow led me on, seeming to lengthen atevery step. The gorse scraped against my leggings, crackled beneath myfeet, showering the brown earth with blossoms, and the brake bowed andbillowed along my path. From tufts of heath rabbits scurried away throughthe bracken, and among the swamp grass I heard the wild duck's drowsyquack. Once a fox stole across my path, and again, as I stooped to drinkat a hurrying rill, a heron flapped heavily from the reeds beside me. Iturned to look at the sun. It seemed to touch the edges of the plain. When at last I decided that it was useless to go on, and that I must makeup my mind to spend at least one night on the moors, I threw myself downthoroughly fagged out. The evening sunlight slanted warm across my body, but the sea-winds began to rise, and I felt a chill strike through mefrom my wet shooting-boots. High overhead gulls were wheeling and tossinglike bits of white paper; from some distant marsh a solitary curlewcalled. Little by little the sun sank into the plain, and the zenithflushed with the after-glow. I watched the sky change from palest gold topink and then to smouldering fire. Clouds of midges danced above me, andhigh in the calm air a bat dipped and soared. My eyelids began to droop. Then as I shook off the drowsiness a sudden crash among the brackenroused me. I raised my eyes. A great bird hung quivering in the air abovemy face. For an instant I stared, incapable of motion; then somethingleaped past me in the ferns and the bird rose, wheeled, and pitchedheadlong into the brake. 

I was on my feet in an instant peering through the gorse. There came thesound of a struggle from a bunch of heather close by, and then all wasquiet. I stepped forward, my gun poised, but when I came to the heatherthe gun fell under my arm again, and I stood motionless in silentastonishment A dead hare lay on the ground, and on the hare stood amagnificent falcon, one talon buried in the creature's neck, the otherplanted firmly on its limp flank. But what astonished me, was not themere sight of a falcon sitting upon its prey. I had seen that more thanonce. It was that the falcon was fitted with a sort of leash about bothtalons, and from the leash hung a round bit of metal like a sleigh-bell. The bird turned its fierce yellow eyes on me, and then stooped and struckits curved beak into the quarry. At the same instant hurried stepssounded among the heather, and a girl sprang into the covert in front. Without a glance at me she walked up to the falcon, and passing hergloved hand under its breast, raised it from the quarry. Then she deftlyslipped a small hood over the bird's head, and holding it out on hergauntlet, stooped and picked up the hare. 

She passed a cord about the animal's legs and fastened the end of thethong to her girdle. Then she started to retrace her steps through thecovert As she passed me I raised my cap and she acknowledged my presencewith a scarcely perceptible inclination. I had been so astonished, solost in admiration of the scene before my eyes, that it had not occurredto me that here was my salvation. But as she moved away I recollectedthat unless I wanted to sleep on a windy moor that night I had betterrecover my speech without delay. At my first word she hesitated, and as Istepped before her I thought a look of fear came into her beautiful eyes. But as I humbly explained my unpleasant plight, her face flushed and shelooked at me in wonder. 

"Surely you did not come from Kerselec!" she repeated. 

Her sweet voice had no trace of the Breton accent nor of any accent whichI knew, and yet there was something in it I seemed to have heard before, something quaint and indefinable, like the theme of an old song. 

I explained that I was an American, unacquainted with Finistère, shootingthere for my own amusement. 

"An American, " she repeated in the same quaint musical tones. "I havenever before seen an American. "

For a moment she stood silent, then looking at me she said. "If youshould walk all night you could not reach Kerselec now, even if you had aguide. "

This was pleasant news. 

"But, " I began, "if I could only find a peasant's hut where I might getsomething to eat, and shelter. "

The falcon on her wrist fluttered and shook its head. The girl smoothedits glossy back and glanced at me. 

"Look around, " she said gently. "Can you see the end of these moors?Look, north, south, east, west. Can you see anything but moorland andbracken?"

"No, " I said. 

"The moor is wild and desolate. It is easy to enter, but sometimes theywho enter never leave it. There are no peasants' huts here. "

"Well, " I said, "if you will tell me in which direction Kerselec lies, to-morrow it will take me no longer to go back than it has to come. "

She looked at me again with an expression almost like pity. 

"Ah, " she said, "to come is easy and takes hours; to go is different--andmay take centuries. "

I stared at her in amazement but decided that I had misunderstood her. Then before I had time to speak she drew a whistle from her belt andsounded it. 

"Sit down and rest, " she said to me; "you have come a long distance andare tired. "

She gathered up her pleated skirts and motioning me to follow picked herdainty way through the gorse to a flat rock among the ferns. 

"They will be here directly, " she said, and taking a seat at one end ofthe rock invited me to sit down on the other edge. The after-glow wasbeginning to fade in the sky and a single star twinkled faintly throughthe rosy haze. A long wavering triangle of water-fowl drifted southwardover our heads, and from the swamps around plover were calling. 

"They are very beautiful--these moors, " she said quietly. 

"Beautiful, but cruel to strangers, " I answered. 

"Beautiful and cruel, " she repeated dreamily, "beautiful and cruel. "

"Like a woman, " I said stupidly. 

"Oh, " she cried with a little catch in her breath, and looked at me. Herdark eyes met mine, and I thought she seemed angry or frightened. 

"Like a woman, " she repeated under her breath, "How cruel to say so!"Then after a pause, as though speaking aloud to herself, "How cruel forhim to say that!"

I don't know what sort of an apology I offered for my inane, thoughharmless speech, but I know that she seemed so troubled about it that Ibegan to think I had said something very dreadful without knowing it, andremembered with horror the pitfalls and snares which the French languagesets for foreigners. While I was trying to imagine what I might havesaid, a sound of voices came across the moor, and the girl rose to herfeet. 

"No, " she said, with a trace of a smile on her pale face, "I will notaccept your apologies, monsieur, but I must prove you wrong, and thatshall be my revenge. Look. Here come Hastur and Raoul. "

Two men loomed up in the twilight. One had a sack across his shouldersand the other carried a hoop before him as a waiter carries a tray. Thehoop was fastened with straps to his shoulders, and around the edge ofthe circlet sat three hooded falcons fitted with tinkling bells. The girlstepped up to the falconer, and with a quick turn of her wristtransferred her falcon to the hoop, where it quickly sidled off andnestled among its mates, who shook their hooded heads and ruffled theirfeathers till the belled jesses tinkled again. The other man steppedforward and bowing respectfully took up the hare and dropped it into thegame-sack. 

"These are my piqueurs, " said the girl, turning to me with a gentledignity. "Raoul is a good fauconnier, and I shall some day make him grandveneur. Hastur is incomparable. "

The two silent men saluted me respectfully. 

"Did I not tell you, monsieur, that I should prove you wrong?" shecontinued. "This, then, is my revenge, that you do me the courtesy ofaccepting food and shelter at my own house. "

Before I could answer she spoke to the falconers, who started instantlyacross the heath, and with a gracious gesture to me she followed. I don'tknow whether I made her understand how profoundly grateful I felt, butshe seemed pleased to listen, as we walked over the dewy heather. 

"Are you not very tired?" she asked. 

I had clean forgotten my fatigue in her presence, and I told her so. 

"Don't you think your gallantry is a little old-fashioned?" she said; andwhen I looked confused and humbled, she added quietly, "Oh, I like it, Ilike everything old-fashioned, and it is delightful to hear you say suchpretty things. "

The moorland around us was very still now under its ghostly sheet ofmist. The plovers had ceased their calling; the crickets and all thelittle creatures of the fields were silent as we passed, yet it seemed tome as if I could hear them beginning again far behind us. Well inadvance, the two tall falconers strode across the heather, and the faintjingling of the hawks' bells came to our ears in distant murmuringchimes. 

Suddenly a splendid hound dashed out of the mist in front, followed byanother and another until half-a-dozen or more were bounding and leapingaround the girl beside me. She caressed and quieted them with her glovedhand, speaking to them in quaint terms which I remembered to have seen inold French manuscripts. 

Then the falcons on the circlet borne by the falconer ahead began to beattheir wings and scream, and from somewhere out of sight the notes of ahunting-horn floated across the moor. The hounds sprang away before usand vanished in the twilight, the falcons flapped and squealed upon theirperch, and the girl, taking up the song of the horn, began to hum. Clearand mellow her voice sounded in the night air. 

 "Chasseur, chasseur, chassez encore, Quittez Rosette et Jeanneton, Tonton, tonton, tontaine, tonton, Ou, pour, rabattre, dès l'aurore, Que les Amours soient de planton, Tonton, tontaine, tonton. "

As I listened to her lovely voice a grey mass which rapidly grew moredistinct loomed up in front, and the horn rang out joyously through thetumult of the hounds and falcons. A torch glimmered at a gate, a lightstreamed through an opening door, and we stepped upon a wooden bridgewhich trembled under our feet and rose creaking and straining behind usas we passed over the moat and into a small stone court, walled on everyside. From an open doorway a man came and, bending in salutation, presented a cup to the girl beside me. She took the cup and touched itwith her lips, then lowering it turned to me and said in a low voice, "Ibid you welcome. "

At that moment one of the falconers came with another cup, but beforehanding it to me, presented it to the girl, who tasted it. The falconermade a gesture to receive it, but she hesitated a moment, and then, stepping forward, offered me the cup with her own hands. I felt this tobe an act of extraordinary graciousness, but hardly knew what wasexpected of me, and did not raise it to my lips at once. The girl flushedcrimson. I saw that I must act quickly. 

"Mademoiselle, " I faltered, "a stranger whom you have saved from dangershe may never realize empties this cup to the gentlest and loveliesthostess of France. "

"In His name, " she murmured, crossing herself as I drained the cup. Thenstepping into the doorway she turned to me with a pretty gesture and, taking my hand in hers, led me into the house, saying again and again:"You are very welcome, indeed you are welcome to the Château d'Ys. "

II

I awoke next morning with the music of the horn in my ears, and leapingout of the ancient bed, went to a curtained window where the sunlightfiltered through little deep-set panes. The horn ceased as I looked intothe court below. 

A man who might have been brother to the two falconers of the nightbefore stood in the midst of a pack of hounds. A curved horn was strappedover his back, and in his hand he held a long-lashed whip. The dogswhined and yelped, dancing around him in anticipation; there was thestamp of horses, too, in the walled yard. 

"Mount!" cried a voice in Breton, and with a clatter of hoofs the twofalconers, with falcons upon their wrists, rode into the courtyard amongthe hounds. Then I heard another voice which sent the blood throbbingthrough my heart: "Piriou Louis, hunt the hounds well and spare neitherspur nor whip. Thou Raoul and thou Gaston, see that the _epervier_does not prove himself _niais_, and if it be best in your judgment, _faites courtoisie à l'oiseau. Jardiner un oiseau_, like the_mué_ there on Hastur's wrist, is not difficult, but thou, Raoul, mayest not find it so simple to govern that _hagard_. Twice lastweek he foamed _au vif_ and lost the _beccade_ although he isused to the _leurre_. The bird acts like a stupid _branchier. Paître un hagard n'est pas si facile. "_

Was I dreaming? The old language of falconry which I had read in yellowmanuscripts--the old forgotten French of the middle ages was sounding inmy ears while the hounds bayed and the hawks' bells tinkled accompanimentto the stamping horses. She spoke again in the sweet forgotten language:

"If you would rather attach the _longe_ and leave thy _hagard aubloc_, Raoul, I shall say nothing; for it were a pity to spoil so faira day's sport with an ill-trained _sors_. _Essimer abaisser_, --it ispossibly the best way. _Ça lui donnera des reins. _ I was perhaps hastywith the bird. It takes time to pass _à la filière_ and the exercises_d'escap_. "

Then the falconer Raoul bowed in his stirrups and replied: "If it be thepleasure of Mademoiselle, I shall keep the hawk. "

"It is my wish, " she answered. "Falconry I know, but you have yet to giveme many a lesson in _Autourserie_, my poor Raoul. Sieur Piriou Louismount!"

The huntsman sprang into an archway and in an instant returned, mountedupon a strong black horse, followed by a piqueur also mounted. 

"Ah!" she cried joyously, "speed Glemarec René! speed! speed all! Soundthy horn, Sieur Piriou!"

The silvery music of the hunting-horn filled the courtyard, the houndssprang through the gateway and galloping hoof-beats plunged out of thepaved court; loud on the drawbridge, suddenly muffled, then lost in theheather and bracken of the moors. Distant and more distant sounded thehorn, until it became so faint that the sudden carol of a soaring larkdrowned it in my ears. I heard the voice below responding to some callfrom within the house. 

"I do not regret the chase, I will go another time Courtesy to thestranger, Pelagie, remember!"

And a feeble voice came quavering from within the house, "_Courtoisie_"

I stripped, and rubbed myself from head to foot in the huge earthen basinof icy water which stood upon the stone floor at the foot of my bed. ThenI looked about for my clothes. They were gone, but on a settle near thedoor lay a heap of garments which I inspected with astonishment. As myclothes had vanished, I was compelled to attire myself in the costumewhich had evidently been placed there for me to wear while my own clothesdried. Everything was there, cap, shoes, and hunting doublet of silverygrey homespun; but the close-fitting costume and seamless shoes belongedto another century, and I remembered the strange costumes of the threefalconers in the court-yard. I was sure that it was not the modern dressof any portion of France or Brittany; but not until I was dressed andstood before a mirror between the windows did I realize that I wasclothed much more like a young huntsman of the middle ages than like aBreton of that day. I hesitated and picked up the cap. Should I go downand present myself in that strange guise? There seemed to be no help forit, my own clothes were gone and there was no bell in the ancient chamberto call a servant; so I contented myself with removing a short hawk'sfeather from the cap, and, opening the door, went downstairs. 

By the fireplace in the large room at the foot of the stairs an oldBreton woman sat spinning with a distaff. She looked up at me when Iappeared, and, smiling frankly, wished me health in the Breton language, to which I laughingly replied in French. At the same moment my hostessappeared and returned my salutation with a grace and dignity that sent athrill to my heart. Her lovely head with its dark curly hair was crownedwith a head-dress which set all doubts as to the epoch of my own costumeat rest. Her slender figure was exquisitely set off in the homespunhunting-gown edged with silver, and on her gauntlet-covered wrist shebore one of her petted hawks. With perfect simplicity she took my handand led me into the garden in the court, and seating herself before atable invited me very sweetly to sit beside her. Then she asked me in hersoft quaint accent how I had passed the night, and whether I was verymuch inconvenienced by wearing the clothes which old Pelagie had putthere for me while I slept. I looked at my own clothes and shoes, dryingin the sun by the garden-wall, and hated them. What horrors they werecompared with the graceful costume which I now wore! I told her thislaughing, but she agreed with me very seriously. 

"We will throw them away, " she said in a quiet voice. In my astonishmentI attempted to explain that I not only could not think of acceptingclothes from anybody, although for all I knew it might be the custom ofhospitality in that part of the country, but that I should cut animpossible figure if I returned to France clothed as I was then. 

She laughed and tossed her pretty head, saying something in old Frenchwhich I did not understand, and then Pelagie trotted out with a tray onwhich stood two bowls of milk, a loaf of white bread, fruit, a platter ofhoney-comb, and a flagon of deep red wine. "You see I have not yet brokenmy fast because I wished you to eat with me. But I am very hungry, " shesmiled. 

"I would rather die than forget one word of what you have said!" Iblurted out, while my cheeks burned. "She will think me mad, " I added tomyself, but she turned to me with sparkling eyes. 

"Ah!" she murmured. "Then Monsieur knows all that there is of chivalry--"

She crossed herself and broke bread. I sat and watched her white hands, not daring to raise my eyes to hers. 

"Will you not eat?" she asked. "Why do you look so troubled?"

Ah, why? I knew it now. I knew I would give my life to touch with my lipsthose rosy palms--I understood now that from the moment when I lookedinto her dark eyes there on the moor last night I had loved her. My greatand sudden passion held me speechless. 

"Are you ill at ease?" she asked again. 

Then, like a man who pronounces his own doom, I answered in a low voice:"Yes, I am ill at ease for love of you. " And as she did not stir noranswer, the same power moved my lips in spite of me and I said, "I, whoam unworthy of the lightest of your thoughts, I who abuse hospitality andrepay your gentle courtesy with bold presumption, I love you. "

She leaned her head upon her hands, and answered softly, "I love you. Your words are very dear to me. I love you. "

"Then I shall win you. "

"Win me, " she replied. 

But all the time I had been sitting silent, my face turned toward her. She, also silent, her sweet face resting on her upturned palm, sat facingme, and as her eyes looked into mine I knew that neither she nor I hadspoken human speech; but I knew that her soul had answered mine, and Idrew myself up feeling youth and joyous love coursing through every vein. She, with a bright colour in her lovely face, seemed as one awakened froma dream, and her eyes sought mine with a questioning glance which made metremble with delight. We broke our fast, speaking of ourselves. I toldher my name and she told me hers, the Demoiselle Jeanne d'Ys. 

She spoke of her father and mother's death, and how the nineteen of heryears had been passed in the little fortified farm alone with her nursePelagie, Glemarec René the piqueur, and the four falconers, Raoul, Gaston, Hastur, and the Sieur Piriou Louis, who had served her father. She had never been outside the moorland--never even had seen a human soulbefore, except the falconers and Pelagie. She did not know how she hadheard of Kerselec; perhaps the falconers had spoken of it. She knew thelegends of Loup Garou and Jeanne la Flamme from her nurse Pelagie. Sheembroidered and spun flax. Her hawks and hounds were her onlydistraction. When she had met me there on the moor she had been sofrightened that she almost dropped at the sound of my voice. She had, itwas true, seen ships at sea from the cliffs, but as far as the eye couldreach the moors over which she galloped were destitute of any sign ofhuman life. There was a legend which old Pelagie told, how anybody oncelost in the unexplored moorland might never return, because the moorswere enchanted. She did not know whether it was true, she never hadthought about it until she met me. She did not know whether the falconershad even been outside, or whether they could go if they would. The booksin the house which Pelagie, the nurse, had taught her to read werehundreds of years old. 

All this she told me with a sweet seriousness seldom seen in any one butchildren. My own name she found easy to pronounce, and insisted, becausemy first name was Philip, I must have French blood in me. She did notseem curious to learn anything about the outside world, and I thoughtperhaps she considered it had forfeited her interest and respect from thestories of her nurse. 

We were still sitting at the table, and she was throwing grapes to thesmall field birds which came fearlessly to our very feet. 

I began to speak in a vague way of going, but she would not hear of it, and before I knew it I had promised to stay a week and hunt with hawk andhound in their company. I also obtained permission to come again fromKerselec and visit her after my return. 

"Why, " she said innocently, "I do not know what I should do if you nevercame back;" and I, knowing that I had no right to awaken her with thesudden shock which the avowal of my own love would bring to her, satsilent, hardly daring to breathe. 

"You will come very often?" she asked. 

"Very often, " I said. 

"Every day?"

"Every day. "

"Oh, " she sighed, "I am very happy. Come and see my hawks. "

She rose and took my hand again with a childlike innocence of possession, and we walked through the garden and fruit trees to a grassy lawn whichwas bordered by a brook. Over the lawn were scattered fifteen or twentystumps of trees--partially imbedded in the grass--and upon all of theseexcept two sat falcons. They were attached to the stumps by thongs whichwere in turn fastened with steel rivets to their legs just above thetalons. A little stream of pure spring water flowed in a winding coursewithin easy distance of each perch. 

The birds set up a clamour when the girl appeared, but she went from oneto another, caressing some, taking others for an instant upon her wrist, or stooping to adjust their jesses. 

"Are they not pretty?" she said. "See, here is a falcon-gentil. We callit 'ignoble, ' because it takes the quarry in direct chase. This is a bluefalcon. In falconry we call it 'noble' because it rises over the quarry, and wheeling, drops upon it from above. This white bird is a gerfalconfrom the north. It is also 'noble!' Here is a merlin, and this tierceletis a falcon-heroner. "

I asked her how she had learned the old language of falconry. She did notremember, but thought her father must have taught it to her when she wasvery young. 

Then she led me away and showed me the young falcons still in the nest. "They are termed _niais_ in falconry, " she explained. "A_branchier_ is the young bird which is just able to leave the nestand hop from branch to branch. A young bird which has not yet moulted iscalled a _sors_, and a _mué_ is a hawk which has moulted incaptivity. When we catch a wild falcon which has changed its plumage weterm it a _hagard_. Raoul first taught me to dress a falcon. Shall Iteach you how it is done?"

She seated herself on the bank of the stream among the falcons and Ithrew myself at her feet to listen. 

Then the Demoiselle d'Ys held up one rosy-tipped finger and began verygravely. 

"First one must catch the falcon. "

"I am caught, " I answered. 

She laughed very prettily and told me my _dressage_ would perhaps bedifficult, as I was noble. 

"I am already tamed, " I replied; "jessed and belled. "

She laughed, delighted. "Oh, my brave falcon; then you will return at mycall?"

"I am yours, " I answered gravely. 

She sat silent for a moment. Then the colour heightened in her cheeks andshe held up her finger again, saying, "Listen; I wish to speak offalconry--"

"I listen, Countess Jeanne d'Ys. "

But again she fell into the reverie, and her eyes seemed fixed onsomething beyond the summer clouds. 

"Philip, " she said at last. 

"Jeanne, " I whispered. 

"That is all, --that is what I wished, " she sighed, --"Philip and Jeanne. "

She held her hand toward me and I touched it with my lips. 

"Win me, " she said, but this time it was the body and soul which spoke inunison. 

After a while she began again: "Let us speak of falconry. "

"Begin, " I replied; "we have caught the falcon. "

Then Jeanne d'Ys took my hand in both of hers and told me how withinfinite patience the young falcon was taught to perch upon the wrist, how little by little it became used to the belled jesses and the_chaperon à cornette_. 

"They must first have a good appetite, " she said; "then little by littleI reduce their nourishment; which in falconry we call _pât_. When, after many nights passed _au bloc_ as these birds are now, I prevailupon the _hagard_ to stay quietly on the wrist, then the bird isready to be taught to come for its food. I fix the _pât_ to the endof a thong, or _leurre_, and teach the bird to come to me as soon asI begin to whirl the cord in circles about my head. At first I drop the_pât_ when the falcon comes, and he eats the food on the ground. After a little he will learn to seize the _leurre_ in motion as Iwhirl it around my head or drag it over the ground. After this it is easyto teach the falcon to strike at game, always remembering to _'fairecourtoisie á l'oiseau'_, that is, to allow the bird to taste thequarry. "

A squeal from one of the falcons interrupted her, and she arose to adjustthe _longe_ which had become whipped about the _bloc_, but thebird still flapped its wings and screamed. 

"What _is_ the matter?" she said. "Philip, can you see?"

I looked around and at first saw nothing to cause the commotion, whichwas now heightened by the screams and flapping of all the birds. Then myeye fell upon the flat rock beside the stream from which the girl hadrisen. A grey serpent was moving slowly across the surface of theboulder, and the eyes in its flat triangular head sparkled like jet. 

"A couleuvre, " she said quietly. 

"It is harmless, is it not?" I asked. 

She pointed to the black V-shaped figure on the neck. 

"It is certain death, " she said; "it is a viper. "

We watched the reptile moving slowly over the smooth rock to where thesunlight fell in a broad warm patch. 

I started forward to examine it, but she clung to my arm crying, "Don't, Philip, I am afraid. "

"For me?"

"For you, Philip, --I love you. "

Then I took her in my arms and kissed her on the lips, but all I couldsay was: "Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne. " And as she lay trembling on my breast, something struck my foot in the grass below, but I did not heed it. Thenagain something struck my ankle, and a sharp pain shot through me. Ilooked into the sweet face of Jeanne d'Ys and kissed her, and with all mystrength lifted her in my arms and flung her from me. Then bending, Itore the viper from my ankle and set my heel upon its head. I rememberfeeling weak and numb, --I remember falling to the ground. Through myslowly glazing eyes I saw Jeanne's white face bending close to mine, andwhen the light in my eyes went out I still felt her arms about my neck, and her soft cheek against my drawn lips. 

When I opened my eyes, I looked around in terror. Jeanne was gone. I sawthe stream and the flat rock; I saw the crushed viper in the grass besideme, but the hawks and _blocs_ had disappeared. I sprang to my feet. The garden, the fruit trees, the drawbridge and the walled court weregone. I stared stupidly at a heap of crumbling ruins, ivy-covered andgrey, through which great trees had pushed their way. I crept forward, dragging my numbed foot, and as I moved, a falcon sailed from thetree-tops among the ruins, and soaring, mounting in narrowing circles, faded and vanished in the clouds above. 

"Jeanne, Jeanne, " I cried, but my voice died on my lips, and I fell on myknees among the weeds. And as God willed it, I, not knowing, had fallenkneeling before a crumbling shrine carved in stone for our Mother ofSorrows. I saw the sad face of the Virgin wrought in the cold stone. Isaw the cross and thorns at her feet, and beneath it I read:

 "PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF THE DEMOISELLE JEANNE D'Ys, WHO DIED IN HER YOUTH FOR LOVE OF PHILIP, A STRANGER. A. D. 1573. "

But upon the icy slab lay a woman's glove still warm and fragrant. 

THE PROPHETS' PARADISE

 "If but the Vine and Love Abjuring Band Are in the Prophets' Paradise to stand, Alack, I doubt the Prophets' Paradise, Were empty as the hollow of one's hand. "

THE STUDIO

He smiled, saying, "Seek her throughout the world. "

I said, "Why tell me of the world? My world is here, between these wallsand the sheet of glass above; here among gilded flagons and dull jewelledarms, tarnished frames and canvasses, black chests and high-backedchairs, quaintly carved and stained in blue and gold. "

"For whom do you wait?" he said, and I answered, "When she comes I shallknow her. "

On my hearth a tongue of flame whispered secrets to the whitening ashes. In the street below I heard footsteps, a voice, and a song. 

"For whom then do you wait?" he said, and I answered, "I shall know her. "

Footsteps, a voice, and a song in the street below, and I knew the songbut neither the steps nor the voice. 

"Fool!" he cried, "the song is the same, the voice and steps have butchanged with years!"

On the hearth a tongue of flame whispered above the whitening ashes:"Wait no more; they have passed, the steps and the voice in the streetbelow. "

Then he smiled, saying, "For whom do you wait? Seek her throughout theworld!"

I answered, "My world is here, between these walls and the sheet of glassabove; here among gilded flagons and dull jewelled arms, tarnished framesand canvasses, black chests and high-backed chairs, quaintly carved andstained in blue and gold. "

THE PHANTOM

The Phantom of the Past would go no further. 

"If it is true, " she sighed, "that you find in me a friend, let us turnback together. You will forget, here, under the summer sky. "

I held her close, pleading, caressing; I seized her, white with anger, but she resisted. 

"If it is true, " she sighed, "that you find in me a friend, let us turnback together. "

The Phantom of the Past would go no further. 

THE SACRIFICE

I went into a field of flowers, whose petals are whiter than snow andwhose hearts are pure gold. 

Far afield a woman cried, "I have killed him I loved!" and from a jar shepoured blood upon the flowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whosehearts are pure gold. 

Far afield I followed, and on the jar I read a thousand names, while fromwithin the fresh blood bubbled to the brim. 

"I have killed him I loved!" she cried. "The world's athirst; now let itdrink!" She passed, and far afield I watched her pouring blood upon theflowers whose petals are whiter than snow and whose hearts are pure gold. 

DESTINY

I came to the bridge which few may pass. 

"Pass!" cried the keeper, but I laughed, saying, "There is time;" and hesmiled and shut the gates. 

To the bridge which few may pass came young and old. All were refused. Idly I stood and counted them, until, wearied of their noise andlamentations, I came again to the bridge which few may pass. 

Those in the throng about the gates shrieked out, "He comes too late!"But I laughed, saying, "There is time. "

"Pass!" cried the keeper as I entered; then smiled and shut the gates. 

THE THRONG

There, where the throng was thickest in the street, I stood with Pierrot. All eyes were turned on me. 

"What are they laughing at?" I asked, but he grinned, dusting the chalkfrom my black cloak. "I cannot see; it must be something droll, perhapsan honest thief!"

All eyes were turned on me. 

"He has robbed you of your purse!" they laughed. 

"My purse!" I cried; "Pierrot--help! it is a thief!"

They laughed: "He has robbed you of your purse!"

Then Truth stepped out, holding a mirror. "If he is an honest thief, "cried Truth, "Pierrot shall find him with this mirror!" but he onlygrinned, dusting the chalk from my black cloak. 

"You see, " he said, "Truth is an honest thief, she brings you back yourmirror. "

All eyes were turned on me. 

"Arrest Truth!" I cried, forgetting it was not a mirror but a purse Ilost, standing with Pierrot, there, where the throng was thickest in thestreet. 

THE JESTER

"Was she fair?" I asked, but he only chuckled, listening to the bellsjingling on his cap. 

"Stabbed, " he tittered. "Think of the long journey, the days of peril, the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year afteryear, through hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning forher!"

"Stabbed, " he tittered, listening to the bells jingling on his cap. 

"Was she fair?" I asked, but he only snarled, muttering to the bellsjingling on his cap. 

"She kissed him at the gate, " he tittered, "but in the hall his brother'swelcome touched his heart"

"Was she fair?" I asked. 

"Stabbed, " he chuckled. "Think of the long journey, the days of peril, the dreadful nights! Think how he wandered, for her sake, year after yearthrough hostile lands, yearning for kith and kin, yearning for her!"

"She kissed him at the gate, but in the hall his brother's welcometouched his heart. "

"Was she fair?" I asked; but he only snarled, listening to the bellsjingling in his cap. 

THE GREEN ROOM

The Clown turned his powdered face to the mirror. 

"If to be fair is to be beautiful, " he said, "who can compare with me inmy white mask?"

"Who can compare with him in his white mask?" I asked of Death beside me. 

"Who can compare with me?" said Death, "for I am paler still. "

"You are very beautiful, " sighed the Clown, turning his powdered facefrom the mirror. 

THE LOVE TEST

"If it is true that you love, " said Love, "then wait no longer. Give herthese jewels which would dishonour her and so dishonour you in lovingone dishonoured. If it is true that you love, " said Love, "then wait nolonger. "

I took the jewels and went to her, but she trod upon them, sobbing:"Teach me to wait--I love you!"

"Then wait, if it is true, " said Love. 

THE STREET OF THE FOUR WINDS

 "Ferme tes yeux à demi, Croise tes bras sur ton sein, Et de ton coeur endormi Chasse à jamais tout dessein. "

 "Je chante la nature, Les étoiles du soir, les larmes du matin, Les couchers de soleil à l'horizon lointain, Le ciel qui parle au coeur d'existence future!"

I

The animal paused on the threshold, interrogative alert, ready for flightif necessary. Severn laid down his palette, and held out a hand ofwelcome. The cat remained motionless, her yellow eyes fastened uponSevern. 

"Puss, " he said, in his low, pleasant voice, "come in. "

The tip of her thin tail twitched uncertainly. 

"Come in, " he said again. 

Apparently she found his voice reassuring, for she slowly settled upon allfours, her eyes still fastened upon him, her tail tucked under her gauntflanks. 

He rose from his easel smiling. She eyed him quietly, and when he walkedtoward her she watched him bend above her without a wince; her eyesfollowed his hand until it touched her head. Then she uttered a raggedmew. 

It had long been Severn's custom to converse with animals, probablybecause he lived so much alone; and now he said, "What's the matter, puss?"

Her timid eyes sought his. 

"I understand, " he said gently, "you shall have it at once. "

Then moving quietly about he busied himself with the duties of a host, rinsed a saucer, filled it with the rest of the milk from the bottle onthe window-sill, and kneeling down, crumbled a roll into the hollow of hishand. 

The creature rose and crept toward the saucer. 

With the handle of a palette-knife he stirred the crumbs and milk togetherand stepped back as she thrust her nose into the mess. He watched her insilence. From time to time the saucer clinked upon the tiled floor as shereached for a morsel on the rim; and at last the bread was all gone, andher purple tongue travelled over every unlicked spot until the saucershone like polished marble. Then she sat up, and coolly turning her backto him, began her ablutions. 

"Keep it up, " said Severn, much interested, "you need it. "

She flattened one ear, but neither turned nor interrupted her toilet. Asthe grime was slowly removed Severn observed that nature had intended herfor a white cat. Her fur had disappeared in patches, from disease or thechances of war, her tail was bony and her spine sharp. But what charms shehad were becoming apparent under vigorous licking, and he waited until shehad finished before re-opening the conversation. When at last she closedher eyes and folded her forepaws under her breast, he began again verygently: "Puss, tell me your troubles. "

At the sound of his voice she broke into a harsh rumbling which herecognized as an attempt to purr. He bent over to rub her cheek and shemewed again, an amiable inquiring little mew, to which he replied, "Certainly, you are greatly improved, and when you recover your plumageyou will be a gorgeous bird. " Much flattered, she stood up and marchedaround and around his legs, pushing her head between them and makingpleased remarks, to which he responded with grave politeness. 

"Now, what sent you here, " he said--"here into the Street of the FourWinds, and up five flights to the very door where you would be welcome?What was it that prevented your meditated flight when I turned from mycanvas to encounter your yellow eyes? Are you a Latin Quarter cat as I ama Latin Quarter man? And why do you wear a rose-coloured flowered garterbuckled about your neck?" The cat had climbed into his lap, and now satpurring as he passed his hand over her thin coat. 

"Excuse me, " he continued in lazy soothing tones, harmonizing with herpurring, "if I seem indelicate, but I cannot help musing on thisrose-coloured garter, flowered so quaintly and fastened with a silverclasp. For the clasp is silver; I can see the mint mark on the edge, as isprescribed by the law of the French Republic. Now, why is this garterwoven of rose silk and delicately embroidered, --why is this silken garterwith its silver clasp about your famished throat? Am I indiscreet when Iinquire if its owner is your owner? Is she some aged dame living in memoryof youthful vanities, fond, doting on you, decorating you with herintimate personal attire? The circumference of the garter would suggestthis, for your neck is thin, and the garter fits you. But then again Inotice--I notice most things--that the garter is capable of being muchenlarged. These small silver-rimmed eyelets, of which I count five, areproof of that. And now I observe that the fifth eyelet is worn out, asthough the tongue of the clasp were accustomed to lie there. That seems toargue a well-rounded form. "

The cat curled her toes in contentment. The street was very still outside. 

He murmured on: "Why should your mistress decorate you with an articlemost necessary to her at all times? Anyway, at most times. How did shecome to slip this bit of silk and silver about your neck? Was it thecaprice of a moment, --when you, before you had lost your pristineplumpness, marched singing into her bedroom to bid her good-morning? Ofcourse, and she sat up among the pillows, her coiled hair tumbling to hershoulders, as you sprang upon the bed purring: 'Good-day, my lady. ' Oh, itis very easy to understand, " he yawned, resting his head on the back ofthe chair. The cat still purred, tightening and relaxing her padded clawsover his knee. 

"Shall I tell you all about her, cat? She is very beautiful--yourmistress, " he murmured drowsily, "and her hair is heavy as burnishedgold. I could paint her, --not on canvas--for I should need shades andtones and hues and dyes more splendid than the iris of a splendid rainbow. I could only paint her with closed eyes, for in dreams alone can suchcolours as I need be found. For her eyes, I must have azure from skiesuntroubled by a cloud--the skies of dreamland. For her lips, roses fromthe palaces of slumberland, and for her brow, snow-drifts from mountainswhich tower in fantastic pinnacles to the moons;--oh, much higher than ourmoon here, --the crystal moons of dreamland. She is--very--beautiful, yourmistress. "

The words died on his lips and his eyelids drooped. 

The cat, too, was asleep, her cheek turned up upon her wasted flank, herpaws relaxed and limp. 

II

"It is fortunate, " said Severn, sitting up and stretching, "that we havetided over the dinner hour, for I have nothing to offer you for supper butwhat may be purchased with one silver franc. "

The cat on his knee rose, arched her back, yawned, and looked up at him. 

"What shall it be? A roast chicken with salad? No? Possibly you preferbeef? Of course, --and I shall try an egg and some white bread. Now for thewines. Milk for you? Good. I shall take a little water, fresh from thewood, " with a motion toward the bucket in the sink. 

He put on his hat and left the room. The cat followed to the door, andafter he had closed it behind him, she settled down, smelling at thecracks, and cocking one ear at every creak from the crazy old building. 

The door below opened and shut. The cat looked serious, for a momentdoubtful, and her ears flattened in nervous expectation. Presently sherose with a jerk of her tail and started on a noiseless tour of thestudio. She sneezed at a pot of turpentine, hastily retreating to thetable, which she presently mounted, and having satisfied her curiosityconcerning a roll of red modelling wax, returned to the door and sat downwith her eyes on the crack over the threshold Then she lifted her voice ina thin plaint. 

When Severn returned he looked grave, but the cat, joyous anddemonstrative, marched around him, rubbing her gaunt body against hislegs, driving her head enthusiastically into his hand, and purring untilher voice mounted to a squeal. 

He placed a bit of meat, wrapped in brown paper, upon the table, and witha penknife cut it into shreds. The milk he took from a bottle which hadserved for medicine, and poured it into the saucer on the hearth. 

The cat crouched before it, purring and lapping at the same time. 

He cooked his egg and ate it with a slice of bread, watching her busy withthe shredded meat, and when he had finished, and had filled and emptied acup of water from the bucket in the sink, he sat down, taking her into hislap, where she at once curled up and began her toilet. He began to speakagain, touching her caressingly at times by way of emphasis. 

"Cat, I have found out where your mistress lives. It is not very faraway;--it is here, under this same leaky roof, but in the north wing whichI had supposed was uninhabited. My janitor tells me this. By chance, he isalmost sober this evening. The butcher on the rue de Seine, where I boughtyour meat, knows you, and old Cabane the baker identified you withneedless sarcasm. They tell me hard tales of your mistress which I shallnot believe. They say she is idle and vain and pleasure-loving; they sayshe is hare-brained and reckless. The little sculptor on the ground floor, who was buying rolls from old Cabane, spoke to me to-night for the firsttime, although we have always bowed to each other. He said she was verygood and very beautiful. He has only seen her once, and does not know hername. I thanked him;--I don't know why I thanked him so warmly. Cabanesaid, 'Into this cursed Street of the Four Winds, the four winds blow allthings evil. ' The sculptor looked confused, but when he went out with hisrolls, he said to me, 'I am sure, Monsieur, that she is as good as she isbeautiful. '"

The cat had finished her toilet, and now, springing softly to the floor, went to the door and sniffed. He knelt beside her, and unclasping thegarter held it for a moment in his hands. After a while he said: "There isa name engraved upon the silver clasp beneath the buckle. It is a prettyname, Sylvia Elven. Sylvia is a woman's name, Elven is the name of a town. In Paris, in this quarter, above all, in this Street of the Four Winds, names are worn and put away as the fashions change with the seasons. Iknow the little town of Elven, for there I met Fate face to face and Fatewas unkind. But do you know that in Elven Fate had another name, and thatname was Sylvia?"

He replaced the garter and stood up looking down at the cat crouchedbefore the closed door. 

"The name of Elven has a charm for me. It tells me of meadows and clearrivers. The name of Sylvia troubles me like perfume from dead flowers. "

The cat mewed. 

"Yes, yes, " he said soothingly, "I will take you back. Your Sylvia is notmy Sylvia; the world is wide and Elven is not unknown. Yet in the darknessand filth of poorer Paris, in the sad shadows of this ancient house, thesenames are very pleasant to me. "

He lifted her in his arms and strode through the silent corridors to thestairs. Down five flights and into the moonlit court, past the littlesculptor's den, and then again in at the gate of the north wing and up theworm-eaten stairs he passed, until he came to a closed door. When he hadstood knocking for a long time, something moved behind the door; it openedand he went in. The room was dark. As he crossed the threshold, the catsprang from his arms into the shadows. He listened but heard nothing. Thesilence was oppressive and he struck a match. At his elbow stood a tableand on the table a candle in a gilded candlestick. This he lighted, thenlooked around. The chamber was vast, the hangings heavy with embroidery. Over the fireplace towered a carved mantel, grey with the ashes of deadfires. In a recess by the deep-set windows stood a bed, from which thebedclothes, soft and fine as lace, trailed to the polished floor. Helifted the candle above his head. A handkerchief lay at his feet. It wasfaintly perfumed. He turned toward the windows. In front of them was a_canapé_ and over it were flung, pell-mell, a gown of silk, a heap oflace-like garments, white and delicate as spiders' meshes, long, crumpledgloves, and, on the floor beneath, the stockings, the little pointedshoes, and one garter of rosy silk, quaintly flowered and fitted with asilver clasp. Wondering, he stepped forward and drew the heavy curtainsfrom the bed. For a moment the candle flared in his hand; then his eyesmet two other eyes, wide open, smiling, and the candle-flame flashed overhair heavy as gold. 

She was pale, but not as white as he; her eyes were untroubled as achild's; but he stared, trembling from head to foot, while the candleflickered in his hand. 

At last he whispered: "Sylvia, it is I. "

Again he said, "It is I. "

Then, knowing that she was dead, he kissed her on the mouth. And throughthe long watches of the night the cat purred on his knee, tightening andrelaxing her padded claws, until the sky paled above the Street of theFour Winds. 

THE STREET OF THE FIRST SHELL

 "Be of Good Cheer, the Sullen Month will die, And a young Moon requite us by and by: Look how the Old one, meagre, bent, and wan With age and Fast, is fainting from the sky. "

The room was already dark. The high roofs opposite cut off what littleremained of the December daylight. The girl drew her chair nearer thewindow, and choosing a large needle, threaded it, knotting the thread overher fingers. Then she smoothed the baby garment across her knees, andbending, bit off the thread and drew the smaller needle from where itrested in the hem. When she had brushed away the stray threads and bits oflace, she laid it again over her knees caressingly. Then she slipped thethreaded needle from her corsage and passed it through a button, but asthe button spun down the thread, her hand faltered, the thread snapped, and the button rolled across the floor. She raised her head. Her eyes werefixed on a strip of waning light above the chimneys. From somewhere in thecity came sounds like the distant beating of drums, and beyond, farbeyond, a vague muttering, now growing, swelling, rumbling in the distancelike the pounding of surf upon the rocks, now like the surf again, receding, growling, menacing. The cold had become intense, a bitterpiercing cold which strained and snapped at joist and beam and turned theslush of yesterday to flint. From the street below every sound broke sharpand metallic--the clatter of sabots, the rattle of shutters or the raresound of a human voice. The air was heavy, weighted with the black cold aswith a pall. To breathe was painful, to move an effort. 

In the desolate sky there was something that wearied, in the broodingclouds, something that saddened. It penetrated the freezing city cut bythe freezing river, the splendid city with its towers and domes, its quaysand bridges and its thousand spires. It entered the squares, it seized theavenues and the palaces, stole across bridges and crept among the narrowstreets of the Latin Quarter, grey under the grey of the December sky. Sadness, utter sadness. A fine icy sleet was falling, powdering thepavement with a tiny crystalline dust. It sifted against the window-panesand drifted in heaps along the sill. The light at the window had nearlyfailed, and the girl bent low over her work. Presently she raised herhead, brushing the curls from her eyes. 

"Jack?"

"Dearest?"

"Don't forget to clean your palette. "

He said, "All right, " and picking up the palette, sat down upon the floorin front of the stove. His head and shoulders were in the shadow, but thefirelight fell across his knees and glimmered red on the blade of thepalette-knife. Full in the firelight beside him stood a colour-box. On thelid was carved, J. TRENT. Ecole des Beaux Arts. 1870. 

This inscription was ornamented with an American and a French flag. 

The sleet blew against the window-panes, covering them with stars anddiamonds, then, melting from the warmer air within, ran down and frozeagain in fern-like traceries. 

A dog whined and the patter of small paws sounded on the zinc behind thestove. 

"Jack, dear, do you think Hercules is hungry?"

The patter of paws was redoubled behind the stove. 

"He's whining, " she continued nervously, "and if it isn't because he'shungry it is because--"

Her voice faltered. A loud humming filled the air, the windows vibrated. 

"Oh, Jack, " she cried, "another--" but her voice was drowned in the screamof a shell tearing through the clouds overhead. 

"That is the nearest yet, " she murmured. 

"Oh, no, " he answered cheerfully, "it probably fell way over byMontmartre, " and as she did not answer, he said again with exaggeratedunconcern, "They wouldn't take the trouble to fire at the Latin Quarter;anyway they haven't a battery that can hurt it. "

After a while she spoke up brightly: "Jack, dear, when are you going totake me to see Monsieur West's statues?"

"I will bet, " he said, throwing down his palette and walking over to thewindow beside her, "that Colette has been here to-day. "

"Why?" she asked, opening her eyes very wide. Then, "Oh, it's toobad!--really, men are tiresome when they think they know everything! And Iwarn you that if Monsieur West is vain enough to imagine that Colette--"

From the north another shell came whistling and quavering through the sky, passing above them with long-drawn screech which left the windows singing. 

"That, " he blurted out, "was too near for comfort. "

They were silent for a while, then he spoke again gaily: "Go on, Sylvia, and wither poor West;" but she only sighed, "Oh, dear, I can never seem toget used to the shells. "

He sat down on the arm of the chair beside her. 

Her scissors fell jingling to the floor; she tossed the unfinished frockafter them, and putting both arms about his neck drew him down into herlap. 

"Don't go out to-night, Jack. "

He kissed her uplifted face; "You know I must; don't make it hard for me. "

"But when I hear the shells and--and know you are out in the city--"

"But they all fall in Montmartre--"

"They may all fall in the Beaux Arts; you said yourself that two struckthe Quai d'Orsay--"

"Mere accident--"

"Jack, have pity on me! Take me with you!"

"And who will there be to get dinner?"

She rose and flung herself on the bed. 

"Oh, I can't get used to it, and I know you must go, but I beg you not tobe late to dinner. If you knew what I suffer! I--I--cannot help it, andyou must be patient with me, dear. "

He said, "It is as safe there as it is in our own house. "

She watched him fill for her the alcohol lamp, and when he had lighted itand had taken his hat to go, she jumped up and clung to him in silence. After a moment he said: "Now, Sylvia, remember my courage is sustained byyours. Come, I must go!" She did not move, and he repeated: "I must go. "Then she stepped back and he thought she was going to speak and waited, but she only looked at him, and, a little impatiently, he kissed heragain, saying: "Don't worry, dearest. "

When he had reached the last flight of stairs on his way to the street awoman hobbled out of the house-keeper's lodge waving a letter and calling:"Monsieur Jack! Monsieur Jack! this was left by Monsieur Fallowby!"

He took the letter, and leaning on the threshold of the lodge, read it:

"Dear Jack, "I believe Braith is dead broke and I'm sure Fallowby is. Braith swears heisn't, and Fallowby swears he is, so you can draw your own conclusions. I've got a scheme for a dinner, and if it works, I will let you fellowsin. 

"Yours faithfully, "West. 

"P. S. --Fallowby has shaken Hartman and his gang, thank the Lord! There issomething rotten there, --or it may be he's only a miser. 

"P. P. S. --I'm more desperately in love than ever, but I'm sure she does notcare a straw for me. "

"All right, " said Trent, with a smile, to the concierge; "but tell me, howis Papa Cottard?"

The old woman shook her head and pointed to the curtained bed in thelodge. 

"Père Cottard!" he cried cheerily, "how goes the wound to-day?"

He walked over to the bed and drew the curtains. An old man was lyingamong the tumbled sheets. 

"Better?" smiled Trent. 

"Better, " repeated the man wearily; and, after a pause, "Have you anynews, Monsieur Jack?"

"I haven't been out to-day. I will bring you any rumour I may hear, thoughgoodness knows I've got enough of rumours, " he muttered to himself. Thenaloud: "Cheer up; you're looking better. "

"And the sortie?"

"Oh, the sortie, that's for this week. General Trochu sent orders lastnight. "

"It will be terrible. "

"It will be sickening, " thought Trent as he went not into the street andturned the corner toward the rue de Seine; "slaughter, slaughter, phew!I'm glad I'm not going. "

The street was almost deserted. A few women muffled in tattered militarycapes crept along the frozen pavement, and a wretchedly clad gamin hoveredover the sewer-hole on the corner of the Boulevard. A rope around hiswaist held his rags together. From the rope hung a rat, still warm andbleeding. 

"There's another in there, " he yelled at Trent; "I hit him but he gotaway. "

Trent crossed the street and asked: "How much?"

"Two francs for a quarter of a fat one; that's what they give at the St. Germain Market. "

A violent fit of coughing interrupted him, but he wiped his face with thepalm of his hand and looked cunningly at Trent. 

"Last week you could buy a rat for six francs, but, " and here he sworevilely, "the rats have quit the rue de Seine and they kill them now overby the new hospital. I'll let you have this for seven francs; I can sellit for ten in the Isle St. Louis. "

"You lie, " said Trent, "and let me tell you that if you try to swindleanybody in this quarter the people will make short work of you and yourrats. "

He stood a moment eyeing the gamin, who pretended to snivel. Then hetossed him a franc, laughing. The child caught it, and thrusting it intohis mouth wheeled about to the sewer-hole. For a second he crouched, motionless, alert, his eyes on the bars of the drain, then leaping forwardhe hurled a stone into the gutter, and Trent left him to finish a fiercegrey rat that writhed squealing at the mouth of the sewer. 

"Suppose Braith should come to that, " he thought; "poor little chap;" andhurrying, he turned in the dirty passage des Beaux Arts and entered thethird house to the left. 

"Monsieur is at home, " quavered the old concierge. 

Home? A garret absolutely bare, save for the iron bedstead in the cornerand the iron basin and pitcher on the floor. 

West appeared at the door, winking with much mystery, and motioned Trentto enter. Braith, who was painting in bed to keep warm, looked up, laughed, and shook hands. 

"Any news?"

The perfunctory question was answered as usual by: "Nothing but thecannon. "

Trent sat down on the bed. 

"Where on earth did you get that?" he demanded, pointing to ahalf-finished chicken nestling in a wash-basin. 

West grinned. 

"Are you millionaires, you two? Out with it. "

Braith, looking a little ashamed, began, "Oh, it's one of West'sexploits, " but was cut short by West, who said he would tell the storyhimself. 

"You see, before the siege, I had a letter of introduction to a '_type_'here, a fat banker, German-American variety. You know the species, I see. Well, of course I forgot to present the letter, but this morning, judgingit to be a favourable opportunity, I called on him. 

"The villain lives in comfort;--fires, my boy!--fires in the ante-rooms!The Buttons finally condescends to carry my letter and card up, leaving mestanding in the hallway, which I did not like, so I entered the first roomI saw and nearly fainted at the sight of a banquet on a table by the fire. Down comes Buttons, very insolent. No, oh, no, his master, 'is not athome, and in fact is too busy to receive letters of introduction just now;the siege, and many business difficulties--'

"I deliver a kick to Buttons, pick up this chicken from the table, toss mycard on to the empty plate, and addressing Buttons as a species ofPrussian pig, march out with the honours of war. "

Trent shook his head. 

"I forgot to say that Hartman often dines there, and I draw my ownconclusions, " continued West. "Now about this chicken, half of it is forBraith and myself, and half for Colette, but of course you will help meeat my part because I'm not hungry. "

"Neither am I, " began Braith, but Trent, with a smile at the pinched facesbefore him, shook his head saying, "What nonsense! You know I'm neverhungry!"

West hesitated, reddened, and then slicing off Braith's portion, but noteating any himself, said good-night, and hurried away to number 470 rueSerpente, where lived a pretty girl named Colette, orphan after Sedan, andHeaven alone knew where she got the roses in her cheeks, for the siegecame hard on the poor. 

"That chicken will delight her, but I really believe she's in love withWest, " said Trent. Then walking over to the bed: "See here, old man, nododging, you know, how much have you left?"

The other hesitated and flushed. 

"Come, old chap, " insisted Trent. 

Braith drew a purse from beneath his bolster, and handed it to his friendwith a simplicity that touched him. 

"Seven sons, " he counted; "you make me tired! Why on earth don't you cometo me? I take it d----d ill, Braith! How many times must I go over the samething and explain to you that because I have money it is my duty to shareit, and your duty and the duty of every American to share it with me? Youcan't get a cent, the city's blockaded, and the American Minister has hishands full with all the German riff-raff and deuce knows what! Why don'tyou act sensibly?"

"I--I will, Trent, but it's an obligation that perhaps I can never even inpart repay, I'm poor and--"

"Of course you'll pay me! If I were a usurer I would take your talent forsecurity. When you are rich and famous--"

"Don't, Trent--"

"All right, only no more monkey business. "

He slipped a dozen gold pieces into the purse, and tucking it again underthe mattress smiled at Braith. 

"How old are you?" he demanded. 

"Sixteen. "

Trent laid his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder. "I'm twenty-two, andI have the rights of a grandfather as far as you are concerned. You'll doas I say until you're twenty-one. "

"The siège will be over then, I hope, " said Braith, trying to laugh, butthe prayer in their hearts: "How long, O Lord, how long!" was answered bythe swift scream of a shell soaring among the storm-clouds of thatDecember night. 

II

West, standing in the doorway of a house in the rue Serpentine, wasspeaking angrily. He said he didn't care whether Hartman liked it or not;he was telling him, not arguing with him. 

"You call yourself an American!" he sneered; "Berlin and hell are full ofthat kind of American. You come loafing about Colette with your pocketsstuffed with white bread and beef, and a bottle of wine at thirty francsand you can't really afford to give a dollar to the American Ambulance andPublic Assistance, which Braith does, and he's half starved!"

Hartman retreated to the curbstone, but West followed him, his face like athunder-cloud. "Don't you dare to call yourself a countryman of mine, " hegrowled, --"no, --nor an artist either! Artists don't worm themselves intothe service of the Public Defence where they do nothing but feed like ratson the people's food! And I'll tell you now, " he continued dropping hisvoice, for Hartman had started as though stung, "you might better keepaway from that Alsatian Brasserie and the smug-faced thieves who haunt it. You know what they do with suspects!"

"You lie, you hound!" screamed Hartman, and flung the bottle in his handstraight at West's face. West had him by the throat in a second, andforcing him against the dead wall shook him wickedly. 

"Now you listen to me, " he muttered, through his clenched teeth. "You arealready a suspect and--I swear--I believe you are a paid spy! It isn't mybusiness to detect such vermin, and I don't intend to denounce you, butunderstand this! Colette don't like you and I can't stand you, and if Icatch you in this street again I'll make it somewhat unpleasant. Get out, you sleek Prussian!"

Hartman had managed to drag a knife from his pocket, but West tore it fromhim and hurled him into the gutter. A gamin who had seen this burst into apeal of laughter, which rattled harshly in the silent street. Theneverywhere windows were raised and rows of haggard faces appeareddemanding to know why people should laugh in the starving city. 

"Is it a victory?" murmured one. 

"Look at that, " cried West as Hartman picked himself up from the pavement, "look! you miser! look at those faces!" But Hartman gave _him_ a lookwhich he never forgot, and walked away without a word. Trent, who suddenlyappeared at the corner, glanced curiously at West, who merely noddedtoward his door saying, "Come in; Fallowby's upstairs. "

"What are you doing with that knife?" demanded Fallowby, as he and Trententered the studio. 

West looked at his wounded hand, which still clutched the knife, butsaying, "Cut myself by accident, " tossed it into a corner and washed theblood from his fingers. 

Fallowby, fat and lazy, watched him without comment, but Trent, halfdivining how things had turned, walked over to Fallowby smiling. 

"I've a bone to pick with you!" he said. 

"Where is it? I'm hungry, " replied Fallowby with affected eagerness, butTrent, frowning, told him to listen. 

"How much did I advance you a week ago?"

"Three hundred and eighty francs, " replied the other, with a squirm ofcontrition. 

"Where is it?"

Fallowby began a series of intricate explanations, which were soon cutshort by Trent. 

"I know; you blew it in;--you always blow it in. I don't care a rap whatyou did before the siege: I know you are rich and have a right to disposeof your money as you wish to, and I also know that, generally speaking, itis none of my business. But _now_ it is my business, as I have to supplythe funds until you get some more, which you won't until the siege isended one way or another. I wish to share what I have, but I won't see itthrown out of the window. Oh, yes, of course I know you will reimburse me, but that isn't the question; and, anyway, it's the opinion of yourfriends, old man, that you will not be worse off for a little abstinencefrom fleshly pleasures. You are positively a freak in this famine-cursedcity of skeletons!"

"I _am_ rather stout, " he admitted. 

"Is it true you are out of money?" demanded Trent. 

"Yes, I am, " sighed the other. 

"That roast sucking pig on the rue St. Honoré, --is it there yet?"continued Trent. 

"Wh--at?" stammered the feeble one. 

"Ah--I thought so! I caught you in ecstasy before that sucking pig atleast a dozen times!"

Then laughing, he presented Fallowby with a roll of twenty franc piecessaying: "If these go for luxuries you must live on your own flesh, " andwent over to aid West, who sat beside the wash-basin binding up his hand. 

West suffered him to tie the knot, and then said: "You remember, yesterday, when I left you and Braith to take the chicken to Colette. "

"Chicken! Good heavens!" moaned Fallowby. 

"Chicken, " repeated West, enjoying Fallowby's grief;--"I--that is, I mustexplain that things are changed. Colette and I--are to be married--"

"What--what about the chicken?" groaned Fallowby. 

"Shut up!" laughed Trent, and slipping his arm through West's, walked tothe stairway. 

"The poor little thing, " said West, "just think, not a splinter offirewood for a week and wouldn't tell me because she thought I neededit for my clay figure. Whew! When I heard it I smashed that smirkingclay nymph to pieces, and the rest can freeze and be hanged!" After amoment he added timidly: "Won't you call on your way down and say _bonsoir_? It's No. 17. "

"Yes, " said Trent, and he went out softly closing the door behind. 

He stopped on the third landing, lighted a match, scanned the numbers overthe row of dingy doors, and knocked at No. 17. 

"C'est toi Georges?" The door opened. 

"Oh, pardon, Monsieur Jack, I thought it was Monsieur West, " then blushingfuriously, "Oh, I see you have heard! Oh, thank you so much for yourwishes, and I'm sure we love each other very much, --and I'm dying to seeSylvia and tell her and--"

"And what?" laughed Trent. 

"I am very happy, " she sighed. 

"He's pure gold, " returned Trent, and then gaily: "I want you and Georgeto come and dine with us to-night. It's a little treat, --you see to-morrowis Sylvia's _fête_. She will be nineteen. I have written to Thorne, andthe Guernalecs will come with their cousin Odile. Fallowby has engaged notto bring anybody but himself. "

The girl accepted shyly, charging him with loads of loving messages toSylvia, and he said good-night. 

He started up the street, walking swiftly, for it was bitter cold, andcutting across the rue de la Lune he entered the rue de Seine. The earlywinter night had fallen, almost without warning, but the sky was clear andmyriads of stars glittered in the heavens. The bombardment had becomefurious--a steady rolling thunder from the Prussian cannon punctuated bythe heavy shocks from Mont Valérien. 

The shells streamed across the sky leaving trails like shooting stars, andnow, as he turned to look back, rockets blue and red flared above thehorizon from the Fort of Issy, and the Fortress of the North flamed like abonfire. 

"Good news!" a man shouted over by the Boulevard St. Germain. As if bymagic the streets were filled with people, --shivering, chattering peoplewith shrunken eyes. 

"Jacques!" cried one. "The Army of the Loire!"

"Eh! _mon vieux_, it has come then at last! I told thee! I told thee!To-morrow--to-night--who knows?"

"Is it true? Is it a sortie?"

Some one said: "Oh, God--a sortie--and my son?" Another cried: "To theSeine? They say one can see the signals of the Army of the Loire from thePont Neuf. "

There was a child standing near Trent who kept repeating: "Mamma, Mamma, then to-morrow we may eat white bread?" and beside him, an old manswaying, stumbling, his shrivelled hands crushed to his breast, mutteringas if insane. 

"Could it be true? Who has heard the news? The shoemaker on the rue deBuci had it from a Mobile who had heard a Franctireur repeat it to acaptain of the National Guard. "

Trent followed the throng surging through the rue de Seine to the river. 

Rocket after rocket clove the sky, and now, from Montmartre, the cannonclanged, and the batteries on Montparnasse joined in with a crash. Thebridge was packed with people. 

Trent asked: "Who has seen the signals of the Army of the Loire?"

"We are waiting for them, " was the reply. 

He looked toward the north. Suddenly the huge silhouette of the Arc deTriomphe sprang into black relief against the flash of a cannon. The boomof the gun rolled along the quay and the old bridge vibrated. 

Again over by the Point du Jour a flash and heavy explosion shook thebridge, and then the whole eastern bastion of the fortifications blazedand crackled, sending a red flame into the sky. 

"Has any one seen the signals yet?" he asked again. 

"We are waiting, " was the reply. 

"Yes, waiting, " murmured a man behind him, "waiting, sick, starved, freezing, but waiting. Is it a sortie? They go gladly. Is it to starve?They starve. They have no time to think of surrender. Are theyheroes, --these Parisians? Answer me, Trent!"

The American Ambulance surgeon turned about and scanned the parapets ofthe bridge. 

"Any news, Doctor, " asked Trent mechanically. 

"News?" said the doctor; "I don't know any;--I haven't time to know any. What are these people after?"

"They say that the Army of the Loire has signalled Mont Valérien. "

"Poor devils. " The doctor glanced about him for an instant, and then: "I'mso harried and worried that I don't know what to do. After the last sortiewe had the work of fifty ambulances on our poor little corps. To-morrowthere's another sortie, and I wish you fellows could come over toheadquarters. We may need volunteers. How is madame?" he added abruptly. 

"Well, " replied Trent, "but she seems to grow more nervous every day. Iought to be with her now. "

"Take care of her, " said the doctor, then with a sharp look at the people:"I can't stop now--goodnight!" and he hurried away muttering, "Poordevils!"

Trent leaned over the parapet and blinked at the black river surgingthrough the arches. Dark objects, carried swiftly on the breast of thecurrent, struck with a grinding tearing noise against the stone piers, spun around for an instant, and hurried away into the darkness. The icefrom the Marne. 

As he stood staring into the water, a hand was laid on his shoulder. "Hello, Southwark!" he cried, turning around; "this is a queer place foryou!"

"Trent, I have something to tell you. Don't stay here, --don't believe inthe Army of the Loire:" and the _attaché_ of the American Legation slippedhis arm through Trent's and drew him toward the Louvre. 

"Then it's another lie!" said Trent bitterly. 

"Worse--we know at the Legation--I can't speak of it. But that's not whatI have to say. Something happened this afternoon. The Alsatian Brasseriewas visited and an American named Hartman has been arrested. Do you knowhim?"

"I know a German who calls himself an American;--his name is Hartman. "

"Well, he was arrested about two hours ago. They mean to shoot him. "

"What!"

"Of course we at the Legation can't allow them to shoot him off-hand, butthe evidence seems conclusive. "

"Is he a spy?"

"Well, the papers seized in his rooms are pretty damning proofs, andbesides he was caught, they say, swindling the Public Food Committee. Hedrew rations for fifty, how, I don't know. He claims to be an Americanartist here, and we have been obliged to take notice of it at theLegation. It's a nasty affair. "

"To cheat the people at such a time is worse than robbing the poor-box, "cried Trent angrily. "Let them shoot him!"

"He's an American citizen. "

"Yes, oh yes, " said the other with bitterness. "American citizenship is aprecious privilege when every goggle-eyed German--" His anger choked him. 

Southwark shook hands with him warmly. "It can't be helped, we must ownthe carrion. I am afraid you may be called upon to identify him as anAmerican artist, " he said with a ghost of a smile on his deep-lined face;and walked away through the Cours la Reine. 

Trent swore silently for a moment and then drew out his watch. Seveno'clock. "Sylvia will be anxious, " he thought, and hurried back to theriver. The crowd still huddled shivering on the bridge, a sombre pitifulcongregation, peering out into the night for the signals of the Army ofthe Loire: and their hearts beat time to the pounding of the guns, theireyes lighted with each flash from the bastions, and hope rose with thedrifting rockets. 

A black cloud hung over the fortifications. From horizon to horizon thecannon smoke stretched in wavering bands, now capping the spires and domeswith cloud, now blowing in streamers and shreds along the streets, nowdescending from the housetops, enveloping quays, bridges, and river, in asulphurous mist. And through the smoke pall the lightning of the cannonplayed, while from time to time a rift above showed a fathomless blackvault set with stars. 

He turned again into the rue de Seine, that sad abandoned street, with itsrows of closed shutters and desolate ranks of unlighted lamps. He was alittle nervous and wished once or twice for a revolver, but the slinkingforms which passed him in the darkness were too weak with hunger to bedangerous, he thought, and he passed on unmolested to his doorway. Butthere somebody sprang at his throat. Over and over the icy pavement herolled with his assailant, tearing at the noose about his neck, and thenwith a wrench sprang to his feet. 

"Get up, " he cried to the other. 

Slowly and with great deliberation, a small gamin picked himself out ofthe gutter and surveyed Trent with disgust. 

"That's a nice clean trick, " said Trent; "a whelp of your age! You'llfinish against a dead wall! Give me that cord!"

The urchin handed him the noose without a word. 

Trent struck a match and looked at his assailant. It was the rat-killer ofthe day before. 

"H'm! I thought so, " he muttered. 

"Tiens, c'est toi?" said the gamin tranquilly. 

The impudence, the overpowering audacity of the ragamuffin took Trent'sbreath away. 

"Do you know, you young strangler, " he gasped, "that they shoot thieves ofyour age?"

The child turned a passionless face to Trent. "Shoot, then. "

That was too much, and he turned on his heel and entered his hotel. 

Groping up the unlighted stairway, he at last reached his own landing andfelt about in the darkness for the door. From his studio came the sound ofvoices, West's hearty laugh and Fallowby's chuckle, and at last he foundthe knob and, pushing back the door, stood a moment confused by the light. 

"Hello, Jack!" cried West, "you're a pleasant creature, inviting people todine and letting them wait. Here's Fallowby weeping with hunger--"

"Shut up, " observed the latter, "perhaps he's been out to buy a turkey. "

"He's been out garroting, look at his noose!" laughed Guernalec. 

"So now we know where you get your cash!" added West; "vive le coup duPère François!"

Trent shook hands with everybody and laughed at Sylvia's pale face. 

"I didn't mean to be late; I stopped on the bridge a moment to watch thebombardment. Were you anxious, Sylvia?"

She smiled and murmured, "Oh, no!" but her hand dropped into his andtightened convulsively. 

"To the table!" shouted Fallowby, and uttered a joyous whoop. 

"Take it easy, " observed Thorne, with a remnant of manners; "you are notthe host, you know. "

Marie Guernalec, who had been chattering with Colette, jumped up and tookThorne's arm and Monsieur Guernalec drew Odile's arm through his. 

Trent, bowing gravely, offered his own arm to Colette, West took inSylvia, and Fallowby hovered anxiously in the rear. 

"You march around the table three times singing the Marseillaise, "explained Sylvia, "and Monsieur Fallowby pounds on the table and beatstime. "

Fallowby suggested that they could sing after dinner, but his protest wasdrowned in the ringing chorus--

 "Aux armes! Formez vos bataillons!"

Around the room they marched singing, "Marchons! Marchons!"

with all their might, while Fallowby with very bad grace, hammered on thetable, consoling himself a little with the hope that the exercise wouldincrease his appetite. Hercules, the black and tan, fled under the bed, from which retreat he yapped and whined until dragged out by Guernalec andplaced in Odile's lap. 

"And now, " said Trent gravely, when everybody was seated, "listen!" and heread the menu. 

 Beef Soup à la Siège de Paris. 

 Fish. Sardines à la père Lachaise. (White Wine). 

 Rôti (Red Wine). Fresh Beef à la sortie. 

 Vegetables. Canned Beans à la chasse-pot, Canned Peas Gravelotte, Potatoes Irlandaises, Miscellaneous. 

 Cold Corned Beef à la Thieis, Stewed Prunes à la Garibaldi. 

 Dessert. Dried prunes--White bread, Currant Jelly, Tea--Café, Liqueurs, Pipes and Cigarettes. 

Fallowby applauded frantically, and Sylvia served the soup. 

"Isn't it delicious?" sighed Odile. 

Marie Guernalec sipped her soup in rapture. 

"Not at all like horse, and I don't care what they say, horse doesn'ttaste like beef, " whispered Colette to West. Fallowby, who had finished, began to caress his chin and eye the tureen. 

"Have some more, old chap?" inquired Trent. 

"Monsieur Fallowby cannot have any more, " announced Sylvia; "I am savingthis for the concierge. " Fallowby transferred his eyes to the fish. 

The sardines, hot from the grille, were a great success. While the otherswere eating Sylvia ran downstairs with the soup for the old concierge andher husband, and when she hurried back, flushed and breathless, and hadslipped into her chair with a happy smile at Trent, that young man arose, and silence fell over the table. For an instant he looked at Sylvia andthought he had never seen her so beautiful. 

"You all know, " he began, "that to-day is my wife's nineteenth birthday--"

Fallowby, bubbling with enthusiasm, waved his glass in circles about hishead to the terror of Odile and Colette, his neighbours, and Thorne, Westand Guernalec refilled their glasses three times before the storm ofapplause which the toast of Sylvia had provoked, subsided. 

Three times the glasses were filled and emptied to Sylvia, and again toTrent, who protested. 

"This is irregular, " he cried, "the next toast is to the twin Republics, France and America?"

"To the Republics! To the Republics!" they cried, and the toast was drunkamid shouts of "Vive a France! Vive l'Amérique! Vive la Nation!"

Then Trent, with a smile at West, offered the toast, "To a Happy Pair!"and everybody understood, and Sylvia leaned over and kissed Colette, whileTrent bowed to West. 

The beef was eaten in comparative calm, but when it was finished and aportion of it set aside for the old people below, Trent cried: "Drink toParis! May she rise from her ruins and crush the invader!" and the cheersrang out, drowning for a moment the monotonous thunder of the Prussianguns. 

Pipes and cigarettes were lighted, and Trent listened an instant to theanimated chatter around him, broken by ripples of laughter from the girlsor the mellow chuckle of Fallowby. Then he turned to West. 

"There is going to be a sortie to-night, " he said. "I saw the AmericanAmbulance surgeon just before I came in and he asked me to speak to youfellows. Any aid we can give him will not come amiss. "

Then dropping his voice and speaking in English, "As for me, I shall goout with the ambulance to-morrow morning. There is of course no danger, but it's just as well to keep it from Sylvia. "

West nodded. Thorne and Guernalec, who had heard, broke in and offeredassistance, and Fallowby volunteered with a groan. 

"All right, " said Trent rapidly, --"no more now, but meet me at Ambulanceheadquarters to-morrow morning at eight. "

Sylvia and Colette, who were becoming uneasy at the conversation inEnglish, now demanded to know what they were talking about. 

"What does a sculptor usually talk about?" cried West, with a laugh. 

Odile glanced reproachfully at Thorne, her _fiancé_. 

"You are not French, you know, and it is none of your business, this war, "said Odile with much dignity. 

Thorne looked meek, but West assumed an air of outraged virtue. 

"It seems, " he said to Fallowby, "that a fellow cannot discuss thebeauties of Greek sculpture in his mother tongue, without being openlysuspected. "

Colette placed her hand over his mouth and turning to Sylvia, murmured, "They are horridly untruthful, these men. "

"I believe the word for ambulance is the same in both languages, " saidMarie Guernalec saucily; "Sylvia, don't trust Monsieur Trent. "

"Jack, " whispered Sylvia, "promise me--"

A knock at the studio door interrupted her. 

"Come in!" cried Fallowby, but Trent sprang up, and opening the door, looked out. Then with a hasty excuse to the rest, he stepped into thehall-way and closed the door. 

When he returned he was grumbling. 

"What is it, Jack?" cried West. 

"What is it?" repeated Trent savagely; "I'll tell you what it is. I havereceived a dispatch from the American Minister to go at once and identifyand claim, as a fellow-countryman and a brother artist, a rascally thiefand a German spy!"

"Don't go, " suggested Fallowby. 

"If I don't they'll shoot him at once. "

"Let them, " growled Thorne. 

"Do you fellows know who it is?"

"Hartman!" shouted West, inspired. 

Sylvia sprang up deathly white, but Odile slipped her arm around her andsupported her to a chair, saying calmly, "Sylvia has fainted, --it's thehot room, --bring some water. "

Trent brought it at once. 

Sylvia opened her eyes, and after a moment rose, and supported by MarieGuernalec and Trent, passed into the bedroom. 

It was the signal for breaking up, and everybody came and shook hands withTrent, saying they hoped Sylvia would sleep it off and that it would benothing. 

When Marie Guernalec took leave of him, she avoided his eyes, but he spoketo her cordially and thanked her for her aid. 

"Anything I can do, Jack?" inquired West, lingering, and then hurrieddownstairs to catch up with the rest. 

Trent leaned over the banisters, listening to their footsteps and chatter, and then the lower door banged and the house was silent. He lingered, staring down into the blackness, biting his lips; then with an impatientmovement, "I am crazy!" he muttered, and lighting a candle, went into thebedroom. Sylvia was lying on the bed. He bent over her, smoothing thecurly hair on her forehead. 

"Are you better, dear Sylvia?"

She did not answer, but raised her eyes to his. For an instant he met hergaze, but what he read there sent a chill to his heart and he sat downcovering his face with his hands. 

At last she spoke in a voice, changed and strained, --a voice which he hadnever heard, and he dropped his hands and listened, bolt upright in hischair. 

"Jack, it has come at last. I have feared it and trembled, --ah! how oftenhave I lain awake at night with this on my heart and prayed that I mightdie before you should ever know of it! For I love you, Jack, and if you goaway I cannot live. I have deceived you;--it happened before I knew you, but since that first day when you found me weeping in the Luxembourg andspoke to me, Jack, I have been faithful to you in every thought and deed. I loved you from the first, and did not dare to tell you this--fearingthat you would go away; and since then my love has grown--grown--and oh! Isuffered!--but I dared not tell you. And now you know, but you do not knowthe worst. For him--now--what do I care? He was cruel--oh, so cruel!"

She hid her face in her arms. 

"Must I go on? Must I tell you--can you not imagine, oh! Jack--"

He did not stir; his eyes seemed dead. 

"I--I was so young, I knew nothing, and he said--said that he loved me--"

Trent rose and struck the candle with his clenched fist, and the room wasdark. 

The bells of St. Sulpice tolled the hour, and she started up, speakingwith feverish haste, --"I must finish! When you told me you lovedme--you--you asked me nothing; but then, even then, it was too late, and_that other life_ which binds me to him, must stand for ever between youand me! For there _is another_ whom he has claimed, and is good to. Hemust not die, --they cannot shoot him, for that _other's_ sake!"

Trent sat motionless, but his thoughts ran on in an interminable whirl. 

Sylvia, little Sylvia, who shared with him his student life, --who borewith him the dreary desolation of the siege without complaint, --thisslender blue-eyed girl whom he was so quietly fond of, whom he teased orcaressed as the whim suited, who sometimes made him the least bitimpatient with her passionate devotion to him, --could this be the sameSylvia who lay weeping there in the darkness?

Then he clinched his teeth. "Let him die! Let him die!"--but then, --forSylvia's sake, and, --for that _other's_ sake, --Yes, he would go, --he_must_ go, --his duty was plain before him. But Sylvia, --he could not bewhat he had been to her, and yet a vague terror seized him, now all wassaid. Trembling, he struck a light. 

She lay there, her curly hair tumbled about her face, her small whitehands pressed to her breast. 

He could not leave her, and he could not stay. He never knew before thathe loved her. She had been a mere comrade, this girl wife of his. Ah! heloved her now with all his heart and soul, and he knew it, only when itwas too late. Too late? Why? Then he thought of that _other_ one, bindingher, linking her forever to the creature, who stood in danger of his life. With an oath he sprang to the door, but the door would not open, --or wasit that he pressed it back, --locked it, --and flung himself on his kneesbeside the bed, knowing that he dared not for his life's sake leave whatwas his all in life. 

III

It was four in the morning when he came out of the Prison of the Condemnedwith the Secretary of the American Legation. A knot of people had gatheredaround the American Minister's carriage, which stood in front of theprison, the horses stamping and pawing in the icy street, the coachmanhuddled on the box, wrapped in furs. Southwark helped the Secretary intothe carriage, and shook hands with Trent, thanking him for coming. 

"How the scoundrel did stare, " he said; "your evidence was worse than akick, but it saved his skin for the moment at least, --and preventedcomplications. "

The Secretary sighed. "We have done our part. Now let them prove him a spyand we wash our hands of him. Jump in, Captain! Come along, Trent!"

"I have a word to say to Captain Southwark, I won't detain him, " saidTrent hastily, and dropping his voice, "Southwark, help _me_ now. You knowthe story from the blackguard. You know the--the child is at his rooms. Get it, and take it to my own apartment, and if he is shot, I will providea home for it. "

"I understand, " said the Captain gravely. 

"Will you do this at once?"

"At once, " he replied. 

Their hands met in a warm clasp, and then Captain Southwark climbed intothe carriage, motioning Trent to follow; but he shook his head saying, "Good-bye!" and the carriage rolled away. 

He watched the carriage to the end of the street, then started toward hisown quarter, but after a step or two hesitated, stopped, and finallyturned away in the opposite direction. Something--perhaps it was the sightof the prisoner he had so recently confronted nauseated him. He felt theneed of solitude and quiet to collect his thoughts. The events of theevening had shaken him terribly, but he would walk it off, forget, buryeverything, and then go back to Sylvia. He started on swiftly, and for atime the bitter thoughts seemed to fade, but when he paused at last, breathless, under the Arc de Triomphe, the bitterness and the wretchednessof the whole thing--yes, of his whole misspent life came back with a pang. Then the face of the prisoner, stamped with the horrible grimace of fear, grew in the shadows before his eyes. 

Sick at heart he wandered up and down under the great Arc, striving tooccupy his mind, peering up at the sculptured cornices to read the namesof the heroes and battles which he knew were engraved there, but alwaysthe ashen face of Hartman followed him, grinning with terror!--or was itterror?--was it not triumph?--At the thought he leaped like a man whofeels a knife at his throat, but after a savage tramp around the square, came back again and sat down to battle with his misery. 

The air was cold, but his cheeks were burning with angry shame. Shame?Why? Was it because he had married a girl whom chance had made a mother?_Did_ he love her? Was this miserable bohemian existence, then, his endand aim in life? He turned his eyes upon the secrets of his heart, andread an evil story, --the story of the past, and he covered his face forshame, while, keeping time to the dull pain throbbing in his head, hisheart beat out the story for the future. Shame and disgrace. 

Roused at last from a lethargy which had begun to numb the bitterness ofhis thoughts, he raised his head and looked about. A sudden fog hadsettled in the streets; the arches of the Arc were choked with it. Hewould go home. A great horror of being alone seized him. _But he was notalone. _ The fog was peopled with phantoms. All around him in the mist theymoved, drifting through the arches in lengthening lines, and vanished, while from the fog others rose up, swept past and were engulfed. He wasnot alone, for even at his side they crowded, touched him, swarmed beforehim, beside him, behind him, pressed him back, seized, and bore him withthem through the mist. Down a dim avenue, through lanes and alleys whitewith fog, they moved, and if they spoke their voices were dull as thevapour which shrouded them. At last in front, a bank of masonry and earthcut by a massive iron barred gate towered up in the fog. Slowly and moreslowly they glided, shoulder to shoulder and thigh to thigh. Then allmovement ceased. A sudden breeze stirred the fog. It wavered and eddied. Objects became more distinct. A pallor crept above the horizon, touchingthe edges of the watery clouds, and drew dull sparks from a thousandbayonets. Bayonets--they were everywhere, cleaving the fog or flowingbeneath it in rivers of steel. High on the wall of masonry and earth agreat gun loomed, and around it figures moved in silhouettes. Below, abroad torrent of bayonets swept through the iron barred gateway, out intothe shadowy plain. It became lighter. Faces grew more distinct among themarching masses and he recognized one. 

"You, Philippe!"

The figure turned its head. 

Trent cried, "Is there room for me?" but the other only waved his arm in avague adieu and was gone with the rest. Presently the cavalry began topass, squadron on squadron, crowding out into the darkness; then manycannon, then an ambulance, then again the endless lines of bayonets. Beside him a cuirassier sat on his steaming horse, and in front, among agroup of mounted officers he saw a general, with the astrakan collar ofhis dolman turned up about his bloodless face. 

Some women were weeping near him and one was struggling to force a loaf ofblack bread into a soldier's haversack. The soldier tried to aid her, butthe sack was fastened, and his rifle bothered him, so Trent held it, whilethe woman unbuttoned the sack and forced in the bread, now all wet withher tears. The rifle was not heavy. Trent found it wonderfully manageable. Was the bayonet sharp? He tried it. Then a sudden longing, a fierce, imperative desire took possession of him. 

"_Chouette!_" cried a gamin, clinging to the barred gate, "_encore toi monvieux_?"

Trent looked up, and the rat-killer laughed in his face. But when thesoldier had taken the rifle again, and thanking him, ran hard to catch hisbattalion, he plunged into the throng about the gateway. 

"Are you going?" he cried to a marine who sat in the gutter bandaging hisfoot. 

"Yes. "

Then a girl--a mere child--caught him by the hand and led him into thecafé which faced the gate. The room was crowded with soldiers, some, whiteand silent, sitting on the floor, others groaning on the leather-coveredsettees. The air was sour and suffocating. 

"Choose!" said the girl with a little gesture of pity; "they can't go!"

In a heap of clothing on the floor he found a capote and képi. 

She helped him buckle his knapsack, cartridge-box, and belt, and showedhim how to load the chasse-pot rifle, holding it on her knees. 

When he thanked her she started to her feet. 

"You are a foreigner!"

"American, " he said, moving toward the door, but the child barred his way. 

"I am a Bretonne. My father is up there with the cannon of the marine. Hewill shoot you if you are a spy. "

They faced each other for a moment. Then sighing, he bent over and kissedthe child. "Pray for France, little one, " he murmured, and she repeatedwith a pale smile: "For France and you, beau Monsieur. "

He ran across the street and through the gateway. Once outside, he edgedinto line and shouldered his way along the road. A corporal passed, lookedat him, repassed, and finally called an officer. "You belong to the 60th, "growled the corporal looking at the number on his képi. 

"We have no use for Franc-tireurs, " added the officer, catching sight ofhis black trousers. 

"I wish to volunteer in place of a comrade, " said Trent, and the officershrugged his shoulders and passed on. 

Nobody paid much attention to him, one or two merely glancing at histrousers. The road was deep with slush and mud-ploughed and torn by wheelsand hoofs. A soldier in front of him wrenched his foot in an icy rut anddragged himself to the edge of the embankment groaning. The plain oneither side of them was grey with melting snow. Here and there behinddismantled hedge-rows stood wagons, bearing white flags with red crosses. Sometimes the driver was a priest in rusty hat and gown, sometimes acrippled Mobile. Once they passed a wagon driven by a Sister of Charity. Silent empty houses with great rents in their walls, and every windowblank, huddled along the road. Further on, within the zone of danger, nothing of human habitation remained except here and there a pile offrozen bricks or a blackened cellar choked with snow. 

For some time Trent had been annoyed by the man behind him, who kepttreading on his heels. Convinced at last that it was intentional, heturned to remonstrate and found himself face to face with a fellow-studentfrom the Beaux Arts. Trent stared. 

"I thought you were in the hospital!"

The other shook his head, pointing to his bandaged jaw. 

"I see, you can't speak. Can I do anything?"

The wounded man rummaged in his haversack and produced a crust of blackbread. 

"He can't eat it, his jaw is smashed, and he wants you to chew it forhim, " said the soldier next to him. 

Trent took the crust, and grinding it in his teeth morsel by morsel, passed it back to the starving man. 

From time to time mounted orderlies sped to the front, covering them withslush. It was a chilly, silent march through sodden meadows wreathed infog. Along the railroad embankment across the ditch, another column movedparallel to their own. Trent watched it, a sombre mass, now distinct, nowvague, now blotted out in a puff of fog. Once for half-an-hour he lost it, but when again it came into view, he noticed a thin line detach itselffrom the flank, and, bellying in the middle, swing rapidly to the west. Atthe same moment a prolonged crackling broke out in the fog in front. Otherlines began to slough off from the column, swinging east and west, and thecrackling became continuous. A battery passed at full gallop, and he drewback with his comrades to give it way. It went into action a little to theright of his battalion, and as the shot from the first rifled piece boomedthrough the mist, the cannon from the fortifications opened with a mightyroar. An officer galloped by shouting something which Trent did not catch, but he saw the ranks in front suddenly part company with his own, anddisappear in the twilight. More officers rode up and stood beside himpeering into the fog. Away in front the crackling had become one prolongedcrash. It was dreary waiting. Trent chewed some bread for the man behind, who tried to swallow it, and after a while shook his head, motioning Trentto eat the rest himself. A corporal offered him a little brandy and hedrank it, but when he turned around to return the flask, the corporal waslying on the ground. Alarmed, he looked at the soldier next to him, whoshrugged his shoulders and opened his mouth to speak, but something struckhim and he rolled over and over into the ditch below. At that moment thehorse of one of the officers gave a bound and backed into the battalion, lashing out with his heels. One man was ridden down; another was kicked inthe chest and hurled through the ranks. The officer sank his spurs intothe horse and forced him to the front again, where he stood trembling. Thecannonade seemed to draw nearer. A staff-officer, riding slowly up anddown the battalion suddenly collapsed in his saddle and clung to hishorse's mane. One of his boots dangled, crimsoned and dripping, from thestirrup. Then out of the mist in front men came running. The roads, thefields, the ditches were full of them, and many of them fell. For aninstant he imagined he saw horsemen riding about like ghosts in thevapours beyond, and a man behind him cursed horribly, declaring he too hadseen them, and that they were Uhlans; but the battalion stood inactive, and the mist fell again over the meadows. 

The colonel sat heavily upon his horse, his bullet-shaped head buried inthe astrakan collar of his dolman, his fat legs sticking straight out inthe stirrups. 

The buglers clustered about him with bugles poised, and behind him astaff-officer in a pale blue jacket smoked a cigarette and chatted with acaptain of hussars. From the road in front came the sound of furiousgalloping and an orderly reined up beside the colonel, who motioned him tothe rear without turning his head. Then on the left a confused murmurarose which ended in a shout. A hussar passed like the wind, followed byanother and another, and then squadron after squadron whirled by them intothe sheeted mists. At that instant the colonel reared in his saddle, thebugles clanged, and the whole battalion scrambled down the embankment, over the ditch and started across the soggy meadow. Almost at once Trentlost his cap. Something snatched it from his head, he thought it was atree branch. A good many of his comrades rolled over in the slush and ice, and he imagined that they had slipped. One pitched right across his pathand he stopped to help him up, but the man screamed when he touched himand an officer shouted, "Forward! Forward!" so he ran on again. It was along jog through the mist, and he was often obliged to shift his rifle. When at last they lay panting behind the railroad embankment, he lookedabout him. He had felt the need of action, of a desperate physicalstruggle, of killing and crushing. He had been seized with a desire tofling himself among masses and tear right and left. He longed to fire, touse the thin sharp bayonet on his chassepot. He had not expected this. Hewished to become exhausted, to struggle and cut until incapable of liftinghis arm. Then he had intended to go home. He heard a man say that half thebattalion had gone down in the charge, and he saw another examining acorpse under the embankment. The body, still warm, was clothed in astrange uniform, but even when he noticed the spiked helmet lying a fewinches further away, he did not realize what had happened. 

The colonel sat on his horse a few feet to the left, his eyes sparklingunder the crimson képi. Trent heard him reply to an officer: "I can holdit, but another charge, and I won't have enough men left to sound abugle. "

"Were the Prussians here?" Trent asked of a soldier who sat wiping theblood trickling from his hair. 

"Yes. The hussars cleaned them out. We caught their cross fire. "

"We are supporting a battery on the embankment, " said another. 

Then the battalion crawled over the embankment and moved along the linesof twisted rails. Trent rolled up his trousers and tucked them into hiswoollen socks: but they halted again, and some of the men sat down on thedismantled railroad track. Trent looked for his wounded comrade from theBeaux Arts. He was standing in his place, very pale. The cannonade hadbecome terrific. For a moment the mist lifted. He caught a glimpse of thefirst battalion motionless on the railroad track in front, of regiments oneither flank, and then, as the fog settled again, the drums beat and themusic of the bugles began away on the extreme left. A restless movementpassed among the troops, the colonel threw up his arm, the drums rolled, and the battalion moved off through the fog. They were near the front nowfor the battalion was firing as it advanced. Ambulances galloped along thebase of the embankment to the rear, and the hussars passed and repassedlike phantoms. They were in the front at last, for all about them wasmovement and turmoil, while from the fog, close at hand, came cries andgroans and crashing volleys. Shells fell everywhere, bursting along theembankment, splashing them with frozen slush. Trent was frightened. Hebegan to dread the unknown, which lay there crackling and flaming inobscurity. The shock of the cannon sickened him. He could even see the foglight up with a dull orange as the thunder shook the earth. It was near, he felt certain, for the colonel shouted "Forward!" and the firstbattalion was hastening into it. He felt its breath, he trembled, buthurried on. A fearful discharge in front terrified him. Somewhere in thefog men were cheering, and the colonel's horse, streaming with bloodplunged about in the smoke. 

Another blast and shock, right in his face, almost stunned him, and hefaltered. All the men to the right were down. His head swam; the fog andsmoke stupefied him. He put out his hand for a support and caughtsomething. It was the wheel of a gun-carriage, and a man sprang frombehind it, aiming a blow at his head with a rammer, but stumbled backshrieking with a bayonet through his neck, and Trent knew that he hadkilled. Mechanically he stooped to pick up his rifle, but the bayonet wasstill in the man, who lay, beating with red hands against the sod. Itsickened him and he leaned on the cannon. Men were fighting all around himnow, and the air was foul with smoke and sweat. Somebody seized him frombehind and another in front, but others in turn seized them or struck themsolid blows. The click! click! click! of bayonets infuriated him, and hegrasped the rammer and struck out blindly until it was shivered to pieces. 

A man threw his arm around his neck and bore him to the ground, but hethrottled him and raised himself on his knees. He saw a comrade seize thecannon, and fall across it with his skull crushed in; he saw the coloneltumble clean out of his saddle into the mud; then consciousness fled. 

When he came to himself, he was lying on the embankment among the twistedrails. On every side huddled men who cried out and cursed and fled awayinto the fog, and he staggered to his feet and followed them. Once hestopped to help a comrade with a bandaged jaw, who could not speak butclung to his arm for a time and then fell dead in the freezing mire; andagain he aided another, who groaned: "Trent, c'est moi--Philippe, " until asudden volley in the midst relieved him of his charge. 

An icy wind swept down from the heights, cutting the fog into shreds. Foran instant, with an evil leer the sun peered through the naked woods ofVincennes, sank like a blood-clot in the battery smoke, lower, lower, intothe blood-soaked plain. 

IV

When midnight sounded from the belfry of St. Sulpice the gates of Pariswere still choked with fragments of what had once been an army. 

They entered with the night, a sullen horde, spattered with slime, faintwith hunger and exhaustion. There was little disorder at first, and thethrong at the gates parted silently as the troops tramped along thefreezing streets. Confusion came as the hours passed. Swiftly and moreswiftly, crowding squadron after squadron and battery on battery, horsesplunging and caissons jolting, the remnants from the front surged throughthe gates, a chaos of cavalry and artillery struggling for the right ofway. Close upon them stumbled the infantry; here a skeleton of a regimentmarching with a desperate attempt at order, there a riotous mob of Mobilescrushing their way to the streets, then a turmoil of horsemen, cannon, troops without, officers, officers without men, then again a line ofambulances, the wheels groaning under their heavy loads. 

Dumb with misery the crowd looked on. 

All through the day the ambulances had been arriving, and all day long theragged throng whimpered and shivered by the barriers. At noon the crowdwas increased ten-fold, filling the squares about the gates, and swarmingover the inner fortifications. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon the German batteries suddenly wreathedthemselves in smoke, and the shells fell fast on Montparnasse. At twentyminutes after four two projectiles struck a house in the rue de Bac, and amoment later the first shell fell in the Latin Quarter. 

Braith was painting in bed when West came in very much scared. 

"I wish you would come down; our house has been knocked into a cocked hat, and I'm afraid that some of the pillagers may take it into their heads topay us a visit to-night. "

Braith jumped out of bed and bundled himself into a garment which had oncebeen an overcoat. 

"Anybody hurt?" he inquired, struggling with a sleeve full of dilapidatedlining. 

"No. Colette is barricaded in the cellar, and the concierge ran away tothe fortifications. There will be a rough gang there if the bombardmentkeeps up. You might help us--"

"Of course, " said Braith; but it was not until they had reached the rueSerpente and had turned in the passage which led to West's cellar, thatthe latter cried: "Have you seen Jack Trent, to-day?"

"No, " replied Braith, looking troubled, "he was not at AmbulanceHeadquarters. "

"He stayed to take care of Sylvia, I suppose. "

A bomb came crashing through the roof of a house at the end of the alleyand burst in the basement, showering the street with slate and plaster. Asecond struck a chimney and plunged into the garden, followed by anavalanche of bricks, and another exploded with a deafening report in thenext street. 

They hurried along the passage to the steps which led to the cellar. Hereagain Braith stopped. 

"Don't you think I had better run up to see if Jack and Sylvia are wellentrenched? I can get back before dark. "

"No. Go in and find Colette, and I'll go. "

"No, no, let me go, there's no danger. "

"I know it, " replied West calmly; and, dragging Braith into the alley, pointed to the cellar steps. The iron door was barred. 

"Colette! Colette!" he called. The door swung inward, and the girl sprangup the stairs to meet them. At that instant, Braith, glancing behind him, gave a startled cry, and pushing the two before him into the cellar, jumped down after them and slammed the iron door. A few seconds later aheavy jar from the outside shook the hinges. 

"They are here, " muttered West, very pale. 

"That door, " observed Colette calmly, "will hold for ever. "

Braith examined the low iron structure, now trembling with the blowsrained on it from without. West glanced anxiously at Colette, whodisplayed no agitation, and this comforted him. 

"I don't believe they will spend much time here, " said Braith; "they onlyrummage in cellars for spirits, I imagine. "

"Unless they hear that valuables are buried there. "

"But surely nothing is buried here?" exclaimed Braith uneasily. 

"Unfortunately there is, " growled West. "That miserly landlord of mine--"

A crash from the outside, followed by a yell, cut him short; then blowafter blow shook the doors, until there came a sharp snap, a clinking ofmetal and a triangular bit of iron fell inwards, leaving a hole throughwhich struggled a ray of light. 

Instantly West knelt, and shoving his revolver through the aperture firedevery cartridge. For a moment the alley resounded with the racket of therevolver, then absolute silence followed. 

Presently a single questioning blow fell upon the door, and a moment lateranother and another, and then a sudden crack zigzagged across the ironplate. 

"Here, " said West, seizing Colette by the wrist, "you follow me, Braith!"and he ran swiftly toward a circular spot of light at the further end ofthe cellar. The spot of light came from a barred man-hole above. Westmotioned Braith to mount on his shoulders. 

"Push it over. You _must_!"

With little effort Braith lifted the barred cover, scrambled out on hisstomach, and easily raised Colette from West's shoulders. 

"Quick, old chap!" cried the latter. 

Braith twisted his legs around a fence-chain and leaned down again. Thecellar was flooded with a yellow light, and the air reeked with the stenchof petroleum torches. The iron door still held, but a whole plate of metalwas gone, and now as they looked a figure came creeping through, holding atorch. 

"Quick!" whispered Braith. "Jump!" and West hung dangling until Colettegrasped him by the collar, and he was dragged out. Then her nerves gaveway and she wept hysterically, but West threw his arm around her and ledher across the gardens into the next street, where Braith, after replacingthe man-hole cover and piling some stone slabs from the wall over it, rejoined them. It was almost dark. They hurried through the street, nowonly lighted by burning buildings, or the swift glare of the shells. Theygave wide berth to the fires, but at a distance saw the flitting forms ofpillagers among the _débris_. Sometimes they passed a female fury crazedwith drink shrieking anathemas upon the world, or some slouching loutwhose blackened face and hands betrayed his share in the work ofdestruction. At last they reached the Seine and passed the bridge, andthen Braith said: "I must go back. I am not sure of Jack and Sylvia. " Ashe spoke, he made way for a crowd which came trampling across the bridge, and along the river wall by the d'Orsay barracks. In the midst of it Westcaught the measured tread of a platoon. A lantern passed, a file ofbayonets, then another lantern which glimmered on a deathly face behind, and Colette gasped, "Hartman!" and he was gone. They peered fearfullyacross the embankment, holding their breath. There was a shuffle of feeton the quay, and the gate of the barracks slammed. A lantern shone for amoment at the postern, the crowd pressed to the grille, then came theclang of the volley from the stone parade. 

One by one the petroleum torches flared up along the embankment, and nowthe whole square was in motion. Down from the Champs Elysées and acrossthe Place de la Concorde straggled the fragments of the battle, a companyhere, and a mob there. They poured in from every street followed by womenand children, and a great murmur, borne on the icy wind, swept through theArc de Triomphe and down the dark avenue, --"Perdus! perdus!"

A ragged end of a battalion was pressing past, the spectre ofannihilation. West groaned. Then a figure sprang from the shadowy ranksand called West's name, and when he saw it was Trent he cried out. Trentseized him, white with terror. 

"Sylvia?"

West stared speechless, but Colette moaned, "Oh, Sylvia! Sylvia!--and theyare shelling the Quarter!"

"Trent!" shouted Braith; but he was gone, and they could not overtakethem. 

The bombardment ceased as Trent crossed the Boulevard St. Germain, but theentrance to the rue de Seine was blocked by a heap of smoking bricks. Everywhere the shells had torn great holes in the pavement. The café was awreck of splinters and glass, the book-store tottered, ripped from roof tobasement, and the little bakery, long since closed, bulged outward above amass of slate and tin. 

He climbed over the steaming bricks and hurried into the rue de Tournon. On the corner a fire blazed, lighting up his own street, and on the bankwall, beneath a shattered gas lamp, a child was writing with a bit ofcinder. 

"HERE FELL THE FIRST SHELL. "

The letters stared him in the face. The rat-killer finished and steppedback to view his work, but catching sight of Trent's bayonet, screamed andfled, and as Trent staggered across the shattered street, from holes andcrannies in the ruins fierce women fled from their work of pillage, cursing him. 

At first he could not find his house, for the tears blinded him, but hefelt along the wall and reached the door. A lantern burned in theconcierge's lodge and the old man lay dead beside it. Faint with fright heleaned a moment on his rifle, then, snatching the lantern, sprang up thestairs. He tried to call, but his tongue hardly moved. On the second floorhe saw plaster on the stairway, and on the third the floor was torn andthe concierge lay in a pool of blood across the landing. The next floorwas his, _theirs_. The door hung from its hinges, the walls gaped. Hecrept in and sank down by the bed, and there two arms were flung aroundhis neck, and a tear-stained face sought his own. 

"Sylvia!"

"O Jack! Jack! Jack!"

From the tumbled pillow beside them a child wailed. 

"They brought it; it is mine, " she sobbed. 

"Ours, " he whispered, with his arms around them both. 

Then from the stairs below came Braith's anxious voice. 

"Trent! Is all well?"

THE STREET OF OUR LADY OF THE FIELDS

 "Et tout les jours passés dans la tristesse Nous sont comptés comme des jours heureux!"

I

The street is not fashionable, neither is it shabby. It is a pariah amongstreets--a street without a Quarter. It is generally understood to lieoutside the pale of the aristocratic Avenue de l'Observatoire. Thestudents of the Montparnasse Quarter consider it swell and will have noneof it. The Latin Quarter, from the Luxembourg, its northern frontier, sneers at its respectability and regards with disfavour the correctlycostumed students who haunt it. Few strangers go into it. At times, however, the Latin Quarter students use it as a thoroughfare between therue de Rennes and the Bullier, but except for that and the weeklyafternoon visits of parents and guardians to the Convent near the rueVavin, the street of Our Lady of the Fields is as quiet as a Passyboulevard. Perhaps the most respectable portion lies between the rue de laGrande Chaumière and the rue Vavin, at least this was the conclusionarrived at by the Reverend Joel Byram, as he rambled through it withHastings in charge. To Hastings the street looked pleasant in the brightJune weather, and he had begun to hope for its selection when the ReverendByram shied violently at the cross on the Convent opposite. 

"Jesuits, " he muttered. 

"Well, " said Hastings wearily, "I imagine we won't find anything better. You say yourself that vice is triumphant in Paris, and it seems to me thatin every street we find Jesuits or something worse. "

After a moment he repeated, "Or something worse, which of course I wouldnot notice except for your kindness in warning me. "

Dr. Byram sucked in his lips and looked about him. He was impressed by theevident respectability of the surroundings. Then frowning at the Conventhe took Hastings' arm and shuffled across the street to an iron gatewaywhich bore the number 201 _bis_ painted in white on a blue ground. Belowthis was a notice printed in English:

 1. For Porter please oppress once. 2. For Servant please oppress twice. 3. For Parlour please oppress thrice. 

Hastings touched the electric button three times, and they were usheredthrough the garden and into the parlour by a trim maid. The dining-roomdoor, just beyond, was open, and from the table in plain view a stoutwoman hastily arose and came toward them. Hastings caught a glimpse of ayoung man with a big head and several snuffy old gentlemen at breakfast, before the door closed and the stout woman waddled into the room, bringingwith her an aroma of coffee and a black poodle. "

"It ees a plaisir to you receive!" she cried. "Monsieur is Anglish? No?Americain? Off course. My pension it ees for Americains surtout. Here allspik Angleesh, c'est à dire, ze personnel; ze sairvants do spik, plus oumoins, a little. I am happy to have you comme pensionnaires--"

"Madame, " began Dr. Byram, but was cut short again. 

"Ah, yess, I know, ah! mon Dieu! you do not spik Frainch but you have cometo lairne! My husband does spik Frainch wiss ze pensionnaires. We have atze moment a family Americaine who learn of my husband Frainch--"

Here the poodle growled at Dr. Byram and was promptly cuffed by hismistress. 

"Veux tu!" she cried, with a slap, "veux tu! Oh! le vilain, oh! levilain!"

"Mais, madame, " said Hastings, smiling, "il n'a pas l'air très féroce. "

The poodle fled, and his mistress cried, "Ah, ze accent charming! He doesspik already Frainch like a Parisien young gentleman!"

Then Dr. Byram managed to get in a word or two and gathered more or lessinformation with regard to prices. 

"It ees a pension serieux; my clientèle ees of ze best, indeed a pensionde famille where one ees at 'ome. "

Then they went upstairs to examine Hastings' future quarters, test thebed-springs and arrange for the weekly towel allowance. Dr. Byram appearedsatisfied. 

Madame Marotte accompanied them to the door and rang for the maid, but asHastings stepped out into the gravel walk, his guide and mentor paused amoment and fixed Madame with his watery eyes. 

"You understand, " he said, "that he is a youth of most careful bringingup, and his character and morals are without a stain. He is young and hasnever been abroad, never even seen a large city, and his parents haverequested me, as an old family friend living in Paris, to see that he isplaced under good influences. He is to study art, but on no account wouldhis parents wish him to live in the Latin Quarter if they knew of theimmorality which is rife there. "

A sound like the click of a latch interrupted him and he raised his eyes, but not in time to see the maid slap the big-headed young man behind theparlour-door. 

Madame coughed, cast a deadly glance behind her and then beamed on Dr. Byram. 

"It ees well zat he come here. The pension more serious, il n'en existepas, eet ees not any!" she announced with conviction. 

So, as there was nothing more to add, Dr. Byram joined Hastings at thegate. 

"I trust, " he said, eyeing the Convent, "that you will make noacquaintances among Jesuits!"

Hastings looked at the Convent until a pretty girl passed before the grayfaçade, and then he looked at her. A young fellow with a paint-box andcanvas came swinging along, stopped before the pretty girl, said somethingduring a brief but vigorous handshake at which they both laughed, and hewent his way, calling back, "À demain Valentine!" as in the same breathshe cried, "À demain!"

"Valentine, " thought Hastings, "what a quaint name;" and he started tofollow the Reverend Joel Byram, who was shuffling towards the nearesttramway station. 

II

"An' you are pleas wiz Paris, Monsieur' Astang?" demanded Madame Marottethe next morning as Hastings came into the breakfast-room of the pension, rosy from his plunge in the limited bath above. 

"I am sure I shall like it, " he replied, wondering at his own depressionof spirits. 

The maid brought him coffee and rolls. He returned the vacant glance ofthe big-headed young man and acknowledged diffidently the salutes of thesnuffy old gentlemen. He did not try to finish his coffee, and satcrumbling a roll, unconscious of the sympathetic glances of MadameMarotte, who had tact enough not to bother him. 

Presently a maid entered with a tray on which were balanced two bowls ofchocolate, and the snuffy old gentlemen leered at her ankles. The maiddeposited the chocolate at a table near the window and smiled at Hastings. Then a thin young lady, followed by her counterpart in all except years, marched into the room and took the table near the window. They wereevidently American, but Hastings, if he expected any sign of recognition, was disappointed. To be ignored by compatriots intensified his depression. He fumbled with his knife and looked at his plate. 

The thin young lady was talkative enough. She was quite aware of Hastings'presence, ready to be flattered if he looked at her, but on the other handshe felt her superiority, for she had been three weeks in Paris and he, itwas easy to see, had not yet unpacked his steamer-trunk. 

Her conversation was complacent. She argued with her mother upon therelative merits of the Louvre and the Bon Marché, but her mother's part ofthe discussion was mostly confined to the observation, "Why, Susie!"

The snuffy old gentlemen had left the room in a body, outwardly polite andinwardly raging. They could not endure the Americans, who filled the roomwith their chatter. 

The big-headed young man looked after them with a knowing cough, murmuring, "Gay old birds!"

"They look like bad old men, Mr. Bladen, " said the girl. 

To this Mr. Bladen smiled and said, "They've had their day, " in a tonewhich implied that he was now having his. 

"And that's why they all have baggy eyes, " cried the girl. "I think it's ashame for young gentlemen--"

"Why, Susie!" said the mother, and the conversation lagged. 

After a while Mr. Bladen threw down the _Petit Journal_, which he dailystudied at the expense of the house, and turning to Hastings, started tomake himself agreeable. He began by saying, "I see you are American. "

To this brilliant and original opening, Hastings, deadly homesick, repliedgratefully, and the conversation was judiciously nourished by observationsfrom Miss Susie Byng distinctly addressed to Mr. Bladen. In the course ofevents Miss Susie, forgetting to address herself exclusively to Mr. Bladen, and Hastings replying to her general question, the _ententecordiale_ was established, and Susie and her mother extended aprotectorate over what was clearly neutral territory. 

"Mr. Hastings, you must not desert the pension every evening as Mr. Bladendoes. Paris is an awful place for young gentlemen, and Mr. Bladen is ahorrid cynic. "

Mr. Bladen looked gratified. 

Hastings answered, "I shall be at the studio all day, and I imagine Ishall be glad enough to come back at night. "

Mr. Bladen, who, at a salary of fifteen dollars a week, acted as agent forthe Pewly Manufacturing Company of Troy, N. Y. , smiled a sceptical smileand withdrew to keep an appointment with a customer on the BoulevardMagenta. 

Hastings walked into the garden with Mrs. Byng and Susie, and, at theirinvitation, sat down in the shade before the iron gate. 

The chestnut trees still bore their fragrant spikes of pink and white, andthe bees hummed among the roses, trellised on the white-walled house. 

A faint freshness was in the air. The watering carts moved up and down thestreet, and a clear stream bubbled over the spotless gutters of the rue dela Grande Chaumière. The sparrows were merry along the curb-stones, takingbath after bath in the water and ruffling their feathers with delight. Ina walled garden across the street a pair of blackbirds whistled among thealmond trees. 

Hastings swallowed the lump in his throat, for the song of the birds andthe ripple of water in a Paris gutter brought back to him the sunnymeadows of Millbrook. 

"That's a blackbird, " observed Miss Byng; "see him there on the bush withpink blossoms. He's all black except his bill, and that looks as if it hadbeen dipped in an omelet, as some Frenchman says--"

"Why, Susie!" said Mrs. Byng. 

"That garden belongs to a studio inhabited by two Americans, " continuedthe girl serenely, "and I often see them pass. They seem to need a greatmany models, mostly young and feminine--"

"Why, Susie!"

"Perhaps they prefer painting that kind, but I don't see why they shouldinvite five, with three more young gentlemen, and all get into two cabsand drive away singing. This street, " she continued, "is dull. There isnothing to see except the garden and a glimpse of the BoulevardMontparnasse through the rue de la Grande Chaumière. No one ever passesexcept a policeman. There is a convent on the corner. "

"I thought it was a Jesuit College, " began Hastings, but was at onceoverwhelmed with a Baedecker description of the place, ending with, "Onone side stand the palatial hotels of Jean Paul Laurens and GuillaumeBouguereau, and opposite, in the little Passage Stanislas, Carolus Duranpaints the masterpieces which charm the world. "

The blackbird burst into a ripple of golden throaty notes, and from somedistant green spot in the city an unknown wild-bird answered with a frenzyof liquid trills until the sparrows paused in their ablutions to look upwith restless chirps. 

Then a butterfly came and sat on a cluster of heliotrope and waved hiscrimson-banded wings in the hot sunshine. Hastings knew him for a friend, and before his eyes there came a vision of tall mulleins and scentedmilkweed alive with painted wings, a vision of a white house andwoodbine-covered piazza, --a glimpse of a man reading and a woman leaningover the pansy bed, --and his heart was full. He was startled a momentlater by Miss Byng. 

"I believe you are homesick!" Hastings blushed. Miss Byng looked at himwith a sympathetic sigh and continued: "Whenever I felt homesick at firstI used to go with mamma and walk in the Luxembourg Gardens. I don't knowwhy it is, but those old-fashioned gardens seemed to bring me nearer homethan anything in this artificial city. "

"But they are full of marble statues, " said Mrs. Byng mildly; "I don't seethe resemblance myself. "

"Where is the Luxembourg?" inquired Hastings after a silence. 

"Come with me to the gate, " said Miss Byng. He rose and followed her, andshe pointed out the rue Vavin at the foot of the street. 

"You pass by the convent to the right, " she smiled; and Hastings went. 

III

The Luxembourg was a blaze of flowers. He walked slowly through the longavenues of trees, past mossy marbles and old-time columns, and threadingthe grove by the bronze lion, came upon the tree-crowned terrace above thefountain. Below lay the basin shining in the sunlight. Flowering almondsencircled the terrace, and, in a greater spiral, groves of chestnuts woundin and out and down among the moist thickets by the western palace wing. At one end of the avenue of trees the Observatory rose, its white domespiled up like an eastern mosque; at the other end stood the heavy palace, with every window-pane ablaze in the fierce sun of June. 

Around the fountain, children and white-capped nurses armed with bamboopoles were pushing toy boats, whose sails hung limp in the sunshine. Adark policeman, wearing red epaulettes and a dress sword, watched them fora while and then went away to remonstrate with a young man who hadunchained his dog. The dog was pleasantly occupied in rubbing grass anddirt into his back while his legs waved into the air. 

The policeman pointed at the dog. He was speechless with indignation. 

"Well, Captain, " smiled the young fellow. 

"Well, Monsieur Student, " growled the policeman. 

"What do you come and complain to me for?"

"If you don't chain him I'll take him, " shouted the policeman. 

"What's that to me, mon capitaine?"

"Wha--t! Isn't that bull-dog yours?"

"If it was, don't you suppose I'd chain him?"

The officer glared for a moment in silence, then deciding that as he was astudent he was wicked, grabbed at the dog, who promptly dodged. Around andaround the flower-beds they raced, and when the officer came too near forcomfort, the bull-dog cut across a flower-bed, which perhaps was notplaying fair. 

The young man was amused, and the dog also seemed to enjoy the exercise. 

The policeman noticed this and decided to strike at the fountain-head ofthe evil. He stormed up to the student and said, "As the owner of thispublic nuisance I arrest you!"

"But, " objected the other, "I disclaim the dog. "

That was a poser. It was useless to attempt to catch the dog until threegardeners lent a hand, but then the dog simply ran away and disappeared inthe rue de Medici. 

The policeman shambled off to find consolation among the white-cappednurses, and the student, looking at his watch, stood up yawning. Thencatching sight of Hastings, he smiled and bowed. Hastings walked over tothe marble, laughing. 

"Why, Clifford, " he said, "I didn't recognize you. "

"It's my moustache, " sighed the other. "I sacrificed it to humour a whimof--of--a friend. What do you think of my dog?"

"Then he is yours?" cried Hastings. 

"Of course. It's a pleasant change for him, this playing tag withpolicemen, but he is known now and I'll have to stop it. He's gone home. He always does when the gardeners take a hand. It's a pity; he's fond ofrolling on lawns. " Then they chatted for a moment of Hastings' prospects, and Clifford politely offered to stand his sponsor at the studio. 

"You see, old tabby, I mean Dr. Byram, told me about you before I metyou, " explained Clifford, "and Elliott and I will be glad to do anythingwe can. " Then looking at his watch again, he muttered, "I have just tenminutes to catch the Versailles train; au revoir, " and started to go, butcatching sight of a girl advancing by the fountain, took off his hat witha confused smile. 

"Why are you not at Versailles?" she said, with an almost imperceptibleacknowledgment of Hastings' presence. 

"I--I'm going, " murmured Clifford. 

For a moment they faced each other, and then Clifford, very red, stammered, "With your permission I have the honour of presenting to you myfriend, Monsieur Hastings. "

Hastings bowed low. She smiled very sweetly, but there was something ofmalice in the quiet inclination of her small Parisienne head. 

"I could have wished, " she said, "that Monsieur Clifford might spare memore time when he brings with him so charming an American. "

"Must--must I go, Valentine?" began Clifford. 

"Certainly, " she replied. 

Clifford took his leave with very bad grace, wincing, when she added, "Andgive my dearest love to Cécile!" As he disappeared in the rue d'Assas, thegirl turned as if to go, but then suddenly remembering Hastings, looked athim and shook her head. 

"Monsieur Clifford is so perfectly harebrained, " she smiled, "it isembarrassing sometimes. You have heard, of course, all about his successat the Salon?"

He looked puzzled and she noticed it. 

"You have been to the Salon, of course?"

"Why, no, " he answered, "I only arrived in Paris three days ago. "

She seemed to pay little heed to his explanation, but continued: "Nobodyimagined he had the energy to do anything good, but on varnishing day theSalon was astonished by the entrance of Monsieur Clifford, who strolledabout as bland as you please with an orchid in his buttonhole, and abeautiful picture on the line. "

She smiled to herself at the reminiscence, and looked at the fountain. 

"Monsieur Bouguereau told me that Monsieur Julian was so astonished thathe only shook hands with Monsieur Clifford in a dazed manner, and actuallyforgot to pat him on the back! Fancy, " she continued with much merriment, "fancy papa Julian forgetting to pat one on the back. "

Hastings, wondering at her acquaintance with the great Bouguereau, lookedat her with respect. "May I ask, " he said diffidently, "whether you are apupil of Bouguereau?"

"I?" she said in some surprise. Then she looked at him curiously. Was hepermitting himself the liberty of joking on such short acquaintance?

His pleasant serious face questioned hers. 

"Tiens, " she thought, "what a droll man!"

"You surely study art?" he said. 

She leaned back on the crooked stick of her parasol, and looked at him. "Why do you think so?"

"Because you speak as if you did. "

"You are making fun of me, " she said, "and it is not good taste. "

She stopped, confused, as he coloured to the roots of his hair. 

"How long have you been in Paris?" she said at length. 

"Three days, " he replied gravely. 

"But--but--surely you are not a nouveau! You speak French too well!"

Then after a pause, "Really are you a nouveau?"

"I am, " he said. 

She sat down on the marble bench lately occupied by Clifford, and tiltingher parasol over her small head looked at him. 

"I don't believe it. "

He felt the compliment, and for a moment hesitated to declare himself oneof the despised. Then mustering up his courage, he told her how new andgreen he was, and all with a frankness which made her blue eyes open verywide and her lips part in the sweetest of smiles. 

"You have never seen a studio?"

"Never. "

"Nor a model?"

"No. "

"How funny, " she said solemnly. Then they both laughed. 

"And you, " he said, "have seen studios?"

"Hundreds. "

"And models?"

"Millions. "

"And you know Bouguereau?"

"Yes, and Henner, and Constant and Laurens, and Puvis de Chavannes andDagnan and Courtois, and--and all the rest of them!"

"And yet you say you are not an artist. "

"Pardon, " she said gravely, "did I say I was not?"

"Won't you tell me?" he hesitated. 

At first she looked at him, shaking her head and smiling, then of a suddenher eyes fell and she began tracing figures with her parasol in the gravelat her feet. Hastings had taken a place on the seat, and now, with hiselbows on his knees, sat watching the spray drifting above the fountainjet. A small boy, dressed as a sailor, stood poking his yacht and crying, "I won't go home! I won't go home!" His nurse raised her hands to Heaven. 

"Just like a little American boy, " thought Hastings, and a pang ofhomesickness shot through him. 

Presently the nurse captured the boat, and the small boy stood at bay. 

"Monsieur René, when you decide to come here you may have your boat. "

The boy backed away scowling. 

"Give me my boat, I say, " he cried, "and don't call me René, for myname's Randall and you know it!"

"Hello!" said Hastings, --"Randall?--that's English. "

"I am American, " announced the boy in perfectly good English, turning tolook at Hastings, "and she's such a fool she calls me René because mammacalls me Ranny--"

Here he dodged the exasperated nurse and took up his station behindHastings, who laughed, and catching him around the waist lifted him intohis lap. 

"One of my countrymen, " he said to the girl beside him. He smiled while hespoke, but there was a queer feeling in his throat. 

"Don't you see the stars and stripes on my yacht?" demanded Randall. Sureenough, the American colours hung limply under the nurse's arm. 

"Oh, " cried the girl, "he is charming, " and impulsively stooped to kisshim, but the infant Randall wriggled out of Hastings' arms, and his nursepounced upon him with an angry glance at the girl. 

She reddened and then bit her lips as the nurse, with eyes still fixed onher, dragged the child away and ostentatiously wiped his lips with herhandkerchief. 

Then she stole a look at Hastings and bit her lip again. 

"What an ill-tempered woman!" he said. "In America, most nurses areflattered when people kiss their children. "

For an instant she tipped the parasol to hide her face, then closed itwith a snap and looked at him defiantly. 

"Do you think it strange that she objected?"

"Why not?" he said in surprise. 

Again she looked at him with quick searching eyes. 

His eyes were clear and bright, and he smiled back, repeating, "Why not?"

"You _are_ droll, " she murmured, bending her head. 

"Why?"

But she made no answer, and sat silent, tracing curves and circles in thedust with her parasol. After a while he said--"I am glad to see that youngpeople have so much liberty here. I understood that the French were not atall like us. You know in America--or at least where I live in Milbrook, girls have every liberty, --go out alone and receive their friends alone, and I was afraid I should miss it here. But I see how it is now, and I amglad I was mistaken. "

She raised her eyes to his and kept them there. 

He continued pleasantly--"Since I have sat here I have seen a lot ofpretty girls walking alone on the terrace there, --and then _you_ are alonetoo. Tell me, for I do not know French customs, --do you have the libertyof going to the theatre without a chaperone?"

For a long time she studied his face, and then with a trembling smilesaid, "Why do you ask me?"

"Because you must know, of course, " he said gaily. 

"Yes, " she replied indifferently, "I know. "

He waited for an answer, but getting none, decided that perhaps she hadmisunderstood him. 

"I hope you don't think I mean to presume on our short acquaintance, " hebegan, --"in fact it is very odd but I don't know your name. When Mr. Clifford presented me he only mentioned mine. Is that the custom inFrance?"

"It is the custom in the Latin Quarter, " she said with a queer light inher eyes. Then suddenly she began talking almost feverishly. 

"You must know, Monsieur Hastings, that we are all _un peu sans gêne_ herein the Latin Quarter. We are very Bohemian, and etiquette and ceremony areout of place. It was for that Monsieur Clifford presented you to me withsmall ceremony, and left us together with less, --only for that, and I amhis friend, and I have many friends in the Latin Quarter, and we all knoweach other very well--and I am not studying art, but--but--"

"But what?" he said, bewildered. 

"I shall not tell you, --it is a secret, " she said with an uncertain smile. On both cheeks a pink spot was burning, and her eyes were very bright. 

Then in a moment her face fell. "Do you know Monsieur Clifford veryintimately?"

"Not very. "

After a while she turned to him, grave and a little pale. 

"My name is Valentine--Valentine Tissot. Might--might I ask a service ofyou on such very short acquaintance?"

"Oh, " he cried, "I should be honoured. "

"It is only this, " she said gently, "it is not much. Promise me not tospeak to Monsieur Clifford about me. Promise me that you will speak to noone about me. "

"I promise, " he said, greatly puzzled. 

She laughed nervously. "I wish to remain a mystery. It is a caprice. "

"But, " he began, "I had wished, I had hoped that you might give MonsieurClifford permission to bring me, to present me at your house. "

"My--my house!" she repeated. 

"I mean, where you live, in fact, to present me to your family. "

The change in the girl's face shocked him. 

"I beg your pardon, " he cried, "I have hurt you. "

And as quick as a flash she understood him because she was a woman. 

"My parents are dead, " she said. 

Presently he began again, very gently. 

"Would it displease you if I beg you to receive me? It is the custom?"

"I cannot, " she answered. Then glancing up at him, "I am sorry; I shouldlike to; but believe me. I cannot. "

He bowed seriously and looked vaguely uneasy. 

"It isn't because I don't wish to. I--I like you; you are very kind tome. "

"Kind?" he cried, surprised and puzzled. 

"I like you, " she said slowly, "and we will see each other sometimes ifyou will. "

"At friends' houses. "

"No, not at friends' houses. "

"Where?"

"Here, " she said with defiant eyes. 

"Why, " he cried, "in Paris you are much more liberal in your views than weare. "

She looked at him curiously. 

"Yes, we are very Bohemian. "

"I think it is charming, " he declared. 

"You see, we shall be in the best of society, " she ventured timidly, witha pretty gesture toward the statues of the dead queens, ranged in statelyranks above the terrace. 

He looked at her, delighted, and she brightened at the success of herinnocent little pleasantry. 

"Indeed, " she smiled, "I shall be well chaperoned, because you see we areunder the protection of the gods themselves; look, there are Apollo, andJuno, and Venus, on their pedestals, " counting them on her small glovedfingers, "and Ceres, Hercules, and--but I can't make out--"

Hastings turned to look up at the winged god under whose shadow they wereseated. 

"Why, it's Love, " he said. 

IV

"There is a nouveau here, " drawled Laffat, leaning around his easel andaddressing his friend Bowles, "there is a nouveau here who is so tenderand green and appetizing that Heaven help him if he should fall into asalad bowl. "

"Hayseed?" inquired Bowles, plastering in a background with a brokenpalette-knife and squinting at the effect with approval. 

"Yes, Squeedunk or Oshkosh, and how he ever grew up among the daisies andescaped the cows, Heaven alone knows!"

Bowles rubbed his thumb across the outlines of his study to "throw in alittle atmosphere, " as he said, glared at the model, pulled at his pipeand finding it out struck a match on his neighbour's back to relight it. 

"His name, " continued Laffat, hurling a bit of bread at the hat-rack, "hisname is Hastings. He _is_ a berry. He knows no more about the world, "--andhere Mr. Laffat's face spoke volumes for his own knowledge of thatplanet, --"than a maiden cat on its first moonlight stroll. "

Bowles now having succeeded in lighting his pipe, repeated the thumb touchon the other edge of the study and said, "Ah!"

"Yes, " continued his friend, "and would you imagine it, he seems to thinkthat everything here goes on as it does in his d----d little backwoodsranch at home; talks about the pretty girls who walk alone in the street;says how sensible it is; and how French parents are misrepresented inAmerica; says that for his part he finds French girls, --and he confessedto only knowing one, --as jolly as American girls. I tried to set himright, tried to give him a pointer as to what sort of ladies walk aboutalone or with students, and he was either too stupid or too innocent tocatch on. Then I gave it to him straight, and he said I was a vile-mindedfool and marched off. "

"Did you assist him with your shoe?" inquired Bowles, languidlyinterested. 

"Well, no. "

"He called you a vile-minded fool. "

"He was correct, " said Clifford from his easel in front. 

"What--what do you mean?" demanded Laffat, turning red. 

"_That_, " replied Clifford. 

"Who spoke to you? Is this your business?" sneered Bowles, but nearly losthis balance as Clifford swung about and eyed him. 

"Yes, " he said slowly, "it's my business. "

No one spoke for some time. 

Then Clifford sang out, "I say, Hastings!"

And when Hastings left his easel and came around, he nodded toward theastonished Laffat. 

"This man has been disagreeable to you, and I want to tell you that anytime you feel inclined to kick him, why, I will hold the other creature. "

Hastings, embarrassed, said, "Why no, I don't agree with his ideas, nothing more. "

Clifford said "Naturally, " and slipping his arm through Hastings', strolled about with him, and introduced him to several of his own friends, at which all the nouveaux opened their eyes with envy, and the studio weregiven to understand that Hastings, although prepared to do menial work asthe latest nouveau, was already within the charmed circle of the old, respected and feared, the truly great. 

The rest finished, the model resumed his place, and work went on in achorus of songs and yells and every ear-splitting noise which the artstudent utters when studying the beautiful. 

Five o'clock struck, --the model yawned, stretched and climbed into histrousers, and the noisy contents of six studios crowded through the halland down into the street. Ten minutes later, Hastings found himself on topof a Montrouge tram, and shortly afterward was joined by Clifford. 

They climbed down at the rue Gay Lussac. 

"I always stop here, " observed Clifford, "I like the walk through theLuxembourg. "

"By the way, " said Hastings, "how can I call on you when I don't knowwhere you live?"

"Why, I live opposite you. "

"What--the studio in the garden where the almond trees are and theblackbirds--"

"Exactly, " said Clifford. "I'm with my friend Elliott. "

Hastings thought of the description of the two American artists which hehad heard from Miss Susie Byng, and looked blank. 

Clifford continued, "Perhaps you had better let me know when you think ofcoming so, --so that I will be sure to--to be there, " he ended ratherlamely. 

"I shouldn't care to meet any of your model friends there, " said Hastings, smiling. "You know--my ideas are rather straitlaced, --I suppose you wouldsay, Puritanical. I shouldn't enjoy it and wouldn't know how to behave. "

"Oh, I understand, " said Clifford, but added with great cordiality, --"I'msure we'll be friends although you may not approve of me and my set, butyou will like Severn and Selby because--because, well, they are likeyourself, old chap. "

After a moment he continued, "There is something I want to speak about. You see, when I introduced you, last week, in the Luxembourg, toValentine--"

"Not a word!" cried Hastings, smiling; "you must not tell me a word ofher!"

"Why--"

"No--not a word!" he said gaily. "I insist, --promise me upon your honouryou will not speak of her until I give you permission; promise!"

"I promise, " said Clifford, amazed. 

"She is a charming girl, --we had such a delightful chat after you left, and I thank you for presenting me, but not another word about her until Igive you permission. "

"Oh, " murmured Clifford. 

"Remember your promise, " he smiled, as he turned into his gateway. 

Clifford strolled across the street and, traversing the ivy-covered alley, entered his garden. 

He felt for his studio key, muttering, "I wonder--I wonder, --but of coursehe doesn't!"

He entered the hallway, and fitting the key into the door, stood staringat the two cards tacked over the panels. 

 FOXHALL CLIFFORD

 RICHARD OSBORNE ELLIOTT

"Why the devil doesn't he want me to speak of her?"

He opened the door, and, discouraging the caresses of two brindlebull-dogs, sank down on the sofa. 

Elliott sat smoking and sketching with a piece of charcoal by the window. 

"Hello, " he said without looking around. 

Clifford gazed absently at the back of his head, murmuring, "I'm afraid, I'm afraid that man is too innocent. I say, Elliott, " he said, at last, "Hastings, --you know the chap that old Tabby Byram came around here totell us about--the day you had to hide Colette in the armoire--"

"Yes, what's up?"

"Oh, nothing. He's a brick. "

"Yes, " said Elliott, without enthusiasm. 

"Don't you think so?" demanded Clifford. 

"Why yes, but he is going to have a tough time when some of his illusionsare dispelled. "

"More shame to those who dispel 'em!"

"Yes, --wait until he comes to pay his call on us, unexpectedly, ofcourse--"

Clifford looked virtuous and lighted a cigar. 

"I was just going to say, " he observed, "that I have asked him not to comewithout letting us know, so I can postpone any orgie you may haveintended--"

"Ah!" cried Elliott indignantly, "I suppose you put it to him in thatway. "

"Not exactly, " grinned Clifford. Then more seriously, "I don't wantanything to occur here to bother him. He's a brick, and it's a pity wecan't be more like him. "

"I am, " observed Elliott complacently, "only living with you--"

"Listen!" cried the other. "I have managed to put my foot in it in greatstyle. Do you know what I've done? Well--the first time I met him in thestreet, --or rather, it was in the Luxembourg, I introduced him toValentine!"

"Did he object?"

"Believe me, " said Clifford, solemnly, "this rustic Hastings has no moreidea that Valentine is--is--in fact is Valentine, than he has that hehimself is a beautiful example of moral decency in a Quarter where moralsare as rare as elephants. I heard enough in a conversation between thatblackguard Loffat and the little immoral eruption, Bowles, to open myeyes. I tell you Hastings is a trump! He's a healthy, clean-minded youngfellow, bred in a small country village, brought up with the idea thatsaloons are way-stations to hell--and as for women--"

"Well?" demanded Elliott

"Well, " said Clifford, "his idea of the dangerous woman is probably apainted Jezabel. "

"Probably, " replied the other. 

"He's a trump!" said Clifford, "and if he swears the world is as good andpure as his own heart, I'll swear he's right. "

Elliott rubbed his charcoal on his file to get a point and turned to hissketch saying, "He will never hear any pessimism from Richard Osborne E. "

"He's a lesson to me, " said Clifford. Then he unfolded a small perfumednote, written on rose-coloured paper, which had been lying on the tablebefore him. 

He read it, smiled, whistled a bar or two from "Miss Helyett, " and satdown to answer it on his best cream-laid note-paper. When it was writtenand sealed, he picked up his stick and marched up and down the studio twoor three times, whistling. 

"Going out?" inquired the other, without turning. 

"Yes, " he said, but lingered a moment over Elliott's shoulder, watchinghim pick out the lights in his sketch with a bit of bread. 

"To-morrow is Sunday, " he observed after a moment's silence. 

"Well?" inquired Elliott. 

"Have you seen Colette?"

"No, I will to-night. She and Rowden and Jacqueline are coming toBoulant's. I suppose you and, Cécile will be there?"

"Well, no, " replied Clifford. "Cécile dines at home to-night, and I--I hadan idea of going to Mignon's. "

Elliott looked at him with disapproval. 

"You can make all the arrangements for La Roche without me, " he continued, avoiding Elliott's eyes. 

"What are you up to now?"

"Nothing, " protested Clifford. 

"Don't tell me, " replied his chum, with scorn; "fellows don't rush off toMignon's when the set dine at Boulant's. Who is it now?--but no, I won'task that, --what's the use!" Then he lifted up his voice in complaint andbeat upon the table with his pipe. "What's the use of ever trying to keeptrack of you? What will Cécile say, --oh, yes, what will she say? It's apity you can't be constant two months, yes, by Jove! and the Quarter isindulgent, but you abuse its good nature and mine too!"

Presently he arose, and jamming his hat on his head, marched to the door. 

"Heaven alone knows why any one puts up with your antics, but they all doand so do I. If I were Cécile or any of the other pretty fools after whomyou have toddled and will, in all human probabilities, continue to toddle, I say, if I were Cécile I'd spank you! Now I'm going to Boulant's, and asusual I shall make excuses for you and arrange the affair, and I don'tcare a continental where you are going, but, by the skull of the studioskeleton! if you don't turn up to-morrow with your sketching-kit under onearm and Cécile under the other, --if you don't turn up in good shape, I'mdone with you, and the rest can think what they please. Good-night. "

Clifford said good-night with as pleasant a smile as he could muster, andthen sat down with his eyes on the door. He took out his watch and gaveElliott ten minutes to vanish, then rang the concierge's call, murmuring, "Oh dear, oh dear, why the devil do I do it?"

"Alfred, " he said, as that gimlet-eyed person answered the call, "makeyourself clean and proper, Alfred, and replace your sabots with a pair ofshoes. Then put on your best hat and take this letter to the big whitehouse in the Rue de Dragon. There is no answer, _mon petit_ Alfred. "

The concierge departed with a snort in which unwillingness for the errandand affection for M. Clifford were blended. Then with great care the youngfellow arrayed himself in all the beauties of his and Elliott's wardrobe. He took his time about it, and occasionally interrupted his toilet to playhis banjo or make pleasing diversion for the bull-dogs by gambling abouton all fours. "I've got two hours before me, " he thought, and borrowed apair of Elliott's silken foot-gear, with which he and the dogs played balluntil he decided to put them on. Then he lighted a cigarette and inspectedhis dress-coat. When he had emptied it of four handkerchiefs, a fan, and apair of crumpled gloves as long as his arm, he decided it was not suitedto add _éclat_ to his charms and cast about in his mind for a substitute. Elliott was too thin, and, anyway, his coats were now under lock and key. Rowden probably was as badly off as himself. Hastings! Hastings was theman! But when he threw on a smoking-jacket and sauntered over to Hastings'house, he was informed that he had been gone over an hour. 

"Now, where in the name of all that's reasonable could he have gone!"muttered Clifford, looking down the street. 

The maid didn't know, so he bestowed upon her a fascinating smile andlounged back to the studio. 

Hastings was not far away. The Luxembourg is within five minutes' walk ofthe rue Notre Dame des Champs, and there he sat under the shadow of awinged god, and there he had sat for an hour, poking holes in the dust andwatching the steps which lead from the northern terrace to the fountain. The sun hung, a purple globe, above the misty hills of Meudon. Longstreamers of clouds touched with rose swept low on the western sky, andthe dome of the distant Invalides burned like an opal through the haze. Behind the Palace the smoke from a high chimney mounted straight into theair, purple until it crossed the sun, where it changed to a bar ofsmouldering fire. High above the darkening foliage of the chestnuts thetwin towers of St. Sulpice rose, an ever-deepening silhouette. 

A sleepy blackbird was carolling in some near thicket, and pigeons passedand repassed with the whisper of soft winds in their wings. The light onthe Palace windows had died away, and the dome of the Pantheon swam aglowabove the northern terrace, a fiery Valhalla in the sky; while below ingrim array, along the terrace ranged, the marble ranks of queens lookedout into the west. 

From the end of the long walk by the northern façade of the Palace camethe noise of omnibuses and the cries of the street. Hastings looked at thePalace clock. Six, and as his own watch agreed with it, he fell to pokingholes in the gravel again. A constant stream of people passed between theOdéon and the fountain. Priests in black, with silver-buckled shoes; linesoldiers, slouchy and rakish; neat girls without hats bearing milliners'boxes, students with black portfolios and high hats, students with béretsand big canes, nervous, quick-stepping officers, symphonies in turquoiseand silver; ponderous jangling cavalrymen all over dust, pastry cooks'boys skipping along with utter disregard for the safety of the basketbalanced on the impish head, and then the lean outcast, the shamblingParis tramp, slouching with shoulders bent and little eye furtivelyscanning the ground for smokers' refuse;--all these moved in a steadystream across the fountain circle and out into the city by the Odeon, whose long arcades were now beginning to flicker with gas-jets. Themelancholy bells of St Sulpice struck the hour and the clock-tower of thePalace lighted up. Then hurried steps sounded across the gravel andHastings raised his head. 

"How late you are, " he said, but his voice was hoarse and only his flushedface told how long had seemed the waiting. 

She said, "I was kept--indeed, I was so much annoyed--and--and I may onlystay a moment. "

She sat down beside him, casting a furtive glance over her shoulder at thegod upon his pedestal. 

"What a nuisance, that intruding cupid still there?"

"Wings and arrows too, " said Hastings, unheeding her motion to be seated. 

"Wings, " she murmured, "oh, yes--to fly away with when he's tired of hisplay. Of course it was a man who conceived the idea of wings, otherwiseCupid would have been insupportable. "

"Do you think so?"

"_Ma foi_, it's what men think. "

"And women?"

"Oh, " she said, with a toss of her small head, "I really forget what wewere speaking of. "

"We were speaking of love, " said Hastings. 

"_I_ was not, " said the girl. Then looking up at the marble god, "I don'tcare for this one at all. I don't believe he knows how to shoot hisarrows--no, indeed, he is a coward;--he creeps up like an assassin in thetwilight. I don't approve of cowardice, " she announced, and turned herback on the statue. 

"I think, " said Hastings quietly, "that he does shoot fairly--yes, andeven gives one warning. "

"Is it your experience, Monsieur Hastings?"

He looked straight into her eyes and said, "He is warning me. "

"Heed the warning then, " she cried, with a nervous laugh. As she spoke shestripped off her gloves, and then carefully proceeded to draw them onagain. When this was accomplished she glanced at the Palace clock, saying, "Oh dear, how late it is!" furled her umbrella, then unfurled it, andfinally looked at him. 

"No, " he said, "I shall not heed his warning. "

"Oh dear, " she sighed again, "still talking about that tiresome statue!"Then stealing a glance at his face, "I suppose--I suppose you are inlove. "

"I don't know, " he muttered, "I suppose I am. "

She raised her head with a quick gesture. "You seem delighted at theidea, " she said, but bit her lip and trembled as his eyes met hers. Thensudden fear came over her and she sprang up, staring into the gatheringshadows. 

"Are you cold?" he said. 

But she only answered, "Oh dear, oh dear, it is late--so late! I mustgo--good-night. "

She gave him her gloved hand a moment and then withdrew it with a start. 

"What is it?" he insisted. "Are you frightened?"

She looked at him strangely. 

"No--no--not frightened, --you are very good to me--"

"By Jove!" he burst out, "what do you mean by saying I'm good to you?That's at least the third time, and I don't understand!"

The sound of a drum from the guard-house at the palace cut him short. "Listen, " she whispered, "they are going to close. It's late, oh, solate!"

The rolling of the drum came nearer and nearer, and then the silhouette ofthe drummer cut the sky above the eastern terrace. The fading lightlingered a moment on his belt and bayonet, then he passed into theshadows, drumming the echoes awake. The roll became fainter along theeastern terrace, then grew and grew and rattled with increasing sharpnesswhen he passed the avenue by the bronze lion and turned down the westernterrace walk. Louder and louder the drum sounded, and the echoes struckback the notes from the grey palace wall; and now the drummer loomed upbefore them--his red trousers a dull spot in the gathering gloom, thebrass of his drum and bayonet touched with a pale spark, his epaulettestossing on his shoulders. He passed leaving the crash of the drum in theirears, and far into the alley of trees they saw his little tin cup shiningon his haversack. Then the sentinels began the monotonous cry: "On ferme!on ferme!" and the bugle blew from the barracks in the rue de Tournon. 

"On ferme! on ferme!"

"Good-night, " she whispered, "I must return alone to-night. "

He watched her until she reached the northern terrace, and then sat downon the marble seat until a hand on his shoulder and a glimmer of bayonetswarned him away. 

She passed on through the grove, and turning into the rue de Medici, traversed it to the Boulevard. At the corner she bought a bunch of violetsand walked on along the Boulevard to the rue des Écoles. A cab was drawnup before Boulant's, and a pretty girl aided by Elliott jumped out. 

"Valentine!" cried the girl, "come with us!"

"I can't, " she said, stopping a moment--"I have a rendezvous at Mignon's. "

"Not Victor?" cried the girl, laughing, but she passed with a littleshiver, nodding good-night, then turning into the Boulevard St. Germain, she walked a tittle faster to escape a gay party sitting before the CaféCluny who called to her to join them. At the door of the Restaurant Mignonstood a coal-black negro in buttons. He took off his peaked cap as shemounted the carpeted stairs. 

"Send Eugene to me, " she said at the office, and passing through thehallway to the right of the dining-room stopped before a row of panelleddoors. A waiter passed and she repeated her demand for Eugene, whopresently appeared, noiselessly skipping, and bowed murmuring, "Madame. "

"Who is here?"

"No one in the cabinets, madame; in the half Madame Madelon and MonsieurGay, Monsieur de Clamart, Monsieur Clisson, Madame Marie and their set. "Then he looked around and bowing again murmured, "Monsieur awaits madamesince half an hour, " and he knocked at one of the panelled doors bearingthe number six. 

Clifford opened the door and the girl entered. 

The garçon bowed her in, and whispering, "Will Monsieur have the goodnessto ring?" vanished. 

He helped her off with her jacket and took her hat and umbrella. When shewas seated at the little table with Clifford opposite she smiled andleaned forward on both elbows looking him in the face. 

"What are you doing here?" she demanded. 

"Waiting, " he replied, in accents of adoration. 

For an instant she turned and examined herself in the glass. The wide blueeyes, the curling hair, the straight nose and short curled lip flashed inthe mirror an instant only, and then its depths reflected her pretty neckand back. "Thus do I turn my back on vanity, " she said, and then leaningforward again, "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you, " repeated Clifford, slightly troubled. 

"And Cécile. "

"Now don't, Valentine--"

"Do you know, " she said calmly, "I dislike your conduct?"

He was a little disconcerted, and rang for Eugene to cover his confusion. 

The soup was bisque, and the wine Pommery, and the courses followed eachother with the usual regularity until Eugene brought coffee, and there wasnothing left on the table but a small silver lamp. 

"Valentine, " said Clifford, after having obtained permission to smoke, "isit the Vaudeville or the Eldorado--or both, or the Nouveau Cirque, or--"

"It is here, " said Valentine. 

"Well, " he said, greatly flattered, "I'm afraid I couldn't amuse you--"

"Oh, yes, you are funnier than the Eldorado. "

"Now see here, don't guy me, Valentine. You always do, and, and, --you knowwhat they say, --a good laugh kills--"

"What?"

"Er--er--love and all that. "

She laughed until her eyes were moist with tears. "Tiens, " she cried, "heis dead, then!"

Clifford eyed her with growing alarm. 

"Do you know why I came?" she said. 

"No, " he replied uneasily, "I don't. "

"How long have you made love to me?"

"Well, " he admitted, somewhat startled, --"I should say, --for about ayear. "

"It is a year, I think. Are you not tired?"

He did not answer. 

"Don't you know that I like you too well to--to ever fall in love withyou?" she said. "Don't you know that we are too good comrades, --too oldfriends for that? And were we not, --do you think that I do not know yourhistory, Monsieur Clifford?"

"Don't be--don't be so sarcastic, " he urged; "don't be unkind, Valentine. "

"I'm not. I'm kind. I'm very kind, --to you and to Cécile. "

"Cécile is tired of me. "

"I hope she is, " said the girl, "for she deserves a better fate. Tiens, doyou know your reputation in the Quarter? Of the inconstant, the mostinconstant, --utterly incorrigible and no more serious than a gnat on asummer night. Poor Cécile!"

Clifford looked so uncomfortable that she spoke more kindly. 

"I like you. You know that. Everybody does. You are a spoiled child here. Everything is permitted you and every one makes allowance, but every onecannot be a victim to caprice. "

"Caprice!" he cried. "By Jove, if the girls of the Latin Quarter are notcapricious--"

"Never mind, --never mind about that! You must not sit in judgment--you ofall men. Why are you here to-night? Oh, " she cried, "I will tell you why!Monsieur receives a little note; he sends a little answer; he dresses inhis conquering raiment--"

"I don't, " said Clifford, very red. 

"You do, and it becomes you, " she retorted with a faint smile. Then again, very quietly, "I am in your power, but I know I am in the power of afriend. I have come to acknowledge it to you here, --and it is because ofthat that I am here to beg of you--a--a favour. "

Clifford opened his eyes, but said nothing. 

"I am in--great distress of mind. It is Monsieur Hastings. "

"Well?" said Clifford, in some astonishment. 

"I want to ask you, " she continued in a low voice, "I want to ask youto--to--in case you should speak of me before him, --not to say, --not tosay, --"

"I shall not speak of you to him, " he said quietly. 

"Can--can you prevent others?"

"I might if I was present. May I ask why?"

"That is not fair, " she murmured; "you know how--how he considers me, --ashe considers every woman. You know how different he is from you and therest. I have never seen a man, --such a man as Monsieur Hastings. "

He let his cigarette go out unnoticed. 

"I am almost afraid of him--afraid he should know--what we all are in theQuarter. Oh, I do not wish him to know! I do not wish him to--to turn fromme--to cease from speaking to me as he does! You--you and the rest cannotknow what it has been to me. I could not believe him, --I could not believehe was so good and--and noble. I do not wish him to know--so soon. He willfind out--sooner or later, he will find out for himself, and then he willturn away from me. Why!" she cried passionately, "why should he turn fromme and not from _you_?"

Clifford, much embarrassed, eyed his cigarette. 

The girl rose, very white. "He is your friend--you have a right to warnhim. "

"He is my friend, " he said at length. 

They looked at each other in silence. 

Then she cried, "By all that I hold to me most sacred, you need not warnhim!"

"I shall trust your word, " he said pleasantly. 

V

The month passed quickly for Hastings, and left few definite impressionsafter it. It did leave some, however. One was a painful impression ofmeeting Mr. Bladen on the Boulevard des Capucines in company with a verypronounced young person whose laugh dismayed him, and when at last heescaped from the café where Mr. Bladen had hauled him to join them in a_bock_ he felt as if the whole boulevard was looking at him, and judginghim by his company. Later, an instinctive conviction regarding the youngperson with Mr. Bladen sent the hot blood into his cheek, and he returnedto the pension in such a miserable state of mind that Miss Byng wasalarmed and advised him to conquer his homesickness at once. 

Another impression was equally vivid. One Saturday morning, feelinglonely, his wanderings about the city brought him to the Gare St. Lazare. It was early for breakfast, but he entered the Hôtel Terminus and took atable near the window. As he wheeled about to give his order, a manpassing rapidly along the aisle collided with his head, and looking up toreceive the expected apology, he was met instead by a slap on the shoulderand a hearty, "What the deuce are you doing here, old chap?" It wasRowden, who seized him and told him to come along. So, mildly protesting, he was ushered into a private dining-room where Clifford, rather red, jumped up from the table and welcomed him with a startled air which wassoftened by the unaffected glee of Rowden and the extreme courtesy ofElliott. The latter presented him to three bewitching girls who welcomedhim so charmingly and seconded Rowden in his demand that Hastings shouldmake one of the party, that he consented at once. While Elliott brieflyoutlined the projected excursion to La Roche, Hastings delightedly ate hisomelet, and returned the smiles of encouragement from Cécile and Coletteand Jacqueline. Meantime Clifford in a bland whisper was telling Rowdenwhat an ass he was. Poor Rowden looked miserable until Elliott, divininghow affairs were turning, frowned on Clifford and found a moment to letRowden know that they were all going to make the best of it. 

"You shut up, " he observed to Clifford, "it's fate, and that settles it. "

"It's Rowden, and that settles it, " murmured Clifford, concealing a grin. For after all he was not Hastings' wet nurse. So it came about that thetrain which left the Gare St. Lazare at 9. 15 a. M. Stopped a moment in itscareer towards Havre and deposited at the red-roofed station of La Roche amerry party, armed with sunshades, trout-rods, and one cane, carried bythe non-combatant, Hastings. Then, when they had established their camp ina grove of sycamores which bordered the little river Ept, Clifford, theacknowledged master of all that pertained to sportsmanship, took command. 

"You, Rowden, " he said, "divide your flies with Elliott and keep an eye onhim or else he'll be trying to put on a float and sinker. Prevent him byforce from grubbing about for worms. "

Elliott protested, but was forced to smile in the general laugh. 

"You make me ill, " he asserted; "do you think this is my first trout?"

"I shall be delighted to see your first trout, " said Clifford, and dodginga fly hook, hurled with intent to hit, proceeded to sort and equip threeslender rods destined to bring joy and fish to Cécil, Colette, andJacqueline. With perfect gravity he ornamented each line with four splitshot, a small hook, and a brilliant quill float. 

"_I_ shall never touch the worms, " announced Cécile with a shudder. 

Jacqueline and Colette hastened to sustain her, and Hastings pleasantlyoffered to act in the capacity of general baiter and taker-off of fish. But Cécile, doubtless fascinated by the gaudy flies in Clifford's book, decided to accept lessons from him in the true art, and presentlydisappeared up the Ept with Clifford in tow. 

Elliott looked doubtfully at Colette. 

"I prefer gudgeons, " said that damsel with decision, "and you and MonsieurRowden may go away when you please; may they not, Jacqueline?"

"Certainly, " responded Jacqueline. 

Elliott, undecided, examined his rod and reel. 

"You've got your reel on wrong side up, " observed Rowden. 

Elliott wavered, and stole a glance at Colette. 

"I--I--have almost decided to--er--not to flip the flies about just now, "he began. "There's the pole that Cécile left--"

"Don't call it a pole, " corrected Rowden. 

"_Rod_, then, " continued Elliott, and started off in the wake of the twogirls, but was promptly collared by Rowden. 

"No, you don't! Fancy a man fishing with a float and sinker when he has afly rod in his hand! You come along!"

Where the placid little Ept flows down between its thickets to the Seine, a grassy bank shadows the haunt of the gudgeon, and on this bank satColette and Jacqueline and chattered and laughed and watched the swervingof the scarlet quills, while Hastings, his hat over his eyes, his head ona bank of moss, listened to their soft voices and gallantly unhooked thesmall and indignant gudgeon when a flash of a rod and a half-suppressedscream announced a catch. The sunlight filtered through the leafy thicketsawaking to song the forest birds. Magpies in spotless black and whiteflirted past, alighting near by with a hop and bound and twitch of thetail. Blue and white jays with rosy breasts shrieked through the trees, and a low-sailing hawk wheeled among the fields of ripening wheat, puttingto flight flocks of twittering hedge birds. 

Across the Seine a gull dropped on the water like a plume. The air waspure and still. Scarcely a leaf moved. Sounds from a distant farm camefaintly, the shrill cock-crow and dull baying. Now and then a steam-tugwith big raking smoke-pipe, bearing the name "Guêpe 27, " ploughed up theriver dragging its interminable train of barges, or a sailboat droppeddown with the current toward sleepy Rouen. 

A faint fresh odour of earth and water hung in the air, and through thesunlight, orange-tipped butterflies danced above the marsh grass, softvelvety butterflies flapped through the mossy woods. 

Hastings was thinking of Valentine. It was two o'clock when Elliottstrolled back, and frankly admitting that he had eluded Rowden, sat downbeside Colette and prepared to doze with satisfaction. 

"Where are your trout?" said Colette severely. 

"They still live, " murmured Elliott, and went fast asleep. 

Rowden returned shortly after, and casting a scornful glance at theslumbering one, displayed three crimson-flecked trout. 

"And that, " smiled Hastings lazily, "that is the holy end to which thefaithful plod, --the slaughter of these small fish with a bit of silk andfeather. "

Rowden disdained to answer him. Colette caught another gudgeon and awokeElliott, who protested and gazed about for the lunch baskets, as Cliffordand Cécile came up demanding instant refreshment. Cécile's skirts weresoaked, and her gloves torn, but she was happy, and Clifford, dragging outa two-pound trout, stood still to receive the applause of the company. 

"Where the deuce did you get that?" demanded Elliott. 

Cécile, wet and enthusiastic, recounted the battle, and then Cliffordeulogized her powers with the fly, and, in proof, produced from his creela defunct chub, which, he observed, just missed being a trout. 

They were all very happy at luncheon, and Hastings was voted "charming. "He enjoyed it immensely, --only it seemed to him at moments that flirtationwent further in France than in Millbrook, Connecticut, and he thought thatCécile might be a little less enthusiastic about Clifford, that perhaps itwould be quite as well if Jacqueline sat further away from Rowden, andthat possibly Colette could have, for a moment at least, taken her eyesfrom Elliott's face. Still he enjoyed it--except when his thoughts driftedto Valentine, and then he felt that he was very far away from her. LaRoche is at least an hour and a half from Paris. It is also true that hefelt a happiness, a quick heart-beat when, at eight o'clock that night thetrain which bore them from La Roche rolled into the Gare St. Lazare and hewas once more in the city of Valentine. 

"Good-night, " they said, pressing around him. "You must come with us nexttime!"

He promised, and watched them, two by two, drift into the darkening city, and stood so long that, when again he raised his eyes, the vast Boulevardwas twinkling with gas-jets through which the electric lights stared likemoons. 

VI

It was with another quick heart-beat that he awoke next morning, for hisfirst thought was of Valentine. 

The sun already gilded the towers of Notre Dame, the clatter of workmen'ssabots awoke sharp echoes in the street below, and across the way ablackbird in a pink almond tree was going into an ecstasy of trills. 

He determined to awake Clifford for a brisk walk in the country, hopinglater to beguile that gentleman into the American church for his soul'ssake. He found Alfred the gimlet-eyed washing the asphalt walk which ledto the studio. 

"Monsieur Elliott?" he replied to the perfunctory inquiry, "_je ne saispas_. "

"And Monsieur Clifford, " began Hastings, somewhat astonished. 

"Monsieur Clifford, " said the concierge with fine irony, "will be pleasedto see you, as he retired early; in fact he has just come in. "

Hastings hesitated while the concierge pronounced a fine eulogy on peoplewho never stayed out all night and then came battering at the lodge gateduring hours which even a gendarme held sacred to sleep. He alsodiscoursed eloquently upon the beauties of temperance, and took anostentatious draught from the fountain in the court. 

"I do not think I will come in, " said Hastings. 

"Pardon, monsieur, " growled the concierge, "perhaps it would be well tosee Monsieur Clifford. He possibly needs aid. Me he drives forth withhair-brushes and boots. It is a mercy if he has not set fire to somethingwith his candle. "

Hastings hesitated for an instant, but swallowing his dislike of such amission, walked slowly through the ivy-covered alley and across the innergarden to the studio. He knocked. Perfect silence. Then he knocked again, and this time something struck the door from within with a crash. 

"That, " said the concierge, "was a boot. " He fitted his duplicate key intothe lock and ushered Hastings in. Clifford, in disordered evening dress, sat on the rug in the middle of the room. He held in his hand a shoe, anddid not appear astonished to see Hastings. 

"Good-morning, do you use Pears' soap?" he inquired with a vague wave ofhis hand and a vaguer smile. 

Hastings' heart sank. "For Heaven's sake, " he said, "Clifford, go to bed. "

"Not while that--that Alfred pokes his shaggy head in here an' I have ashoe left. "

Hastings blew out the candle, picked up Clifford's hat and cane, and said, with an emotion he could not conceal, "This is terrible, Clifford, --I--never knew you did this sort of thing. "

"Well, I do, " said Clifford. 

"Where is Elliott?"

"Ole chap, " returned Clifford, becoming maudlin, "Providence whichfeeds--feeds--er--sparrows an' that sort of thing watcheth over theintemperate wanderer--"

"Where is Elliott?"

But Clifford only wagged his head and waved his arm about. "He's outthere, --somewhere about. " Then suddenly feeling a desire to see hismissing chum, lifted up his voice and howled for him. 

Hastings, thoroughly shocked, sat down on the lounge without a word. Presently, after shedding several scalding tears, Clifford brightened upand rose with great precaution. 

"Ole chap, " he observed, "do you want to see er--er miracle? Well, heregoes. I'm goin' to begin. "

He paused, beaming at vacancy. 

"Er miracle, " he repeated. 

Hastings supposed he was alluding to the miracle of his keeping hisbalance, and said nothing. 

"I'm goin' to bed, " he announced, "poor ole Clifford's goin' to bed, an'that's er miracle!"

And he did with a nice calculation of distance and equilibrium which wouldhave rung enthusiastic yells of applause from Elliott had he been there toassist _en connaisseur_. But he was not. He had not yet reached thestudio. He was on his way, however, and smiled with magnificentcondescension on Hastings, who, half an hour later, found him recliningupon a bench in the Luxembourg. He permitted himself to be aroused, dustedand escorted to the gate. Here, however, he refused all furtherassistance, and bestowing a patronizing bow upon Hastings, steered atolerably true course for the rue Vavin. 

Hastings watched him out of sight, and then slowly retraced his stepstoward the fountain. At first he felt gloomy and depressed, but graduallythe clear air of the morning lifted the pressure from his heart, and hesat down on the marble seat under the shadow of the winged god. 

The air was fresh and sweet with perfume from the orange flowers. Everywhere pigeons were bathing, dashing the water over their iris-huedbreasts, flashing in and out of the spray or nestling almost to the neckalong the polished basin. The sparrows, too, were abroad in force, soakingtheir dust-coloured feathers in the limpid pool and chirping with mightand main. Under the sycamores which surrounded the duck-pond opposite thefountain of Marie de Medici, the water-fowl cropped the herbage, orwaddled in rows down the bank to embark on some solemn aimless cruise. 

Butterflies, somewhat lame from a chilly night's repose under the lilacleaves, crawled over and over the white phlox, or took a rheumatic flighttoward some sun-warmed shrub. The bees were already busy among theheliotrope, and one or two grey flies with brick-coloured eyes sat in aspot of sunlight beside the marble seat, or chased each other about, onlyto return again to the spot of sunshine and rub their fore-legs, exulting. 

The sentries paced briskly before the painted boxes, pausing at times tolook toward the guard-house for their relief. 

They came at last, with a shuffle of feet and click of bayonets, the wordwas passed, the relief fell out, and away they went, crunch, crunch, across the gravel. 

A mellow chime floated from the clock-tower of the palace, the deep bellof St. Sulpice echoed the stroke. Hastings sat dreaming in the shadow ofthe god, and while he mused somebody came and sat down beside him. Atfirst he did not raise his head. It was only when she spoke that he sprangup. 

"You! At this hour?"

"I was restless, I could not sleep. " Then in a low, happy voice--"And_you!_ at this hour?"

"I--I slept, but the sun awoke me. "

"_I_ could not sleep, " she said, and her eyes seemed, for a moment, touched with an indefinable shadow. Then, smiling, "I am so glad--I seemedto know you were coming. Don't laugh, I believe in dreams. "

"Did you really dream of, --of my being here?"

"I think I was awake when I dreamed it, " she admitted. Then for a timethey were mute, acknowledging by silence the happiness of being together. And after all their silence was eloquent, for faint smiles, and glancesborn of their thoughts, crossed and recrossed, until lips moved and wordswere formed, which seemed almost superfluous. What they said was not veryprofound. Perhaps the most valuable jewel that fell from Hastings' lipsbore direct reference to breakfast. 

"I have not yet had my chocolate, " she confessed, "but what a material manyou are. "

"Valentine, " he said impulsively, "I wish, --I do wish that youwould, --just for this once, --give me the whole day, --just for this once. "

"Oh dear, " she smiled, "not only material, but selfish!"

"Not selfish, hungry, " he said, looking at her. 

"A cannibal too; oh dear!"

"Will you, Valentine?"

"But my chocolate--"

"Take it with me. "

"But _déjeuner_--"

"Together, at St. Cloud. "

"But I can't--"

"Together, --all day, --all day long; will you, Valentine?"

She was silent. 

"Only for this once. "

Again that indefinable shadow fell across her eyes, and when it was goneshe sighed. "Yes, --together, only for this once. "

"All day?" he said, doubting his happiness. 

"All day, " she smiled; "and oh, I am so hungry!"

He laughed, enchanted. 

"What a material young lady it is. "

On the Boulevard St. Michel there is a Crémerie painted white and blueoutside, and neat and clean as a whistle inside. The auburn-haired youngwoman who speaks French like a native, and rejoices in the name of Murphy, smiled at them as they entered, and tossing a fresh napkin over the zinc_tête-à-tête_ table, whisked before them two cups of chocolate and abasket full of crisp, fresh croissons. 

The primrose-coloured pats of butter, each stamped with a shamrock inrelief, seemed saturated with the fragrance of Normandy pastures. 

"How delicious!" they said in the same breath, and then laughed at thecoincidence. 

"With but a single thought, " he began. 

"How absurd!" she cried with cheeks all rosy. "I'm thinking I'd like acroisson. "

"So am I, " he replied triumphant, "that proves it. "

Then they had a quarrel; she accusing him of behaviour unworthy of a childin arms, and he denying it, and bringing counter charges, untilMademoiselle Murphy laughed in sympathy, and the last croisson was eatenunder a flag of truce. Then they rose, and she took his arm with a brightnod to Mile. Murphy, who cried them a merry: "_Bonjour, madame! bonjour, monsieur_!" and watched them hail a passing cab and drive away. "_Dieu!qu'il est beau_, " she sighed, adding after a moment, "Do they be married, I dunno, --_ma foi ils ont bien l'air_. "

The cab swung around the rue de Medici, turned into the rue de Vaugirard, followed it to where it crosses the rue de Rennes, and taking that noisythoroughfare, drew up before the Gare Montparnasse. They were just in timefor a train and scampered up the stairway and out to the cars as the lastnote from the starting-gong rang through the arched station. The guardslammed the door of their compartment, a whistle sounded, answered by ascreech from the locomotive, and the long train glided from the station, faster, faster, and sped out into the morning sunshine. The summer windblew in their faces from the open window, and sent the soft hair dancingon the girl's forehead. 

"We have the compartment to ourselves, " said Hastings. 

She leaned against the cushioned window-seat, her eyes bright and wideopen, her lips parted. The wind lifted her hat, and fluttered the ribbonsunder her chin. With a quick movement she untied them, and, drawing a longhat-pin from her hat, laid it down on the seat beside her. The train wasflying. 

The colour surged in her cheeks, and, with each quick-drawn breath, herbreath rose and fell under the cluster of lilies at her throat. Trees, houses, ponds, danced past, cut by a mist of telegraph poles. 

"Faster! faster!" she cried. 

His eyes never left her, but hers, wide open, and blue as the summer sky, seemed fixed on something far ahead, --something which came no nearer, butfled before them as they fled. 

Was it the horizon, cut now by the grim fortress on the hill, now by thecross of a country chapel? Was it the summer moon, ghost-like, slippingthrough the vaguer blue above?

"Faster! faster!" she cried. 

Her parted lips burned scarlet. 

The car shook and shivered, and the fields streamed by like an emeraldtorrent. He caught the excitement, and his faced glowed. 

"Oh, " she cried, and with an unconscious movement caught his hand, drawinghim to the window beside her. "Look! lean out with me!"

He only saw her lips move; her voice was drowned in the roar of a trestle, but his hand closed in hers and he clung to the sill. The wind whistled intheir ears. "Not so far out, Valentine, take care!" he gasped. 

Below, through the ties of the trestle, a broad river flashed into viewand out again, as the train thundered along a tunnel, and away once morethrough the freshest of green fields. The wind roared about them. The girlwas leaning far out from the window, and he caught her by the waist, crying, "Not too far!" but she only murmured, "Faster! faster! away out ofthe city, out of the land, faster, faster! away out of the world!"

"What are you saying all to yourself?" he said, but his voice was broken, and the wind whirled it back into his throat. 

She heard him, and, turning from the window looked down at his arm abouther. Then she raised her eyes to his. The car shook and the windowsrattled. They were dashing through a forest now, and the sun swept thedewy branches with running flashes of fire. He looked into her troubledeyes; he drew her to him and kissed the half-parted lips, and she criedout, a bitter, hopeless cry, "Not that--not that!"

But he held her close and strong, whispering words of honest love andpassion, and when she sobbed--"Not that--not that--I have promised! Youmust--you must know--I am--not--worthy--" In the purity of his own hearther words were, to him, meaningless then, meaningless for ever after. Presently her voice ceased, and her head rested on his breast. He leanedagainst the window, his ears swept by the furious wind, his heart in ajoyous tumult. The forest was passed, and the sun slipped from behind thetrees, flooding the earth again with brightness. She raised her eyes andlooked out into the world from the window. Then she began to speak, buther voice was faint, and he bent his head close to hers and listened. "Icannot turn from you; I am too weak. You were long ago my master--masterof my heart and soul. I have broken my word to one who trusted me, but Ihave told you all;--what matters the rest?" He smiled at her innocence andshe worshipped his. She spoke again: "Take me or cast me away;--whatmatters it? Now with a word you can kill me, and it might be easier to diethan to look upon happiness as great as mine. "

He took her in his arms, "Hush, what are you saying? Look, --look out atthe sunlight, the meadows and the streams. We shall be very happy in sobright a world. "

She turned to the sunlight. From the window, the world below seemed veryfair to her. 

Trembling with happiness, she sighed: "Is this the world? Then I havenever known it"

"Nor have I, God forgive me, " he murmured. 

Perhaps it was our gentle Lady of the Fields who forgave them both. 

RUE BARRÉE

 "For let Philosopher and Doctor preach Of what they will and what they will not, --each Is but one link in an eternal chain That none can slip nor break nor over-reach. "

 "Crimson nor yellow roses nor The savour of the mounting sea Are worth the perfume I adore That clings to thee. The languid-headed lilies tire, The changeless waters weary me; I ache with passionate desire Of thine and thee. There are but these things in the world-- Thy mouth of fire, Thy breasts, thy hands, thy hair upcurled And my desire. "

I

One morning at Julian's, a student said to Selby, "That is FoxhallClifford, " pointing with his brushes at a young man who sat before aneasel, doing nothing. 

Selby, shy and nervous, walked over and began: "My name is Selby, --I havejust arrived in Paris, and bring a letter of introduction--" His voice waslost in the crash of a falling easel, the owner of which promptlyassaulted his neighbour, and for a time the noise of battle rolled throughthe studios of MM. Boulanger and Lefebvre, presently subsiding into ascuffle on the stairs outside. Selby, apprehensive as to his own receptionin the studio, looked at Clifford, who sat serenely watching the fight. 

"It's a little noisy here, " said Clifford, "but you will like the fellowswhen you know them. " His unaffected manner delighted Selby. Then with asimplicity that won his heart, he presented him to half a dozen studentsof as many nationalities. Some were cordial, all were polite. Even themajestic creature who held the position of Massier, unbent enough to say:"My friend, when a man speaks French as well as you do, and is also afriend of Monsieur Clifford, he will have no trouble in this studio. Youexpect, of course, to fill the stove until the next new man comes?"

"Of course. "

"And you don't mind chaff?"

"No, " replied Selby, who hated it. 

Clifford, much amused, put on his hat, saying, "You must expect lots of itat first. "

Selby placed his own hat on his head and followed him to the door. 

As they passed the model stand there was a furious cry of "Chapeau!Chapeau!" and a student sprang from his easel menacing Selby, who reddenedbut looked at Clifford. 

"Take off your hat for them, " said the latter, laughing. 

A little embarrassed, he turned and saluted the studio. 

"Et moi?" cried the model. 

"You are charming, " replied Selby, astonished at his own audacity, but thestudio rose as one man, shouting: "He has done well! he's all right!"while the model, laughing, kissed her hand to him and cried: "À demainbeau jeune homme!"

All that week Selby worked at the studio unmolested. The French studentschristened him "l'Enfant Prodigue, " which was freely translated, "TheProdigious Infant, " "The Kid, " "Kid Selby, " and "Kidby. " But the diseasesoon ran its course from "Kidby" to "Kidney, " and then naturally to"Tidbits, " where it was arrested by Clifford's authority and ultimatelyrelapsed to "Kid. "

Wednesday came, and with it M. Boulanger. For three hours the studentswrithed under his biting sarcasms, --among the others Clifford, who wasinformed that he knew even less about a work of art than he did about theart of work. Selby was more fortunate. The professor examined his drawingin silence, looked at him sharply, and passed on with a non-committalgesture. He presently departed arm in arm with Bouguereau, to the reliefof Clifford, who was then at liberty to jam his hat on his head anddepart. 

The next day he did not appear, and Selby, who had counted on seeing himat the studio, a thing which he learned later it was vanity to count on, wandered back to the Latin Quarter alone. 

Paris was still strange and new to him. He was vaguely troubled by itssplendour. No tender memories stirred his American bosom at the Place duChâtelet, nor even by Notre Dame. The Palais de Justice with its clock andturrets and stalking sentinels in blue and vermilion, the Place St. Michelwith its jumble of omnibuses and ugly water-spitting griffins, the hill ofthe Boulevard St. Michel, the tooting trams, the policemen dawdling two bytwo, and the table-lined terraces of the Café Vacehett were nothing tohim, as yet, nor did he even know, when he stepped from the stones of thePlace St. Michel to the asphalt of the Boulevard, that he had crossed thefrontier and entered the student zone, --the famous Latin Quarter. 

A cabman hailed him as "bourgeois, " and urged the superiority of drivingover walking. A gamin, with an appearance of great concern, requested thelatest telegraphic news from London, and then, standing on his head, invited Selby to feats of strength. A pretty girl gave him a glance from apair of violet eyes. He did not see her, but she, catching her ownreflection in a window, wondered at the colour burning in her cheeks. Turning to resume her course, she met Foxhall Clifford, and hurried on. Clifford, open-mouthed, followed her with his eyes; then he looked afterSelby, who had turned into the Boulevard St. Germain toward the rue deSeine. Then he examined himself in the shop window. The result seemed tobe unsatisfactory. 

"I'm not a beauty, " he mused, "but neither am I a hobgoblin. What does shemean by blushing at Selby? I never before saw her look at a fellow in mylife, --neither has any one in the Quarter. Anyway, I can swear she neverlooks at me, and goodness knows I have done all that respectful adorationcan do. "

He sighed, and murmuring a prophecy concerning the salvation of hisimmortal soul swung into that graceful lounge which at all timescharacterized Clifford. With no apparent exertion, he overtook Selby atthe corner, and together they crossed the sunlit Boulevard and sat downunder the awning of the Café du Cercle. Clifford bowed to everybody on theterrace, saying, "You shall meet them all later, but now let me presentyou to two of the sights of Paris, Mr. Richard Elliott and Mr. StanleyRowden. "

The "sights" looked amiable, and took vermouth. 

"You cut the studio to-day, " said Elliott, suddenly turning on Clifford, who avoided his eyes. 

"To commune with nature?" observed Rowden. 

"What's her name this time?" asked Elliott, and Rowden answered promptly, "Name, Yvette; nationality, Breton--"

"Wrong, " replied Clifford blandly, "it's Rue Barrée. "

The subject changed instantly, and Selby listened in surprise to nameswhich were new to him, and eulogies on the latest Prix de Rome winner. Hewas delighted to hear opinions boldly expressed and points honestlydebated, although the vehicle was mostly slang, both English and French. He longed for the time when he too should be plunged into the strife forfame. 

The bells of St. Sulpice struck the hour, and the Palace of the Luxembourganswered chime on chime. With a glance at the sun, dipping low in thegolden dust behind the Palais Bourbon, they rose, and turning to the east, crossed the Boulevard St. Germain and sauntered toward the École deMédecine. At the corner a girl passed them, walking hurriedly. Cliffordsmirked, Elliot and Rowden were agitated, but they all bowed, and, withoutraising her eyes, she returned their salute. But Selby, who had laggedbehind, fascinated by some gay shop window, looked up to meet two of thebluest eyes he had ever seen. The eyes were dropped in an instant, and theyoung fellow hastened to overtake the others. 

"By Jove, " he said, "do you fellows know I have just seen the prettiestgirl--" An exclamation broke from the trio, gloomy, foreboding, like thechorus in a Greek play. 

"Rue Barrée!"

"What!" cried Selby, bewildered. 

The only answer was a vague gesture from Clifford. 

Two hours later, during dinner, Clifford turned to Selby and said, "Youwant to ask me something; I can tell by the way you fidget about. "

"Yes, I do, " he said, innocently enough; "it's about that girl. Who isshe?"

In Rowden's smile there was pity, in Elliott's bitterness. 

"Her name, " said Clifford solemnly, "is unknown to any one, at least, " headded with much conscientiousness, "as far as I can learn. Every fellow inthe Quarter bows to her and she returns the salute gravely, but no man hasever been known to obtain more than that. Her profession, judging from hermusic-roll, is that of a pianist. Her residence is in a small and humblestreet which is kept in a perpetual process of repair by the cityauthorities, and from the black letters painted on the barrier whichdefends the street from traffic, she has taken the name by which we knowher, --Rue Barrée. Mr. Rowden, in his imperfect knowledge of the Frenchtongue, called our attention to it as Roo Barry--"

"I didn't, " said Rowden hotly. 

"And Roo Barry, or Rue Barrée, is to-day an object of adoration to everyrapin in the Quarter--"

"We are not rapins, " corrected Elliott. 

"_I_ am not, " returned Clifford, "and I beg to call to your attention, Selby, that these two gentlemen have at various and apparently unfortunatemoments, offered to lay down life and limb at the feet of Rue Barrée. Thelady possesses a chilling smile which she uses on such occasions and, "here he became gloomily impressive, "I have been forced to believe thatneither the scholarly grace of my friend Elliott nor the buxom beauty ofmy friend Rowden have touched that heart of ice. "

Elliott and Rowden, boiling with indignation, cried out, "And you!"

"I, " said Clifford blandly, "do fear to tread where you rush in. "

II

Twenty-four hours later Selby had completely forgotten Rue Barrée. Duringthe week he worked with might and main at the studio, and Saturday nightfound him so tired that he went to bed before dinner and had a nightmareabout a river of yellow ochre in which he was drowning. Sunday morning, apropos of nothing at all, he thought of Rue Barrée, and ten secondsafterwards he saw her. It was at the flower-market on the marble bridge. She was examining a pot of pansies. The gardener had evidently thrownheart and soul into the transaction, but Rue Barrée shook her head. 

It is a question whether Selby would have stopped then and there toinspect a cabbage-rose had not Clifford unwound for him the yarn of theprevious Tuesday. It is possible that his curiosity was piqued, for withthe exception of a hen-turkey, a boy of nineteen is the most openlycurious biped alive. From twenty until death he tries to conceal it. But, to be fair to Selby, it is also true that the market was attractive. Undera cloudless sky the flowers were packed and heaped along the marble bridgeto the parapet. The air was soft, the sun spun a shadowy lacework amongthe palms and glowed in the hearts of a thousand roses. Spring hadcome, --was in full tide. The watering carts and sprinklers spreadfreshness over the Boulevard, the sparrows had become vulgarly obtrusive, and the credulous Seine angler anxiously followed his gaudy quill floatingamong the soapsuds of the lavoirs. The white-spiked chestnuts clad intender green vibrated with the hum of bees. Shoddy butterflies flauntedtheir winter rags among the heliotrope. There was a smell of fresh earthin the air, an echo of the woodland brook in the ripple of the Seine, andswallows soared and skimmed among the anchored river craft. Somewhere in awindow a caged bird was singing its heart out to the sky. 

Selby looked at the cabbage-rose and then at the sky. Something in thesong of the caged bird may have moved him, or perhaps it was thatdangerous sweetness in the air of May. 

At first he was hardly conscious that he had stopped then he was scarcelyconscious why he had stopped, then he thought he would move on, then hethought he wouldn't, then he looked at Rue Barrée. 

The gardener said, "Mademoiselle, this is undoubtedly a fine pot ofpansies. "

Rue Barrée shook her head. 

The gardener smiled. She evidently did not want the pansies. She hadbought many pots of pansies there, two or three every spring, and neverargued. What did she want then? The pansies were evidently a feeler towarda more important transaction. The gardener rubbed his hands and gazedabout him. 

"These tulips are magnificent, " he observed, "and these hyacinths--" Hefell into a trance at the mere sight of the scented thickets. 

"That, " murmured Rue, pointing to a splendid rose-bush with her furledparasol, but in spite of her, her voice trembled a little. Selby noticedit, more shame to him that he was listening, and the gardener noticed it, and, burying his nose in the roses, scented a bargain. Still, to do himjustice, he did not add a centime to the honest value of the plant, forafter all, Rue was probably poor, and any one could see she was charming. 

"Fifty francs, Mademoiselle. "

The gardener's tone was grave. Rue felt that argument would be wasted. They both stood silent for a moment. The gardener did not eulogize hisprize, --the rose-tree was gorgeous and any one could see it. 

"I will take the pansies, " said the girl, and drew two francs from a wornpurse. Then she looked up. A tear-drop stood in the way refracting thelight like a diamond, but as it rolled into a little corner by her nose avision of Selby replaced it, and when a brush of the handkerchief hadcleared the startled blue eyes, Selby himself appeared, very muchembarrassed. He instantly looked up into the sky, apparently devoured witha thirst for astronomical research, and as he continued his investigationsfor fully five minutes, the gardener looked up too, and so did apoliceman. Then Selby looked at the tips of his boots, the gardener lookedat him and the policeman slouched on. Rue Barrée had been gone some time. 

"What, " said the gardener, "may I offer Monsieur?"

Selby never knew why, but he suddenly began to buy flowers. The gardenerwas electrified. Never before had he sold so many flowers, never at suchsatisfying prices, and never, never with such absolute unanimity ofopinion with a customer. But he missed the bargaining, the arguing, thecalling of Heaven to witness. The transaction lacked spice. 

"These tulips are magnificent!"

"They are!" cried Selby warmly. 

"But alas, they are dear. "

"I will take them. "

"Dieu!" murmured the gardener in a perspiration, "he's madder than mostEnglishmen. "

"This cactus--"

"Is gorgeous!"

"Alas--"

"Send it with the rest. "

The gardener braced himself against the river wall. 

"That splendid rose-bush, " he began faintly. 

"That is a beauty. I believe it is fifty francs--"

He stopped, very red. The gardener relished his confusion. Then a suddencool self-possession took the place of his momentary confusion and he heldthe gardener with his eye, and bullied him. 

"I'll take that bush. Why did not the young lady buy it?"

"Mademoiselle is not wealthy. "

"How do you know?"

"_Dame_, I sell her many pansies; pansies are not expensive. "

"Those are the pansies she bought?"

"These, Monsieur, the blue and gold. "

"Then you intend to send them to her?"

"At mid-day after the market. "

"Take this rose-bush with them, and"--here he glared at thegardener--"don't you dare say from whom they came. " The gardener's eyeswere like saucers, but Selby, calm and victorious, said: "Send the othersto the Hôtel du Sénat, 7 rue de Tournon. I will leave directions with theconcierge. "

Then he buttoned his glove with much dignity and stalked off, but whenwell around the corner and hidden from the gardener's view, the convictionthat he was an idiot came home to him in a furious blush. Ten minuteslater he sat in his room in the Hôtel du Sénat repeating with an imbecilesmile: "What an ass I am, what an ass!"

An hour later found him in the same chair, in the same position, his hatand gloves still on, his stick in his hand, but he was silent, apparentlylost in contemplation of his boot toes, and his smile was less imbecileand even a bit retrospective. 

III

About five o'clock that afternoon, the little sad-eyed woman who fills theposition of concierge at the Hôtel du Sénat held up her hands in amazementto see a wagon-load of flower-bearing shrubs draw up before the doorway. She called Joseph, the intemperate garçon, who, while calculating thevalue of the flowers in _petits verres_, gloomily disclaimed any knowledgeas to their destination. 

"_Voyons_, " said the little concierge, "_cherchons la femme_!"

"You?" he suggested. 

The little woman stood a moment pensive and then sighed. Joseph caressedhis nose, a nose which for gaudiness could vie with any floral display. 

Then the gardener came in, hat in hand, and a few minutes later Selbystood in the middle of his room, his coat off, his shirt-sleeves rolledup. The chamber originally contained, besides the furniture, about twosquare feet of walking room, and now this was occupied by a cactus. Thebed groaned under crates of pansies, lilies and heliotrope, the lounge wascovered with hyacinths and tulips, and the washstand supported a speciesof young tree warranted to bear flowers at some time or other. 

Clifford came in a little later, fell over a box of sweet peas, swore alittle, apologized, and then, as the full splendour of the floral _fête_burst upon him, sat down in astonishment upon a geranium. The geranium wasa wreck, but Selby said, "Don't mind, " and glared at the cactus. 

"Are you going to give a ball?" demanded Clifford. 

"N--no, --I'm very fond of flowers, " said Selby, but the statement lackedenthusiasm. 

"I should imagine so. " Then, after a silence, "That's a fine cactus. "

Selby contemplated the cactus, touched it with the air of a connoisseur, and pricked his thumb. 

Clifford poked a pansy with his stick. Then Joseph came in with the bill, announcing the sum total in a loud voice, partly to impress Clifford, partly to intimidate Selby into disgorging a _pourboire_ which he wouldshare, if he chose, with the gardener. Clifford tried to pretend that hehad not heard, while Selby paid bill and tribute without a murmur. Then helounged back into the room with an attempt at indifference which failedentirely when he tore his trousers on the cactus. 

Clifford made some commonplace remark, lighted a cigarette and looked outof the window to give Selby a chance. Selby tried to take it, but gettingas far as--"Yes, spring is here at last, " froze solid. He looked at theback of Clifford's head. It expressed volumes. Those little perked-up earsseemed tingling with suppressed glee. He made a desperate effort to masterthe situation, and jumped up to reach for some Russian cigarettes as anincentive to conversation, but was foiled by the cactus, to whom again hefell a prey. The last straw was added. 

"Damn the cactus. " This observation was wrung from Selby against hiswill, --against his own instinct of self-preservation, but the thorns onthe cactus were long and sharp, and at their repeated prick his pent-upwrath escaped. It was too late now; it was done, and Clifford had wheeledaround. 

"See here, Selby, why the deuce did you buy those flowers?"

"I'm fond of them, " said Selby. 

"What are you going to do with them? You can't sleep here. "

"I could, if you'd help me take the pansies off the bed. "

"Where can you put them?"

"Couldn't I give them to the concierge?"

As soon as he said it he regretted it. What in Heaven's name wouldClifford think of him! He had heard the amount of the bill. Would hebelieve that he had invested in these luxuries as a timid declaration tohis concierge? And would the Latin Quarter comment upon it in their ownbrutal fashion? He dreaded ridicule and he knew Clifford's reputation. 

Then somebody knocked. 

Selby looked at Clifford with a hunted expression which touched that youngman's heart. It was a confession and at the same time a supplication. Clifford jumped up, threaded his way through the floral labyrinth, andputting an eye to the crack of the door, said, "Who the devil is it?"

This graceful style of reception is indigenous to the Quarter. 

"It's Elliott, " he said, looking back, "and Rowden too, and theirbulldogs. " Then he addressed them through the crack. 

"Sit down on the stairs; Selby and I are coming out directly. "

Discretion is a virtue. The Latin Quarter possesses few, and discretionseldom figures on the list. They sat down and began to whistle. 

Presently Rowden called out, "I smell flowers. They feast within!"

"You ought to know Selby better than that, " growled Clifford behind thedoor, while the other hurriedly exchanged his torn trousers for others. 

"_We_ know Selby, " said Elliott with emphasis. 

"Yes, " said Rowden, "he gives receptions with floral decorations andinvites Clifford, while we sit on the stairs. "

"Yes, while the youth and beauty of the Quarter revel, " suggested Rowden;then, with sudden misgiving; "Is Odette there?"

"See here, " demanded Elliott, "is Colette there?"

Then he raised his voice in a plaintive howl, "Are you there, Colette, while I'm kicking my heels on these tiles?"

"Clifford is capable of anything, " said Rowden; "his nature is souredsince Rue Barrée sat on him. "

Elliott raised his voice: "I say, you fellows, we saw some flowers carriedinto Rue Barrée's house at noon. "

"Posies and roses, " specified Rowden. 

"Probably for her, " added Elliott, caressing his bulldog. 

Clifford turned with sudden suspicion upon Selby. The latter hummed atune, selected a pair of gloves and, choosing a dozen cigarettes, placedthem in a case. Then walking over to the cactus, he deliberately detacheda blossom, drew it through his buttonhole, and picking up hat and stick, smiled upon Clifford, at which the latter was mightily troubled. 

IV

Monday morning at Julian's, students fought for places; students withprior claims drove away others who had been anxiously squatting on covetedtabourets since the door was opened in hopes of appropriating them atroll-call; students squabbled over palettes, brushes, portfolios, or rentthe air with demands for Ciceri and bread. The former, a dirty ex-model, who had in palmier days posed as Judas, now dispensed stale bread at onesou and made enough to keep himself in cigarettes. Monsieur Julian walkedin, smiled a fatherly smile and walked out. His disappearance was followedby the apparition of the clerk, a foxy creature who flitted through thebattling hordes in search of prey. 

Three men who had not paid dues were caught and summoned. A fourth wasscented, followed, outflanked, his retreat towards the door cut off, andfinally captured behind the stove. About that time, the revolutionassuming an acute form, howls rose for "Jules!"

Jules came, umpired two fights with a sad resignation in his big browneyes, shook hands with everybody and melted away in the throng, leaving anatmosphere of peace and good-will. The lions sat down with the lambs, themassiers marked the best places for themselves and friends, and, mountingthe model stands, opened the roll-calls. 

The word was passed, "They begin with C this week. "

They did. 

"Clisson!"

Clisson jumped like a flash and marked his name on the floor in chalkbefore a front seat. 

"Caron!"

Caron galloped away to secure his place. Bang! went an easel. "_Nom deDieu_!" in French, --"Where in h--l are you goin'!" in English. Crash! apaintbox fell with brushes and all on board. "_Dieu de Dieu de_--" spat! Ablow, a short rush, a clinch and scuffle, and the voice of the massier, stern and reproachful:

"Cochon!"

Then the roll-call was resumed. 

"Clifford!"

The massier paused and looked up, one finger between the leaves of theledger. 

"Clifford!"

Clifford was not there. He was about three miles away in a direct line andevery instant increased the distance. Not that he was walking fast, --onthe contrary, he was strolling with that leisurely gait peculiar tohimself. Elliott was beside him and two bulldogs covered the rear. Elliottwas reading the "Gil Blas, " from which he seemed to extract amusement, butdeeming boisterous mirth unsuitable to Clifford's state of mind, subduedhis amusement to a series of discreet smiles. The latter, moodily aware ofthis, said nothing, but leading the way into the Luxembourg Gardensinstalled himself upon a bench by the northern terrace and surveyed thelandscape with disfavour. Elliott, according to the Luxembourgregulations, tied the two dogs and then, with an interrogative glancetoward his friend, resumed the "Gil Blas" and the discreet smiles. 

The day was perfect. The sun hung over Notre Dame, setting the city in aglitter. The tender foliage of the chestnuts cast a shadow over theterrace and flecked the paths and walks with tracery so blue that Cliffordmight here have found encouragement for his violent "impressions" had hebut looked; but as usual in this period of his career, his thoughts wereanywhere except in his profession. Around about, the sparrows quarrelledand chattered their courtship songs, the big rosy pigeons sailed from treeto tree, the flies whirled in the sunbeams and the flowers exhaled athousand perfumes which stirred Clifford with languorous wistfulness. Under this influence he spoke. 

"Elliott, you are a true friend--"

"You make me ill, " replied the latter, folding his paper. "It's just as Ithought, --you are tagging after some new petticoat again. And, " hecontinued wrathfully, "if this is what you've kept me away from Julian'sfor, --if it's to fill me up with the perfections of some little idiot--"

"Not idiot, " remonstrated Clifford gently. 

"See here, " cried Elliott, "have you the nerve to try to tell me that youare in love again?"

"Again?"

"Yes, again and again and again and--by George have you?"

"This, " observed Clifford sadly, "is serious. "

For a moment Elliott would have laid hands on him, then he laughed fromsheer helplessness. "Oh, go on, go on; let's see, there's Clémence andMarie Tellec and Cosette and Fifine, Colette, Marie Verdier--"

"All of whom are charming, most charming, but I never was serious--"

"So help me, Moses, " said Elliott, solemnly, "each and every one of thosenamed have separately and in turn torn your heart with anguish and havealso made me lose my place at Julian's in this same manner; each and everyone, separately and in turn. Do you deny it?"

"What you say may be founded on facts--in a way--but give me the credit ofbeing faithful to one at a time--"

"Until the next came along. "

"But this, --this is really very different. Elliott, believe me, I am allbroken up. "

Then there being nothing else to do, Elliott gnashed his teeth andlistened. 

"It's--it's Rue Barrée. "

"Well, " observed Elliott, with scorn, "if you are moping and moaning over_that_ girl, --the girl who has given you and myself every reason to wishthat the ground would open and engulf us, --well, go on!"

"I'm going on, --I don't care; timidity has fled--"

"Yes, your native timidity. "

"I'm desperate, Elliott. Am I in love? Never, never did I feel so d--nmiserable. I can't sleep; honestly, I'm incapable of eating properly. "

"Same symptoms noticed in the case of Colette. "

"Listen, will you?"

"Hold on a moment, I know the rest by heart. Now let me ask you something. Is it your belief that Rue Barrée is a pure girl?"

"Yes, " said Clifford, turning red. 

"Do you love her, --not as you dangle and tiptoe after every prettyinanity--I mean, do you honestly love her?"

"Yes, " said the other doggedly, "I would--"

"Hold on a moment; would you marry her?"

Clifford turned scarlet. "Yes, " he muttered. 

"Pleasant news for your family, " growled Elliott in suppressed fury. "'Dear father, I have just married a charming grisette whom I'm sureyou'll welcome with open arms, in company with her mother, a mostestimable and cleanly washlady. ' Good heavens! This seems to have gone alittle further than the rest. Thank your stars, young man, that my head islevel enough for us both. Still, in this case, I have no fear. Rue Barréesat on your aspirations in a manner unmistakably final. "

"Rue Barrée, " began Clifford, drawing himself up, but he suddenly ceased, for there where the dappled sunlight glowed in spots of gold, along thesun-flecked path, tripped Rue Barrée. Her gown was spotless, and her bigstraw hat, tipped a little from the white forehead, threw a shadow acrossher eyes. 

Elliott stood up and bowed. Clifford removed his head-covering with an airso plaintive, so appealing, so utterly humble that Rue Barrée smiled. 

The smile was delicious and when Clifford, incapable of sustaining himselfon his legs from sheer astonishment, toppled slightly, she smiled again inspite of herself. A few moments later she took a chair on the terrace anddrawing a book from her music-roll, turned the pages, found the place, andthen placing it open downwards in her lap, sighed a little, smiled alittle, and looked out over the city. She had entirely forgotten FoxhallClifford. 

After a while she took up her book again, but instead of reading began toadjust a rose in her corsage. The rose was big and red. It glowed likefire there over her heart, and like fire it warmed her heart, nowfluttering under the silken petals. Rue Barrée sighed again. She was veryhappy. The sky was so blue, the air so soft and perfumed, the sunshine socaressing, and her heart sang within her, sang to the rose in her breast. This is what it sang: "Out of the throng of passers-by, out of the worldof yesterday, out of the millions passing, one has turned aside to me. "

So her heart sang under his rose on her breast. Then two bigmouse-coloured pigeons came whistling by and alighted on the terrace, where they bowed and strutted and bobbed and turned until Rue Barréelaughed in delight, and looking up beheld Clifford before her. His hat wasin his hand and his face was wreathed in a series of appealing smileswhich would have touched the heart of a Bengal tiger. 

For an instant Rue Barrée frowned, then she looked curiously at Clifford, then when she saw the resemblance between his bows and the bobbingpigeons, in spite of herself, her lips parted in the most bewitchinglaugh. Was this Rue Barrée? So changed, so changed that she did not knowherself; but oh! that song in her heart which drowned all else, whichtrembled on her lips, struggling for utterance, which rippled forth in alaugh at nothing, --at a strutting pigeon, --and Mr. Clifford. 

"And you think, because I return the salute of the students in theQuarter, that you may be received in particular as a friend? I do not knowyou, Monsieur, but vanity is man's other name;--be content, MonsieurVanity, I shall be punctilious--oh, most punctilious in returning yoursalute. "

"But I beg--I implore you to let me render you that homage which has solong--"

"Oh dear; I don't care for homage. "

"Let me only be permitted to speak to you now and then, --occasionally--veryoccasionally. "

"And if _you_, why not another?"

"Not at all, --I will be discretion itself. "

"Discretion--why?"

Her eyes were very clear, and Clifford winced for a moment, but only for amoment. Then the devil of recklessness seizing him, he sat down andoffered himself, soul and body, goods and chattels. And all the time heknew he was a fool and that infatuation is not love, and that each word heuttered bound him in honour from which there was no escape. And all thetime Elliott was scowling down on the fountain plaza and savagely checkingboth bulldogs from their desire to rush to Clifford's rescue, --for eventhey felt there was something wrong, as Elliott stormed within himself andgrowled maledictions. 

When Clifford finished, he finished in a glow of excitement, but RueBarrée's response was long in coming and his ardour cooled while thesituation slowly assumed its just proportions. Then regret began to creepin, but he put that aside and broke out again in protestations. At thefirst word Rue Barrée checked him. 

"I thank you, " she said, speaking very gravely. "No man has ever beforeoffered me marriage. " She turned and looked out over the city. After awhile she spoke again. "You offer me a great deal. I am alone, I havenothing, I am nothing. " She turned again and looked at Paris, brilliant, fair, in the sunshine of a perfect day. He followed her eyes. 

"Oh, " she murmured, "it is hard, --hard to work always--always alone withnever a friend you can have in honour, and the love that is offered meansthe streets, the boulevard--when passion is dead. I know it, --_we_ knowit, --we others who have nothing, --have no one, and who give ourselves, unquestioning--when we love, --yes, unquestioning--heart and soul, knowingthe end. "

She touched the rose at her breast. For a moment she seemed to forget him, then quietly--"I thank you, I am very grateful. " She opened the book and, plucking a petal from the rose, dropped it between the leaves. Thenlooking up she said gently, "I cannot accept. "

V

It took Clifford a month to entirely recover, although at the end of thefirst week he was pronounced convalescent by Elliott, who was anauthority, and his convalescence was aided by the cordiality with whichRue Barrée acknowledged his solemn salutes. Forty times a day he blessedRue Barrée for her refusal, and thanked his lucky stars, and at the sametime, oh, wondrous heart of ours!--he suffered the tortures of theblighted. 

Elliott was annoyed, partly by Clifford's reticence, partly by theunexplainable thaw in the frigidity of Rue Barrée. At their frequentencounters, when she, tripping along the rue de Seine, with music-roll andbig straw hat would pass Clifford and his familiars steering an easterlycourse to the Café Vachette, and at the respectful uncovering of the bandwould colour and smile at Clifford, Elliott's slumbering suspicions awoke. But he never found out anything, and finally gave it up as beyond hiscomprehension, merely qualifying Clifford as an idiot and reserving hisopinion of Rue Barrée. And all this time Selby was jealous. At first herefused to acknowledge it to himself, and cut the studio for a day in thecountry, but the woods and fields of course aggravated his case, and thebrooks babbled of Rue Barrée and the mowers calling to each other acrossthe meadow ended in a quavering "Rue Bar-rée-e!" That day spent in thecountry made him angry for a week, and he worked sulkily at Julian's, allthe time tormented by a desire to know where Clifford was and what hemight be doing. This culminated in an erratic stroll on Sunday which endedat the flower-market on the Pont au Change, began again, was gloomilyextended to the morgue, and again ended at the marble bridge. It wouldnever do, and Selby felt it, so he went to see Clifford, who wasconvalescing on mint juleps in his garden. 

They sat down together and discussed morals and human happiness, and eachfound the other most entertaining, only Selby failed to pump Clifford, tothe other's unfeigned amusement. But the juleps spread balm on the stingof jealousy, and trickled hope to the blighted, and when Selby said hemust go, Clifford went too, and when Selby, not to be outdone, insisted onaccompanying Clifford back to his door, Clifford determined to see Selbyback half way, and then finding it hard to part, they decided to dinetogether and "flit. " To flit, a verb applied to Clifford's nocturnalprowls, expressed, perhaps, as well as anything, the gaiety proposed. Dinner was ordered at Mignon's, and while Selby interviewed the chef, Clifford kept a fatherly eye on the butler. The dinner was a success, orwas of the sort generally termed a success. Toward the dessert Selby heardsome one say as at a great distance, "Kid Selby, drunk as a lord. "

A group of men passed near them; it seemed to him that he shook hands andlaughed a great deal, and that everybody was very witty. There wasClifford opposite swearing undying confidence in his chum Selby, and thereseemed to be others there, either seated beside them or continuallypassing with the swish of skirts on the polished floor. The perfume ofroses, the rustle of fans, the touch of rounded arms and the laughter grewvaguer and vaguer. The room seemed enveloped in mist. Then, all in amoment each object stood out painfully distinct, only forms and visageswere distorted and voices piercing. He drew himself up, calm, grave, forthe moment master of himself, but very drunk. He knew he was drunk, andwas as guarded and alert, as keenly suspicious of himself as he would havebeen of a thief at his elbow. His self-command enabled Clifford to holdhis head safely under some running water, and repair to the streetconsiderably the worse for wear, but never suspecting that his companionwas drunk. For a time he kept his self-command. His face was only a bitpaler, a bit tighter than usual; he was only a trifle slower and morefastidious in his speech. It was midnight when he left Clifford peacefullyslumbering in somebody's arm-chair, with a long suede glove dangling inhis hand and a plumy boa twisted about his neck to protect his throat fromdrafts. He walked through the hall and down the stairs, and found himselfon the sidewalk in a quarter he did not know. Mechanically he looked up atthe name of the street. The name was not familiar. He turned and steeredhis course toward some lights clustered at the end of the street. Theyproved farther away than he had anticipated, and after a long quest hecame to the conclusion that his eyes had been mysteriously removed fromtheir proper places and had been reset on either side of his head likethose of a bird. It grieved him to think of the inconvenience thistransformation might occasion him, and he attempted to cock up his head, hen-like, to test the mobility of his neck. Then an immense despair stoleover him, --tears gathered in the tear-ducts, his heart melted, and hecollided with a tree. This shocked him into comprehension; he stifled theviolent tenderness in his breast, picked up his hat and moved on morebriskly. His mouth was white and drawn, his teeth tightly clinched. Heheld his course pretty well and strayed but little, and after anapparently interminable length of time found himself passing a line ofcabs. The brilliant lamps, red, yellow, and green annoyed him, and he feltit might be pleasant to demolish them with his cane, but mastering thisimpulse he passed on. Later an idea struck him that it would save fatigueto take a cab, and he started back with that intention, but the cabsseemed already so far away and the lanterns were so bright and confusingthat he gave it up, and pulling himself together looked around. 

A shadow, a mass, huge, undefined, rose to his right. He recognized theArc de Triomphe and gravely shook his cane at it. Its size annoyed him. Hefelt it was too big. Then he heard something fall clattering to thepavement and thought probably it was his cane but it didn't much matter. When he had mastered himself and regained control of his right leg, whichbetrayed symptoms of insubordination, he found himself traversing thePlace de la Concorde at a pace which threatened to land him at theMadeleine. This would never do. He turned sharply to the right andcrossing the bridge passed the Palais Bourbon at a trot and wheeled intothe Boulevard St. Germain. He got on well enough although the size of theWar Office struck him as a personal insult, and he missed his cane, whichit would have been pleasant to drag along the iron railings as he passed. It occurred to him, however, to substitute his hat, but when he found ithe forgot what he wanted it for and replaced it upon his head withgravity. Then he was obliged to battle with a violent inclination to sitdown and weep. This lasted until he came to the rue de Rennes, but therehe became absorbed in contemplating the dragon on the balcony overhangingthe Cour du Dragon, and time slipped away until he remembered vaguely thathe had no business there, and marched off again. It was slow work. Theinclination to sit down and weep had given place to a desire for solitaryand deep reflection. Here his right leg forgot its obedience and attackingthe left, outflanked it and brought him up against a wooden board whichseemed to bar his path. He tried to walk around it, but found the streetclosed. He tried to push it over, and found he couldn't. Then he noticed ared lantern standing on a pile of paving-stones inside the barrier. Thiswas pleasant. How was he to get home if the boulevard was blocked? But hewas not on the boulevard. His treacherous right leg had beguiled him intoa detour, for there, behind him lay the boulevard with its endless line oflamps, --and here, what was this narrow dilapidated street piled up withearth and mortar and heaps of stone? He looked up. Written in staringblack letters on the barrier was

RUE BARRÉE. 

He sat down. Two policemen whom he knew came by and advised him to get up, but he argued the question from a standpoint of personal taste, and theypassed on, laughing. For he was at that moment absorbed in a problem. Itwas, how to see Rue Barrée. She was somewhere or other in that big housewith the iron balconies, and the door was locked, but what of that? Thesimple idea struck him to shout until she came. This idea was replaced byanother equally lucid, --to hammer on the door until she came; but finallyrejecting both of these as too uncertain, he decided to climb into thebalcony, and opening a window politely inquire for Rue Barrée. There wasbut one lighted window in the house that he could see. It was on thesecond floor, and toward this he cast his eyes. Then mounting the woodenbarrier and clambering over the piles of stones, he reached the sidewalkand looked up at the façade for a foothold. It seemed impossible. But asudden fury seized him, a blind, drunken obstinacy, and the blood rushedto his head, leaping, beating in his ears like the dull thunder of anocean. He set his teeth, and springing at a window-sill, dragged himselfup and hung to the iron bars. Then reason fled; there surged in his brainthe sound of many voices, his heart leaped up beating a mad tattoo, andgripping at cornice and ledge he worked his way along the façade, clung topipes and shutters, and dragged himself up, over and into the balcony bythe lighted window. His hat fell off and rolled against the pane. For amoment he leaned breathless against the railing--then the window wasslowly opened from within. 

They stared at each other for some time. Presently the girl took twounsteady steps back into the room. He saw her face, --all crimsonednow, --he saw her sink into a chair by the lamplit table, and without aword he followed her into the room, closing the big door-like panes behindhim. Then they looked at each other in silence. 

The room was small and white; everything was white about it, --thecurtained bed, the little wash-stand in the corner, the bare walls, thechina lamp, --and his own face, --had he known it, but the face and neck ofRue were surging in the colour that dyed the blossoming rose-tree there onthe hearth beside her. It did not occur to him to speak. She seemed not toexpect it. His mind was struggling with the impressions of the room. Thewhiteness, the extreme purity of everything occupied him--began to troublehim. As his eye became accustomed to the light, other objects grew fromthe surroundings and took their places in the circle of lamplight. Therewas a piano and a coal-scuttle and a little iron trunk and a bath-tub. Then there was a row of wooden pegs against the door, with a white chintzcurtain covering the clothes underneath. On the bed lay an umbrella and abig straw hat, and on the table, a music-roll unfurled, an ink-stand, andsheets of ruled paper. Behind him stood a wardrobe faced with a mirror, but somehow he did not care to see his own face just then. He wassobering. 

The girl sat looking at him without a word. Her face was expressionless, yet the lips at times trembled almost imperceptibly. Her eyes, sowonderfully blue in the daylight, seemed dark and soft as velvet, and thecolour on her neck deepened and whitened with every breath. She seemedsmaller and more slender than when he had seen her in the street, andthere was now something in the curve of her cheek almost infantine. Whenat last he turned and caught his own reflection in the mirror behind him, a shock passed through him as though he had seen a shameful thing, and hisclouded mind and his clouded thoughts grew clearer. For a moment theireyes met then his sought the floor, his lips tightened, and the strugglewithin him bowed his head and strained every nerve to the breaking. Andnow it was over, for the voice within had spoken. He listened, dullyinterested but already knowing the end, --indeed it little mattered;--theend would always be the same for him;--he understood now--always the samefor him, and he listened, dully interested, to a voice which grew withinhim. After a while he stood up, and she rose at once, one small handresting on the table. Presently he opened the window, picked up his hat, and shut it again. Then he went over to the rosebush and touched theblossoms with his face. One was standing in a glass of water on the tableand mechanically the girl drew it out, pressed it with her lips and laidit on the table beside him. He took it without a word and crossing theroom, opened the door. The landing was dark and silent, but the girllifted the lamp and gliding past him slipped down the polished stairs tothe hallway. Then unchaining the bolts, she drew open the iron wicket. 

Through this he passed with his rose.