CYTHEREA. 

JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

_For _ DOROTHY_Charming in the present andSecure with the past _

I

It was, probably, Lee Randon realized, the last time he would play golfthat year. He concluded this standing on a shorn hill about which thecountry was spread in sere diminishing tones to the grey horizon. Below, a stream held a cold glimmer in a meadow of brown, frost-killedgrass; and the wind, the bitter flaws where Lee stood, was thinlyscattered with soft crystals of snow. He was alone, no one would playwith him so late in the season, and there had been no boy present tocarry his clubs. Yes, this was the last time he'd try it until spring:Peyton Morris, who had married Lee's niece and was at least fourteenyears his junior, had been justified in a refusal which, at itsexpression, had made Lee cross. 

At worse than forty-five, he had told Morris curtly, he was more activethan the young men hardly out of the universities. To this Peyton hadreplied that undoubtedly Lee had more energy than he; personally hefelt as old as--as Egypt. Ridiculous, Lee decided, trying to make uphis mind whether he might continue playing or return, beaten byNovember, to the clubhouse. In the end, with numb fingers, he picked uphis ball, and walked slowly back over the empty course. The wind, now, was behind him, and increasingly comfortable he grew reflective:

The comparison of Peyton Morris's age with his, recalling the fact, tobe precise, of his forty-seven years, created a vague questioningdissatisfaction. Suddenly he saw himself--a comfortable body in acomfortable existence, a happy existence, he added sharply--objectively; and the stout figure in knickerbockers, rough stockings, ayellow buckskin jacket and checked cap pulled over a face which, hefelt, was brightly red, surprised and a little annoyed him. In theabrupt appearance of this image it seemed that there had been notransitional years between his slender youth and the present. He had anabsurd momentary impression that an act of malicious magic had in asecond transformed him into a shape decidedly too heavy for grace. Hisbreathing, where the ground turned upward, was even slightly labored. 

It was, Lee thought with all the intensity of an original discovery, devilish unpleasant to grow old; to die progressively on one's feet, heelaborated the fact. That was what happened to a man--his liverthickened, his teeth went, his veins became brittle pipes of lime. Worse than all that, his potency, the spirit and heat of living, metwithout any renewal its inescapable winter. This might, did, occurwhile his being was rebellious with vain hope. Today, in spite of theslight clogging of his breath, his body's loss of flexibility, hisimagination was as vigorous, as curious, as ever ... Take that nonsenseabout the doll, which, in a recalled classical allusion, he hadprivately named Cytherea. Peyton Morris would never have entered intothat!

Lee Randon, on one of his infrequent trips to New York, had seen it ina confectioner's window on Fifth Avenue, and instantly it hadcaptivated his attention, brought him to a halt. The doll, beautifullydressed in the belled skirt of the eighteen-forties, wore plum-coloredsilk with a bodice and wide short sleeves of pale yellow and, crossedon the breast, a strip of black Spanish lace that fell to the hem ofthe skirt. It wasn't, of course, the clothes that attracted him--heonly grew conscious of them perhaps a month later--but the wilfulcharm, the enigmatic fascination, of the still face. The eyes were longand half closed under finely arched brows, there was a minute patch atthe right corner of a pale scarlet, smiling mouth; a pointed chinmarked an elusive oval beneath black hair drawn down upon a long slimneck, hair to which was pinned an odd headdress of old gilt with, atthe back, pendent ornamental strands of gold-glass beads. 

Insistently conventional, selectly ordinary, in appearance, the stickwith a pig-skin handle hanging from his left arm, he had studied thedoll with a deepening interest. Never in life, he told himself, had heseen a woman with such a magnetic and disturbing charm. Fixed in intentregard he became conscious that, strangely, rather than small thefigure seemed diminished by a distance which yet left every featureclear. With this he grew satirical at himself; and, moving resolutelydown the Avenue, treated his absorption with ridicule. But the visionof the face, the smile, the narrowed eyes, persisted in his mind; thetruth was that they troubled him; and within three blocks he hadturned. The second view intensified rather than lessened his feeling, and he walked quickly into the shop odorous with burned sugar. The dollwas removed from the window--it had come from Paris, he learned--and, after a single covert glance, he bought it, for, he needlessly informedthe girl wrapping it in an unwieldy light package, his daughter. 

To his secret satisfaction, Helena, who was twelve, hadn't beenstrongly prepossessed; and the doll--though Lee Randon no longerthought of it as merely that--left downstairs, had been finally placedon the white over-mantel of the fireplace by the dining-room door. 

There, when he was alone, he very often stopped to gaze at the figure;and, during such a moment of speculative abstraction, he had, from thememories of early reading, called her Cytherea. That, Lee rememberedvaguely, was the Cytheranian name of the mysterious goddess of love, Venus, of the principle, the passion, of life stirring in plants andmen. But in the shape above him it had been strangely modified from anapparently original purpose, made infinitely difficult if notimpossible of understanding. His Cytherea bore the traces, the results, of old and lost and polished civilizations; there was about her even abreath of immemorial China. It mingled with a suggestion of Venice, theeighteenth century Venice of the princes of Naxos--how curiously shebrought back tags of discarded reading!--and of the rococo Viennesecourt. This much he grasped; but the secret of her fascination, ofwhat, at heart, she represented, what in her had happened to love, entirely escaped him. 

Lee was interested in this, he reassured his normal intelligence, because really it bore upon him, upon the whole of his married lifewith Fanny. He wasn't, merely, the victim of a vagrant obsession, thetyranny of a threatening fixed idea. No, the question advanced withoutanswer by Cytherea was not confined to her, it had very decidedlyentered into him, and touched, practically, everyone he knew, everyone, that was, who had a trace of imagination. Existence had been enormouslyupset, in a manner at once incalculable and clear, by the late war. Why, for example, the present spirit of restlessness shouldparticularly affect the relation of men and women he couldn't begin tograsp. Not, he added immediately, again, that it had clouded or shakenhis happiness. 

It had only given him the desire, the safe necessity, to comprehend thepowerful emotion that held Fanny and him secure against any accident totheir love. To their love! The repetition, against his contraryintention, took on the accent of a challenge. However, he proceededmentally, it wasn't the unassailable fact that was challenged, but theindefinable word love. Admiration, affection, passion, were clear intheir meanings--but love! His brow contracted in a frown spreading in ashadowy doubt over his face when he saw that he had almost reached theclubhouse; its long steep-pitched bulk lay directly across the path ofdusk, approaching from the east; and a ruddy flicker in the glass doorson the veranda showed that a fire had been lighted. To his left, downover the dead sod and beyond a road, he could see the broad low façadeof his house with its terraced lawn and aged stripped maples. There, too, a window was bright on the first floor: probably Fanny was hearingthe children's lessons. 

 * * * * *

That cheerful interior he completely visualized: Fanny, in the nicestpossible attire, sitting in the curly-maple rocking-chair, herslippered feet--she had a premonition of rheumatism--elevated on thecollapsible stool she carried about with her; and Helena and Gregoryhanging on her knees. Gregory, of course, had tomorrow's task easily inhand, with another star for a day's good conduct in school; but Helena, shining in the gold and flush of her radiant inattention, would knownothing. Helena, Lee Randon acknowledged, spelled atrociously. If itweren't for the clubs and his spiked shoes he'd turn and go homedirectly, himself supervise the children's efforts at education. ButFanny did it much better than he; Helena and Gregory were closer toher; while they volunteered endless personal and trivial admissions toher, he had to ask them, detail by detail, what they were doing. 

After he had changed his shoes and secured the latticed steel door ofhis locker he went up to the main room of the clubhouse, where, on thelong divan before the open fire, he found Peyton Morris lounging withAnette Sherwin by a low tea table. The hot water, they informed Leecomfortably, was cold, inviting him by implication to ring for more;and then they returned to the conversation he had interrupted. Anettesaid:

"I asked her from Friday till Monday, over the dance, you see; but shewired she couldn't be sure. They are going to begin rehearsing at anyminute, and then shoot--it is shoot, isn't it?--the picture. What didshe tell you at the Plaza?"

"The same thing, " Peyton replied moodily. "I only saw her for a scrappydinner; she couldn't even wait for coffee, but rushed up to aconference with her director. "

They were, Lee knew, talking about Mina Raff, a friend of Anette'searlier summers by the sea who was beginning to be highly successful inthe more serious moving pictures. He had met her a number of years ago, in Eastlake, but he retained no clear impression of her; and, admittingthat he hadn't gone to see her in a picture, wondered aloud at hersudden fame. Peyton Morris glanced at him, frowning; he seemed at thepoint of vigorous speech, then said nothing. 

"Mina is lovely now, Lee, " Anette spoke in his place; "you will realizethat at once. She's like a--a wistful April moon, or corn silk. "

"I like black hair, " Randon asserted. 

"That's amusing, when you think Fanny's is quite brown, " Anettereplied. "Whom have you been meeting with black hair? There's none Ican remember in Eastlake. "

"There isn't anybody in particular, " Lee reassured her; "it is just anidea of mine. " He had a vision of intense black hair swept about anenigmatic still smile, of an old gilt headdress. "Mina Raff must havedeveloped if she gets half the pay advertised. "

"She'll get twice that when this contract expires, " Peyton put in; "andthat will be increased again. No one on the screen can touch her. " Hemade these declarations in a manner both shadowed and aggressive. Leeobserved that he held a cigarette in one hand and a match in the otherwith no effort at conjunction. 

"Mina simply tells you everything, " Anette continued. "If she comes youmust do your best. It's perfectly marvelous, with so much else, thatshe even considers it. I couldn't budge her when she was practicallyfree. "

"How is Claire?" Randon abruptly demanded. 

"She's all right, " her husband returned; "a little offhand, but no morethan usual. I want her to go to the West Indies and take Ira but shewon't listen. Why anyone who doesn't have to stay through these rottenwinters I can't imagine. " A flaming log brought out his handsomelyproportioned face, the clear grey eyes, the light carefully brushedhair and stubborn chin. Peyton was a striking if slightly sullenappearing youth--yet he must be on the mark of thirty--and it wasundeniable that he was well thought of generally. At his university, Princeton, he had belonged to a most select club; his family, hisprospects, even his present--junior partner in a young but successfulfirm of bond brokers--were beyond reproach. Yet Lee Randon was awarethat he had never completely liked Peyton. 

His exterior was too hard, too obviously certain, to allow anypenetration of the inevitable human and personal irregularitiesbeneath. It might be possible that he was all of a piece of theconventional stereotyped proprieties; but Lee couldn't imagine Clairemarrying or holding to a man so empty, or, rather, so dully solid. Claire he admired without reservation--a girl who had become a wife, amother, with no loss of her vivid character. Her attitude toward Ira, now four years old--wholly different from Fanny's manner with herchildren--was lightly humorous; publicly she treated her obligations asjokes; but actually, Lee knew, she was indefatigable. 

This was a type of high spirits, of highly bred courage, to which hewas entirely delivered. Fanny was a perfect mother, a remarkably finewife, but she bore an evident sense of her responsibilities. She wasn'tso good-looking as Claire, who at times was almost beautiful; but Fannyhad a very decided kind of attractiveness which Lee Randon wished shewould more bring out. She was a little too serious. He didn't actuallywant her to drink and swear in public, that wouldn't become her; butsomething of that sort, he felt, might help her. At times, when she hadhad more than her customary cocktail and a half, he saw in her apromise of what he desired. 

God knew he wasn't criticizing Fanny, he hastened to reassure evenhimself: how could he, in the face of all she had brought him--thefreedom of money and undeviating devotion and their two splendidchildren? His house was as absolute in its restrained luxury of tasteas was the unfailing attention to his comfort. It was purely for herown happiness that he wanted her to be, well--a little gayer. She wasalready developing a tendency to sit serenely on the veranda of theclub through the dances, to encourage others rather than take an activepart herself. 

Expanding in the glow of the fire and hot strong tea he forgot allabout his uncomfortable premonitions of age. Now it seemed to him thathe had never been younger in the sense of being merely alive; after thetonic of the cold his nerves were strung like steel, his blood was in afull tide. Lee was aware of a marked sense of pleasure at the closenessto him of Anette; settling back, she willingly, voluntarily, leaned herfirm elastic body against him; her legs, as evident in woolen stockingsas his own, were thrust frankly out toward the flames. 

"I'll meet her, " he heard Peyton say, and realized that they were stilltalking about Mina Raff. She wouldn't attract him, Lee Randon, in theleast, he was sure of that ... No wistful April moon. What, then, didengage him? He was unable to say, he didn't know. It was somethingintangible, a charm without definite form; and his thoughts returned toCytherea--if he could grasp the secret of her fascination he would beable to settle a great many disturbing feelings and needs. Yes, whatshe mutely expressed was what, beneath his comprehension, he had cometo long for. He had never recognized it as the property of any womannor satisfied it in himself. 

Here, certainly, his loyalty, his affection for Fanny, weren't damaged;he was, he thought, beyond assault there. It was only that, togetherwith his fidelity to his wife, an increasing uneasiness possessed him, an unabated separate interest in life, in women. He was searching forsomething essential, he couldn't discover what; but, dismissing theproblem of how he'd act if he found it, the profound convictionremained that when his hopeful quest was over then indeed he'd be old, finished, drained. Lee Randon secretly cherished, jealously guarded, that restless, vital reaching for the indefinable perfection of hishidden desire. For a flash it was almost perceptible in Anette, herhead half-buried in the darkness of the divan behind the rise and fallof her breasts in a close sweater of Jaeger wool. 

 * * * * *

She stirred, smiled at him absently, and, with Peyton's assistance, rose. The long room, unlighted except for the fire, was lost inobscurity; the blackness against the window-panes was absolute. Outside, however, Lee found a lingering glint of day; the snow hadstopped, but the wind had increased and was blowing over the openexpanse of the course in the high gaunt key of winter. His house, across the road, showed regular cheerful rectangles of orangeillumination: he always returned to it with a feeling of relief andpleasant anticipation, but he was very far from sharing Fanny'spassionate attachment to their home. Away--on past trips to theMichigan iron ore fields and now on shorter journeys to easternfinancial centers--he never thought of it, he was absorbed by business. 

But in that he wasn't alone, it was true of the majority of successfulmen he knew over forty; they saw their wives, their homes, they thoughtof their families, only in the intervals of their tyrannicaloccupations. He, in reality, was rather better there than most, for heoccasionally stayed out at Eastlake to play golf; he was locallyinterested, active, in the small town of Fanny's birth. Other men--

He made a calculation of how much time a practising lawyer saw hiswife: certainly he was out of the house before nine--Lee knew lawyerswho were in their offices at seven-thirty--and he was hardly back untilafter five. Nine hours absent daily through the week; and it wasprobable that he was in bed by eleven, up at seven--seven hours' sleep;of the eight hours left in twenty-four half if not two-thirds of theSundays and some part of the others were devoted to a recreation; andthis took no account of the briefcases brought home, the thought andcontributary preoccupations. 

More than that, his mind, his hopes and planning, were constantlydirected toward his legal concerns; the wife of such a man filled aboutthe position of his golf or billiards. Lee Randon had never analyzedthis before, and the result amazed him. With younger men, of course, itwas different; they had more time and interest for their homes, theirwives and children. Everything constantly shifted, changed, perished;all, that was, but the unintelligible spurring need beyond anyaccomplishment. 

In him it was almost as though there were--or, perhaps, had been--twodistinct, opposed processes of thought, two different personalities, afact still admirably illustrated by his private interest in the doll, in Cytherea. Much younger he had been fond of music, of opera and thensymphony concerts, and his university years had been devoted to a wideindiscriminate reading: sitting until morning with college men ofpoetic tendencies, he had discussed the intricacies of conduct in thelight of beauty rather than prudence. This followed him shyly into theworld, the offices of the Magnolia Iron Works; where, he had toldhimself optimistically, he was but finding a temporary competence. What, when he should be free to follow his inclination, he'd do, Leenever particularized; it was in the clouds nebulous and bright, andaccompanied by music. His dream left him imperceptibly, its vaguenesskilled partly by the superior reality of pig iron and ore and partlybecause he never had anyone with whom to talk it over; he could find nosympathy to keep it alive. 

That it wasn't very robust was evident; and yet, throughout his youth, it had been his main source of incentive. No one, in the Magnoliaworks, knew the difference between the Glucks, Alma and Christopher, nor read anything but the most current of magazines. At intervals Leehad found a woman who responded to the inner side of him, and togetherthey swept into an aesthetic emotional debauch; but they cameinevitably, in the surrounding ugliness of thought and ascribedmotives, to humiliating and ugly ends; and he drifted with increasingrapidity to his present financial and material sanity. 

What remained of the other was hardly more than a rare acceleratedheart-beat at a chord of music like the memory of a lost happiness, orat the sea shimmering with morning. He never spoke of it now, not evento Fanny; although it was possible that he might be doing herunderstanding an injustice. Fanny, generally, was a woman in whom thebest of sense triumphed; Fanny was practical. It was she who saw thatthe furnace pipes were inspected, the chimney flues cleaned beforewinter; and who had the tomato frames properly laid away in the stable. Problems of drainage, of controversies with the neighbors, wereinstinctively brought to her, and she met and disposed of them with anunfailing vigorous good judgment. 

A remarkable companion, he told himself; he had been a fortunate man. She was at once conventional and an individual: Fanny never, forexample, wore the underclothes of colored crepe de chines, theelaborate trifles, Lee saw in the shop windows, nightgowns of sheerexposure and candy-like ribbons; hers were always of fine whitecambric, scalloped, perhaps, or with chaste embroidery, but nothingmore. Neither did she use perfumes of any sort, there was no array ofornamental bottles on her dressing-table, no sachet among herhandkerchiefs, her cambric was not laid in scented flannel. Herdressing, a little severe, perhaps--she liked tailored suits with crisplinen waists and blue serge with no more than a touch of color--wasotherwise faultless in choice and order; and, it might be that she waswholly wise: Fanny was thin and, for a woman, tall, with square erectlyheld shoulders. Her face was thin, too, almost bony, and thatmagnified, emphasized, the open bright blueness of her eyes; all herspirit, her integrity and beauty, were gathered in them; her hair waspale and quite scanty. 

Yes, Fanny's eyes were her principal attraction, they were foreverstartling, contrasted with the rest, not only remarkable in shade but, as well, in light; in her quick unreasoning tempers, the onlyperceptible flaw of her character, they sparkled with brilliancy. Thetempers, Lee decided, descending the narrow stony road from the club-house to his gate, were an unavoidable part of her special qualities:her quick decisiveness, her sharp recognitions of right and herobdurate condemnation of wrong--these distinctions were never obscuredin Fanny--necessitated a finality of judgment open to anger at anycontrary position. Aside from that she was as secure, as predictable, as any heavenly orbit; her love for him, beginning before marriage, hadquietly and constantly increased; her usual mood was moulded to hisneed; nothing had ever contested the supremacy of his place with her. 

Lee swung open the white wicket that broke the middle of his borderhedge and went up the path over the broad lawn; the house, an admirablecopy of locally colonial dwellings, was a yellow stucco, with a porchon his left and the dining-room at the extreme right. Beyond the porchwas the square of the formal garden, indistinguishable at this season, and the garage, the driveway, were hidden at the back. He mounted thebroad steps of field stone at the terrace, but, in place of goingdirectly in under the main portico, turned aside to the porch, past thedim bare forms of the old maples. Just as he had anticipated, the glassdoor showed him Fanny sitting in the maple slatted-back rocking-chair;Gregory, in blue, was present, but Helena not to be seen. 

His wife's hands were lying idly in her lap, and she was gazing intonothingness with an expression he had never before noticed, there was afaint troubled doubt on her brow, a questioning expression about hereyes. As he stood momentarily quiet he saw her hands slowly clasp untilhe felt that they were rigid, and her mouth became pinched; her faceseemed actually hard. Gregory spoke to her, with his fat fingers on hersleeve, but she made no reply, paid no attention to him. Lee could hearGregory's demanding voice; and then, gathering herself, Fanny sigheddeeply and smiled at her boy. She was wearing her pearls, her ringssparkled in glittering prisms; and, as he opened the door, Lee Randonwondered if he had forgotten an engagement to go out for dinner?

 * * * * *

He asked at once if this were so, but found that they were staying athome. She regarded him still, he realized, a little withdrawn in theabstraction he had surprised. This, because it was so uncommon, disturbed him, and he demanded what was worrying her. 

"Nothing, really. What made you suppose I was bothered?" Her reply wasinstinctive; and then, after a pause, she continued, more insecurely, "I was only thinking about some things.... Lee, " she inquired, "youlove me very much, don't you?"

"Why, of course, " he spoke almost impatiently. 

"That is all I have, you see, " she admitted; "and that was what was inmy mind. The other women I know are so different; they seem to have somany more interests than I, and to care less for them than I do for myone. It is exactly as though I belonged before the war and they cameafterwards. It is true--I am old-fashioned. Well, I don't care if youdon't! But, just the same, it's a problem; I don't want to be out ofthe times or narrow; and yet I can't, I don't know how, and I honestlydon't want to, change. 

"It wouldn't be any better if I smoked more cigarettes or drank moregin, that would be silly. " Lee was startled by the similarity of herwords to his unformed thought. "No one likes fun better than I do, butthe fun now is so different, " her voice had the sound of a wail, "it'snothing but legs and getting kissed by anybody but your husband. Idon't want other men to kiss me, Lee, only you. And I want you to beglad about that, to care for it more than anything else. You do, don'tyou?"

Again she hesitated, and again he assured her, in a species ofannoyance, of his feeling. 

"It's because I adore you, " Fanny insisted; "it may be awfully foolishand ark-like to say, but you're all I want, absolutely. " Her mannergrew indignant. "Some women at tea today laughed at me. They didnothing but describe how they held their husbands' affections; actuallythat, as though it were difficult, necessary; the details weresickening, and reminded me of that old joke about leaving off yourwedding ring. It was all too horrid! And, underneath, they were bitterand vindictive, yes--they were uneasy, afraid of something, ofsomebody, and treated every good-looking woman as a dangerous enemy. Icouldn't live like that, I'd rather die: I told them they didn't trustthe men they were married to. "

"What did they say to that?" Lee asked, standing in the door. 

"Agreed with me. Alice Lucian said I was damned well right she didn'ttrust hers. She loved him, too, but she didn't propose to take anyliberties with the sanctity of her bed. They all thought Claire was afool to let Peyton see Mina Raff like that in New York--the way toavoid trouble was to make sure it couldn't begin. Has Peyton saidanything to you about Mina Raff? She is perfectly stunning, of course, and an actress. "

"Not to me, " Lee told her; then he recalled the prolonged attention toMina Raff on the divan at the Club. "What if he is crazy about her?" heobserved indifferently; "it can't come to anything. It won't hurtClaire if Peyton sits out a few dances with a public idol. "

"I shouldn't think so either, but the others were so positive. I justtold them how happy we are together and how devoted you are--fifteenmarvelous years, Lee. It was plain that they envied us. " She rose andcame close to him, her widely-opened candid blue eyes level with hisgaze. "Not the slightest atom must ever come between us, " she said; "Icouldn't stand it, I've been spoiled. I won't have to, will I, Lee?Lee, kiss me. "

He met the clinging thin passionate purity of her mouth. "No, certainlynot, never, " he muttered, extraordinarily stirred. He asserted tohimself that he would make no such fatal mistake. The other, the errantfancy, was no more than a vagrant unimportant impulse. "Don't let thesewomen, who cat around, upset you; probably they are thinking not somuch about their husbands as they are of themselves. I've seen thatAlice Lucian parked out in a limousine during a dance, and she wasgoing right to it. "

"It is foolish of me, " Fanny agreed, "and not complimentary to ourlove. I have kept you so long over nothing that you will be late fordinner. I don't care!" Her manner bore a foreign trace of abandon inits radiant happiness; and, with spread fingers on his back, shepropelled him toward the stairs. But, in their room, he failed tochange his clothes: he sat lost in a concentration of thought, ofsummoned determination. 

The interior, with dotted white Swiss curtains at the large windows, both an anomaly and an improvement on the architectural origin, wasfurnished largely in dull rubbed mahogany, the beds had high slenderfluted posts, snowy ruffled canopies and counterpanes stitched in aprimitive design. He possessed an inlaid chest of drawers across fromthe graceful low-boy used by Fanny as a dressing-table; there was a bedstand with brass-tipped feet, a Duncan Fyfe, she declared; splithickory chairs painted a dark claret color; small hooked rugs on thewaxed floor; and, against the mirror on his chest of drawers, a bigphotograph of Fanny and the two children in the window-seat of theliving room. 

A dinner shirt lay in readiness on the bed, the red morocco boxes thatheld his moonstone cuff links and studs were evident, but he ignoredthose provisions for his ease. There was a strange, a different andunaccountable, uneasiness, a marked discomfort, at his heart. Theburden of it was that he had a very great deal of which, it might wellbe, he wasn't worthy. In Fanny, he told himself, as against everythingelse discoverable, he had the utmost priceless security life couldoffer. Outside the brightness and warmth and charm of their house theNovember night was slashed by a black homeless wind. 

Her sureness, undeniably, was founded on the inalterable strength ofher convictions; against that sustaining power, it occurred to him, thecorrectness of her beliefs might be relatively unimportant. Could anymore be required of a faith than its ability, like a life preserver onwater, to hold an individual safe from sinking? Strangely enough, theone or two greatly powerful men with whom he had come in contact werelike Fanny, prejudiced, closed against all opinions contrary to theirown, impatient of doubt and self-questioning. 

Fanny, Lee Randon recognized, was indefatigable in her efforts to formhim in her own unassailable mould; she insisted in the most trivial, and often tiresome, ways, that he should reach and maintain herstandards. He had been in return, more often than not, rebellious, humorously or with a suspicion of annoyance; but now, suddenly, itseemed to him that just that, the limitation of Fanny's determinedattitude, was, perhaps, the most desirable thing possible. If it werepossible of acquisition! Such a certainty wasn't his naturally--thosetwo diverse strains in him again; but one, he added, had beenpractically obliterated. The first step in such a course of practicalwisdom would be to put Cytherea out of his life, dislodge her finallyfrom his thoughts, and the over-mantel downstairs. This, diplomaticallywith the doll, he could, of course, do now, whenever he chose. Withthat, and whatever it represented, accomplished, Lee had a premonition, his life would be secure, placid. 

The disturbance caused by Fanny's searching tenderness subsided alittle; and, as it dwindled, the other restlessness, the sense, yes--ofwasted possibilities and years, once more grew evident. By God, ifFanny insisted on being, at any cost, herself, it would be unreasonablein her not to recognize the same need in him. But Lee was obliged toadd the old and familiar and increasingly heavy provision: anyindividuality of being, of desire, must not be allowed to impair thevalidity of their common existence, their marriage. Fanny had anadvantage over him there, for all her aspirations turned inward totheir love, their home and children; and his ... But if he knew theirgoal he could have beaten life. 

 * * * * *

Footfalls approaching over the hall--the maid to tell him dinner wasserved--brought him sharply to his feet, and he hurried down to whereFanny, who liked to do such things, had finished lighting the candleson the table. In reply to the glance of interrogation at hisinappropriate clothes he explained that, trivially occupied, he hadbeen unaware of the flight of time. Throughout dinner Fanny and he saidlittle; their children had a supper at six o'clock, and at seven weresent to bed; so there were commonly but two at the other table. He hadan occasional glimpse of his wife, behind a high centerpiece of latechrysanthemums, the color of bright copper pennies and hardly larger;and he was struck, as he was so often, by Fanny's youthful appearance;but that wasn't, he decided, so much because of her actual person--although since her marriage she had shown practically no change--asfrom a spirit of rigorous purity; she was, in spite of everything, Leerealized, completely virginal in mind. 

The way she sat and walked, with her elbows close to her body and herhigh square shoulders carried forward, gave her an air of eagerness, ofyouthful hurry. Perhaps she grew more easily tired now than formerly;her face then seemed thinner than ever, the temples sunken and cheek-bones evident, and her eyes startling in their size and blueness andprominence. She kept, too, the almost shrinking delicacy of a girl'smind: Fanny never repeated stories not sufficiently saved from thegross by their humor. Her private severity with women who did, he felt, was too extreme. The truth was that she regarded the mechanism ofnature with distaste; Fanny was never lost, never abandoned, inpassion--Lee Randon had wondered if she regarded that as more than aduty, the discharge of a moral, if not actually a religious, obligation. It was certain that she was clothed in a sense of bodilyshame, of instinctive extreme modesty, which no situation or degree offeeling could destroy. 

He understood, however, that he could not have Fanny as she was, immeasurably fine, without accepting all the implications of hercharacter--other qualities, which he might desire, would as well bringtheir defects. Lee didn't for a second want a wife like Anette. Hisadmiration for Fanny was, fundamentally, enormous. He was glad thatthere was nothing hidden in his life which could seriously disturb her;nothing, that was, irrevocable. Which had he been--wise or fortunate, or only trivial? Perhaps, everything considered, merely fortunate; andhe wondered how she would have met an infidelity of his? He put hisquestion in the past tense because now, Lee congratulated himself, allthe danger was passed: forty-seven, with responsibilities thatincreased every month in importance, and swiftly growing children; thehair above his ears was patched with grey. 

"I don't like that centerpiece, " Fanny observed, "I can't see you. Still, it's as well, I suppose, since you didn't change. You look somuch better in dark clothes, Lee, thinner. "

"You shouldn't make me so comfortable. "

"You'd see to that, anyhow; men always do. Honestly, Alice Lucian was ascream this afternoon, she said that she hated and distrusted all men;yet I'm sure no one could be more considerate or dependable thanWarner. Now, if she had a husband like George Willard--"

"What would you do, " Lee asked, "if I spent my spare time with the veryyoung ones?"

"I'd have a doctor see you, " she replied coolly. "What in the world putthat in your head? Haven't you everything here a man could want? That'sexactly what they were talking about; it's so--so idiotic. Thoseyounger girls ought to be smacked and put to bed, with their one-pieceswimming-suits and shimmying. They give a very misleading impression. "

He lost the course of her speech in considering how little ofthemselves women, old and young, showed each other. If Fanny meant, ifshe for a moment thought, where the girls they were discussing came in, that there was smoke without fire.... It was all devilish strange, thepresent day, disturbing. The young men, since the war, had grown sober, and the older men resembled George Willard. The exploding of so muchpowder, the release of such naked passions, had over-thrown the balanceof conduct and pressure. How fortunate, he thought again, he was inhaving Fanny. 

They moved into the enclosure by the fire-place, where Cytherea wasremote in shadow against the chimney, and through the hall to theliving room for coffee. His wife placed the portable stool under herfeet, and silence enveloped them. At intervals the clear treble of thechildren's voices was audible from above, and once Fanny called up forthem to be quiet. The room was large, it filled that end of the lowerfloor, and Lee's gaze idly rested on the smoke of his cigar, veilingthe grand piano in the far corner. There were no overhead lights, theplugs for the lamps were set in the baseboard, and the radiance waspleasantly diffused, warm and subdued: the dull immaculately whitepaint of the bookshelves on his left, silver frames on a table, harmonious fabrics and spots of color, consciously and sub-consciouslyspread a restful pattern. In reply to his comment Fanny acknowledgedthat she had seen the snow; she hated winter, she proceeded, andthought that if it turned out as bad as last year they might get awayto Cuba and see Daniel. 

Daniel was Lee's brother, four years his junior, an administrador of asugar estancia in the Province of Camagüey; a man who, absorbed in hiscrops and his adopted Spanish-tropical civilization, rarely returned tothe United States. This projected trip to Cuba they had discussed formany Novembers; every year Fanny and he promised each other that, earlyin February, they would actually go; and preparatory letters wereexchanged with Daniel Randon; but it always came to nothing. Either itwas impossible for Fanny to leave the children, the house, or theservants, or Lee's affairs were in need of close supervision. 

Suddenly it annoyed him to discuss again, uselessly, Camagüey; it hadbecome only a vain pretence, a sustained mirage, of escape fromdisagreeable days. While it was hot in Cuba, Daniel maintained, thetrade wind coming with evening made the nights cool; it was far morecomfortable, summer and winter, at La Quinta than in Eastlake. Cuba, hemade it seem, Havana and the colonias of cane, the coast and theinterior, was a place with none of the drawbacks of a northern land orsociety; there were, certainly, conventions--the Spanish were a verypunctilious people--but they operated in a conveniently definite, Daniel might almost say a sensible masculine, manner. He had not goneinto any further detail, but had sunk into his celebrated immobility ofexpression. Lee, therefore, had drawn his own, natural, conclusions; hehad come to regard Cuba in the same light as that of the earlyCastilian adventurers--an El Dorado, but of freedom rather than gold. 

A perverse restlessness settled upon him, and he put down his coffeecup abruptly; the contentment in his surroundings vanished. Lee wantedto be somewhere else, see something different, not so--so tranquil, socomplacently delivered to the uneventful. Fanny, he told himselfresentfully, would be satisfied to sit exactly where she was for ayear. She met his fleet scrutiny with a faint smile. Her face wouldn'tbe greatly changed by old age, by death. She was like that, inside andout. Whirling ungracious fancies passed through his brain. He shook hishead, and Fanny instantly demanded, "What is it, Lee, what is worryingyou?" Nothing, he replied, but she continued to study him until, givingit up, she turned to the approaching dance; there would be a dinner atthe Club before it, and forty people from out of town had accepted. They must all have a perfect time, she declared. Gregory could be heardlaughing, and, with a sense of relief, of escape, he volunteered to goup and see what kept the children roused. He would only make themworse, Fanny observed, he was as fidgety as Helena; but her tonecarried to him her compelling affection. 

 * * * * *

The darkened room where Helena and Gregory slept held a cold glimmeringwhiteness; and the light he switched on showed a most sanitary barenessand two severe iron beds. There was a moment's stillness as he entered, the scrutiny of two rosy faces framed in blanket and sheet--there wereno pillows--and then there was a delighted vociferous recognition ofhis presence. 

"You must sit on my bed, " Helena insisted. 

"No, mine!" Gregory cried; and, as he settled by his daughter, "Forevery minute you're there, father, you must sit here. Guess what I havewith me. " Lee Randon had no idea, and Gregory produced a willow switch. "That's for anybody who isn't good. "

There was a wriggle down under the blanket, and Lee leaned forward;"Are those your feet?" he demanded; "do you go that far down, are youthat tall?"

"Gracious, that's nothing, " Helena cut in; "just see where I go. " Hediscovered that her active toes were almost under the end bar of thebed. The covers were moulded by her firm body. In a few years, hethought with a constricted throat, Helena would be grown up, flung intothe complex troubles of maturity. However, he knew, life wouldn'tgreatly upset her--she had a calmness more stolid than Fanny's togetherwith his own sharpened sensibilities: it was probable that she wouldmarry soon. 

Gregory was different; while Helena, in small ways, was unamenable, hewas as good as the gold stars he continually got for admirable conduct. He had a deliberate, careful mind and, already, a sense ofresponsibilities. He spoke slowly, giving the impression that theselection of words was a heavy business; where Helena's speech came incareless rushes. Gregory, too, Lee Randon told himself, would not be ata loss later. The two children actually demanded very little from himnow beyond the love they took for granted and its obvious return. But, for his part, did he give them much, indeed, any more? Was there, Leewondered, a deficiency in his sense of parenthood?

He knew men all of whose labor was for their children; they slaved tohave comfortable sums against their children's futures; they schemedand talked, often fatuously, for and about their sons and, in lesserdegree, daughters. They were, in short, wholly absorbed, no more thanparents; at the advent of a family they lost individuality, ambition, initiative; nature trapped them, blotted them out; it used them for itsgreat purpose and then cast them aside, just as corporations used menfor a single task and dropped them when their productiveness was over. 

But he wasn't like that, it might well be unfortunately. Hispersonality, his peculiar needs, had survived marriage; the vaguelongings of youth had not been entirely killed. They were still potentand still nameless; they had refused to be gathered into a definitionas exact as ambition. Lee had moved to Gregory's bed, and was holdingone of the small warm hands, inattentive to the eager clamor of voices. Perhaps his ambition had vanished when he had left the first plan ofhis future for the more tangible second: there wasn't much in thematerial industry of iron founding, nor in his present wideractivities, to satisfy the imagination. 

Taking the place of that, he had an uncommon amount of energy, vitality, a force of some kind or other. Whatever he undertook hefollowed with a full vigorous sweep; he was successful in convincing alarge proportion of the people with whom he dealt that their ends werethe same as his; and here, as well, chance, fate, had been with Lee--noone, practically, had lost through a belief in him. 

His situation today, he wholly and gladly admitted, had resulted fromthe money Fanny brought him. Until his marriage he had been confined tothe Magnolia Iron Works; of which, it was conceivable, he would in timebe manager, maybe, much later, part owner. But, with fresh resources, he tried fresh fields, investments, purchases, every one of whichprospered. He owned or operated or controlled an extraordinarydiversity of industries--a bottling works for nonalcoholic beverages, asmall structural steel plant, the Eastlake daily paper--a property thatreturned forty per cent on his capital--a box works, purchased beforethe war, with an output that had leaped, almost over night, fromthousands to millions, a well-known cigarette--

His energies, forever turning from routine paths and stereotypedpreoccupations, took him vividly into countless phases of existence. Hehad accumulated nearly a million dollars and Fanny's affairs hadbenefited greatly; his administration of her money had been rigid: but--for whatever it was worth--his wife had, in liberating him from thecompany of the super-hot cupolas, made it all possible. 

A fist, now, was softly pounding him; and Gregory's voice threatenedtears. "What is it?" Lee Randon asked. "You will have to excuse me, Iwas thinking. "

The narrative which followed, the confused history of a two and a halfdollar gold-piece finally taken from Gregory by his mother, was brokeninto by Helena's irrepressible contempt at his youthfulness. 

"He thinks the money is gone, " she explained, "because Mother put it inthe bank for him. I told him when he got it there would be a lot more, but he just wouldn't listen to me. No matter what anybody said it wasno good. "

"Well, " Gregory inquired, "how much more?"

"I don't know, silly; but packs. "

"Seventy-seven dollars?"

"That depends on how long you leave it in the bank, " Lee instructedhim. "If you didn't ask for it for twenty years--"

"But I want it next Thursday, " Gregory hotly interrupted; "won't it beany bigger then?"

"He does nothing but ask and ask questions, " Helena added. Lee pattedGregory's cheek:

"Don't let Helena discourage you. If I don't put the light out yourmother will make me go to bed. "

There were breathless delighted giggles at the thought of thatabsurdity. He leaned over his son. "Kiss me!" Helena cried. "Now kissme, " Gregory echoed. "Kiss me back again--"

The light went out with a sharp click, and the room was once more aglimmering darkness, blanched and cold. The ruddy faces of thechildren, their bright hair, even their voices, were subdued. Fanny, apparently, hadn't moved; the light at her shoulder was reflected inthe cut steel buckles of her slippers; she had slight but gracefulankles. He recognized this, drawing a sheaf of reports from his brief-case; but, after a perfunctory glance, he dropped them beside him onthe floor. 

"Really, Lee, your condition is getting dreadful, " Fanny observed; "youare too nervous for words. Go in and look at that doll you brought fromNew York. She ought to teach you repose even if I can't. " A swiftconcern shadowed her eyes. "Are you doing too much, do you think? Itisn't necessary, you know. We have plenty. I don't understand why youwill go so hard at all those fool concerns of yours. There might be amortgage on us, from the way you work. "

The latter part of her speech he forgot in the calling of his attentionto Cytherea. Fanny had said that the doll might tranquilize him. Theopposite was more probable--Cytherea, what could be more disturbing?Fanny hadn't noticed her smile, the long half-closed eyes, theexpression of malicious tenderness, if such a thing were possible, thepale seductiveness of her wrists and hands, the finger nails stainedwith vermilion. He tried to imagine a woman like that, warm, no--burning, with life. It seemed to Lee the doll became animated in awhisper of cool silk, but he couldn't invent a place, a society, intowhich she fitted. Not Eastlake, certainly, nor New York ... PerhapsCuba. What a vanity of nonsense his thoughts had led him back into:Cytherea, a thing of wax, was on the over-mantel beyond the hall; Cubabeyond the sea. 

The smoke of another cigar, precisely in the manner of the one before, hung between him and the piano. His wife settled contentedly in thecurly maple rocker, her rings flashing in the swift drawing of threadsfrom a square of linen. 

 * * * * *

Early in the morning Lee Randon drove himself, in a Ford sedan, to astation on the main line of a railway which bore him into the city andhis office. It was nine miles from Eastlake to the station, where heleft the car for his return; and, under ordinary circumstances, heaccomplished the distance in twenty minutes. The road was good and laythrough open rolling country, grazing and farmed land; he knew itsevery aspect thoroughly, each hill and turning and old stone house, inthe pale green of early spring with the flushed petals of the appleblossoms falling on the dark ploughed ground; yellow with grain; asweeping stubble with the corn shocked in which rabbit hunters, brownlike the sheaves, called to their dogs. 

Now it was sombre and, in the morning and evening, wrapped in bluemist; the air had the thick damp coldness usually precipitated in snow;the cattle, gathered about the fodder spread in the fields, werehuddled against the rising winds. The smoke of a chimney was flattenedon a low roof; and Lee, who had sometimes wished that he were a part ofthe measured countryside life, had a sudden feeling of revolt from suchbinding circumstances. He wasn't surprised, this morning, that it wasdifficult to get men to work in the comparative loneliness of thefarms, or that farmers' sons went continually to the cities. 

When they couldn't get there they crowded into their borough towns, into Eastlake, at every opportunity, attracted by the gaiety, thelights, the stir, the contact with humanity. Before prohibition theyhad drunk at the hotel bars, and driven home, with discordant laughterand the urged clatter of hoofs, to the silence of star-lit fields. Thebuggies had gone; High Street, on Saturday night, was filled withautomobiles; there was practically no drunkenness; but there was nolessening in the restless seeking stream of men, the curiosity of thewomen with folded hands and tightly folded lips. 

They all wanted a mitigation of a life which, fundamentally, did notfill them; they had an absorbing labor, love and home and children, thechurch, yet they were unsatisfied. They were discontented with theprimary facts of existence, the serious phases, and wanted, aboveeverything, tinsel and laughter. If a girl passing on the street smiledboldly at such youths they were fired with triumph and happiness; theynudged each other violently and made brazen declarations which, facedby the girls, escaped in disconcerted laughter. Their language--andthis, too, was a revolt--was like the sweepings of the cow barns. 

Life, it occurred to Lee Randon, in this connection, was amazinglymuddled; and he wondered what would happen if the restraint, since itwas no better than sham, should be swept away, and men acknowledgedwhat they so largely were? A fresh standard, a new set of values, wouldhave to be established. But before that could be accomplished anunderlying motive must be discovered. That he searched for in himself;suppose he were absolutely free, not tomorrow, that evening, but now--

Would he go to the office, to the affairs of the Zenith cigarette, and, once there, would he come home again--the four thirty-seven train andthe Ford in the shed by the station? Lee couldn't answer this finally. A road led over the hills on the right, beyond a horizon of trees. Heknew it for only a short distance; where ultimately it led he had noidea. But it was an enticing way, and he had an idiotic impulse to turnaside, follow it, and never come back any more. Actually he almost cutin, and he had to swing the car sharply to the left. 

If he had been in trouble or debt, if his life had been a failure, hewould have understood his impulse; but as it was, with Fanny and Helenaand Gregory, all his flourishing affairs--why, it was insanity!However, what absorbed him in his present state of mind, of inquiry, was its honesty; nothing could be served by conventional protests andnice sentiments. Lee had long wanted to escape from life, from theaccumulating limiting circumstances. Or was it death he tried to avoid?

What became clearest was that, of all the things which had happened tohim, he would not, at the beginning, have deliberately chosen any. One, it seemed, bred by the other, had overtaken him, fastened upon him, while he was asleep. Lee knew a man who, because of his light strengthand mastery of horses, had spent a prolonged youth riding ingentlemen's steeplechases for the great Virginia stables; a career ofracing silk and odds and danger, of highly ornamental women andchampagne, of paddocks and formal halls and surreptitious little ante-rooms. That he envied; and, recalling his safe ignominious usefulnessduring the war, he envied the young half-drunk aviators sweeping inreckless arcs above the fortified German cities. 

Or was it, again, only youth that he lamented, conscious of itsslipping supinely from his grasp? Yet, if that were all, why was herebellious about the present, the future, rather than the past? LeeRandon wasn't looking back in a self-indulgent melancholy. Nor was hean isolated, peculiar being; yes, all the men he knew had, more orless, his own feeling; he could think of none, even half intelligent, who was happy. Each had Lee's aspect of having been forced into aconsummation he would not have selected, of something temporary, hurried, apologetic. 

He thought more specially of men celebrated in great industries, whohad accumulated power beyond measure, millions almost beyond count--what extravagantly mad outlets they turned to! The captains of steel, of finance, were old, spent, before they were fifty, broken bymachinery and strain in mid-life, by a responsibility in which theywere like pig iron in an open hearth furnace. What man would choose tocrumble, to find his brain paralysed, at forty-five or six? Such laborwas a form of desperation, of drowning, forgetting, an affair at bestan implied failure. 

That was the strength, the anodyne, of drink, of cocktails, that theyspread a glittering transformation about crass reality; people dancedat stated times, in hot crowded rooms, because life was pedestrian;they were sick of walking in an ugly meaningless clamor and wanted tomove to music, to wear pearl studs and fragile slippers and floatingchiffons. "The whole damned business is a mess, " he said aloud. Then, reaching the city, he threw himself with a familiar vigor into theactivities he had challenged. 

Returning over the familiar road, in his small closed car, he wasquieter mentally, critical of his useless dissatisfaction; he wasmaking needless trouble for himself. Small things filled his thoughts, among them the question of how much gin would be consumed by thecocktail party Fanny and he were having before the dinner dance at theCountry Club. Peyton and Claire Morris, Anette and, if she came, MinaRaff, with two men, and the Lucians. Perhaps twelve in all; two quarts. The Country Club dances, principally made up of people who had knowneach other long and intimately, decidedly needed an impetus; societywas rather dreadful without rum. Anette was an attractive girl; she hadbeautiful legs; but they were hardly better than Fanny's; why in thename of God was he captivated by Anette's casual ankles and indifferentto his wife's?

Women's legs--they were even no longer hidden--were only a reasonableanatomical provision exactly shared by men. Why, he particularized, didhe prefer them in silk stockings rather than bare, and in black morethan bright colors? Anette's had never failed to excite hisimagination, but Alice Lucian's, graceful enough, were without interestfor him. How stupid was the spectacle of women in tights! Short bathingskirts left him cold, but the unexpected, the casual, the vagaries offashion and the wind, were unfailingly potential. Humiliating, hethought, a curiosity that should be left with the fresh experience ofyouth; but it wasn't--comic opera with its choruses and the burlesquestage were principally the extravagances of middle age. 

 * * * * *

The orange juice and square bottles of clear gin, the array of glassesand ice-filled pewter pitcher in which Lee mixed his drinks, werestanding conveniently on a table in the small reception room. Fanny, ina lavender dress with a very full skirt decorated with erraticallyplaced pale yellow flowers, had everything in readiness. "Mina Raffcame, " she announced, as he descended the stairs. "Anette telephoned. To be quite frank I didn't much care whether she did or didn't. Sheused to be too stiff, too selfish, I thought; and I never likedAnette. "

"Nothing but prejudice, that, " he replied decidedly. "Anette has a verygood head. You have just heard stories from envious women. " He wascareful to say nothing about her legs. "I haven't found her the leastbit out of the way; and she thinks a lot of you. "

"Bosh, " Fanny said inattentively; "I know what she thinks of me. I amsurprised, Lee, that you do so well, because really you are nothing butan impressionable old fool. " She touched him affectionately on thecheek, "But I can take care of you and Anette too. "

He didn't in the slightest wish to be taken care of in the manner sheindicated; yet there was nothing he could answer; and, at the sound ofa motor on the drive, he turned toward the entrance at the back. It wasthe Lucians; and as he greeted them the whole small company swept intothe house. Claire, with her narrow dark vivid face, wore diagonals ofblack and grey, with a long trailing girdle of soft blues and pinks. She came up at once to Lee and kissed him with a warm friendliness. "Have you seen Mina Raff?" she asked; "she's wonderful. "

As Claire spoke Lee Randon saw the woman who was becoming such a notedpersonality. She was slim, neither tall nor short--Peyton Morris wasremoving a voluminous white cloak with dull red stripes and a highcollar of fox. He had been wrong in his remembrance of her, for herloveliness was beyond challenge. Yes, a wistful April moon describedher very well: Mina Raff was ashen blonde, her face was a very pureoval, and her large eyes, the delicate slightly drooping mouth, held anexpression of devastating sweetness. 

She came forward promptly, and yet with a little touching air ofhesitation, and accused him, in a serious low voice, of havingforgotten her. That, he returned, was ridiculous, an impossibility. Pictures of her were in all the magazines. Close by her he recognizedthat the sweetness was far from sugary; there were indications of adetermination that reached stubbornness; already there were faintlines--skilfully covered--at the corners of her eyes, and she waspalpably, physically, weary. It was that, he decided, which gave herthe wistful charm. That and something more. She was considered, heknew, and by the judges best qualified, to have a very sure and perfecttalent; and he had no doubt that that possession stamped and qualifiedher. 

He was obliged to attend to the cocktails; and, at his back, a gaychatter of voices rose. He had fleeting impressions of very differentpeople: a strange man in naval uniform with the insignia of acommander; Anette in a scanty sheath of satin from which an airy skirtspread to the left like a fan; Alice Lucian sitting on the steps withGeorge Willard: Frank Carver remote and lost in his bitter thoughts;Elsie Wayland with the gold halo of an income almost a dollar a minute. 

Mina Raff, with Peyton Morris at her shoulder, smiled at him. "What anadorable house, " she pronounced; "I wish I could have it near thestudio. " She waved Peyton away unceremoniously, "Come, everybody hashad enough drinks, and show it to me. " They passed through the hall, and into the quiet of the space beyond, lighted by a single unobtrusivelamp. "What a satisfactory fireplace!" she exclaimed in her faint key, as though, Lee thought, her silent acting were depriving her of voice. She sank onto the cushioned bench against the partition. "How did theyfeel, do you suppose--the people, the men and women, who belonged tosuch things?" As Lee watched her it seemed that she grew more remote, shadowy, like a memory of long vanished beauty made before his eyesfrom the shifting firelight and immaterial shadows. Mina Raff lost herreality in an unreal charm that compressed his heart. The atmospherearound her stirred with re-created dead emotions. Then:

"Ah!" she cried softly, unexpectedly, "what a wonderful doll. " Sherose, with a graceful gesture of her hands up to where Cytherea rested. "Where did you get her? But that doesn't matter: do you suppose, wouldit be possible for me, could I buy her?"

"I'm sorry, " Lee answered promptly; "we can't do without her. Shebelongs to Helena, " he lied. 

"But not to a child, " Mina Raff protested, with what, in her, wasanimation and color; "it has a wicked, irresistible beauty. " She gazedwith a sudden flash of penetration at Lee Randon. "Are you sure it'syour daughter's?" she asked, once more repressed, negative. "Are youquite certain it is not yours and you are in love with it?"

He laughed uncomfortably. "You seem to think I'm insane--"

"No, " she replied, "but you might, perhaps, be about that. " Her voicewas as impersonal as an oracle's. "You would be better off without herin your house; she might easily ruin it. No common infidelity could behalf as dangerous. How blind women are--your wife would keep that aboutand yet divorce you for kissing a servant. What did you call her?"

"Cytherea. "

"I don't know what that means. "

He told her, and she studied him in a brief masked appraisal. "Do youknow, " she went on, "that I get four hundred letters a week from men;they are put everywhere, sometimes in my bed; and last week a mankilled himself because I wouldn't see him. You'd think that he had alla man wanted from life; yet, in his library, with his secretary waitingfor him, he.... Why?" she demanded, questioning him with her subduedmagic. 

"Have you ever cared for any of them?" he asked indirectly. 

"I'm not sure, " she replied, with an evident honesty; "I am trying tomake up my mind now. But I hope not, it will bring so much trouble. Ido all I can to avoid that; I really hate to hurt people. If ithappens, though, what can you do? Which is worse--to damage others oryourself? Of course, underneath I am entirely selfish; I have to be; Ialways was. Art is the most exhausting thing that is. But I don't knowa great deal about it; other people, who act rather badly, can explainso fully. "

From where Lee sat he could see Cytherea; the unsteady light fell onthe gilt headdress, the black hair and the pale disturbing smile. Sheseemed to have paused in a slow graceful walk, waiting, with thatwisdom at once satirical and tender, for him. Together, slowly, deliberately, they would move away from the known, the commonplace, thebound, into the unknown--dark gardens and white marble and the murmurof an ultramarine sea. He was rudely disturbed by the entrance ofAnette and Peyton Morris. "We're so sorry, " Anette said in anexaggerated air of apology; "come on away, Peyton. " But the latter toldLee that Fanny was looking for him. "We are ready to go over to theClub; it's ten minutes past eight. "

Mina Raff gazed up at the doll. "I have an idea the devil made you, "she declared. 

"You are to go with us, Mina, " Peyton told her; "if you will get yourcloak--" The two women left, and Morris demanded:

"What was that damned rot about the doll?"

"Miss Raff wanted it. "

"Well, why not?"

Lee Randon turned away coldly. "Little girls can't have everything theyput their eyes on. " Morris muttered, and Lee asked, "What's that?" Theother failed to reply, but his remark had sounded remarkably like, "Shecan. " Going, Lee looked back involuntarily: he hadn't, after all, imagined Cytherea's quality, Mina Raff had recognized it, too; thedance had lost its attraction for him. 

 * * * * *

The automobiles started in a concentration of accelerated gasolineexplosions, their headlights sweeping across the house and plunginginto the farther night. Fanny gathered her wrap closely about herthroat. "I'm cold, " she asserted; "it was so nice at home, with thechildren, and plans--I intend to take out that yellow rambler and try aclimbing American beauty rose there. What a lovely dress of Anette's;it must be the one she's been talking about so much, that MissZillinger made; really good for Eastlake. What was that man's name whowas in the navy, and did you notice his rank? The officers of the navyare a lot better looking than army men. And Mina Raff, after all didyou find her interesting?"

"Quite. She struck me as very intelligent. " He had no wish to repeatthe conversation about Cytherea. It was queer, that; the more heconsidered it the more significant it appeared to be. "Did it seem toyou, " he asked, "that Peyton was very attentive?"

"I didn't have time to notice. Do you think it's true about her gettingall that money? It looks almost wicked to me, with so many peopleneeding just a little. But anybody could see that she thinks only ofherself; I don't mean she isn't charitable, but in--in other ways. "

They were late, and the main floor was being emptied of a small crowdmoving into the dining-room. There the long table of the club dinnerreached from end wall to wall; and, with the scraping of chairs, aconfusion of voices, the places were filled. Lee found himself betweenBemis Fox, a younger girl familiar enough at the dances but whosepresence had only just been recognized, and Mrs. Craddock, in Eastlakefor the winter. Anette was across the board, and her lips formed thequery, "The first dance?"

Lee Randon nodded; he was measurably fond of her; he usually enjoyed aparty at which he found Anette. That she liked him was very evident;not desperately, but enough to dispose of most restraint; she repeatedto Lee what stories, formal and informal, men told her, and she askedhis advice about situations always intimate and interesting. 

The flood of voices, sustained on cocktails, rose and fell, there werechallenges down the length of the table and quickly exchangedconfidences. Bemis, publicly ingenuous, laid a light eager hand on hisarm, and Mrs. Craddock answered a question in a decided manner. Thedinner, Lee saw, was wholly characteristic of the club and its members:they had all, practically, known each other for years, since childhood;meeting casually on the street, in the discharge of a common living, their greetings and conversation were based on mutual long familiarityand recognized facts; but here, at such dances, they put on, togetherwith the appropriate dress, a totally other aspect. 

An artificial and exotic air enveloped whatever they did and said--hardy perennials, Lee thought, in terms Fanny's rather than his, theywere determined to transform themselves into the delicate and rareflowers of a conservatory. Women to whom giggling was an anomalygiggled persistently; others, the perfect forms of housewife andvirtue, seemed intent on creating the opposite engaging impression;they were all seriously, desperately, addressed to a necessity of beingas different from their actual useful fates as possible. 

The men, with the exception of the very young and the perpetuallyyoung, were, Lee Randon knew, more annoyed than anything else; therewas hardly one of them who, with opportunity, would not have avoidedthe dinner as a damned nuisance; scarcely a man would have put hisstamp of approval on that kind of entertainment. It was the women whoengineered it, the entire society of America, who had invented all thepopular forms of pleasure; it was their show, for the magnifying oftheir charms and the spectacle of their gay satins and scented lace;and the men came, paid, with a good humor, a patience, not without itsresemblance to imbecility. Women, Lee continued, constantly complainedabout living in a world made by men for men; but the truth of that wasvery limited: in the details, the details which, enormously multiplied, filled life, women were omnipotent. No man could withstand the steadyfriction, the inexhaustible wearing, of feminine prejudice; foreverrolled in the resistless stream of women's ambition, their men becameround and smooth and admirable, like pebbles. This, he saw, in Fanny'sloving care, was happening to him: she had spun him into the center ofa silken web--

"You are not very polite, " Mrs. Craddock said. 

"Are you a mind-reader, " he replied, "or haven't I heard you?"

"It doesn't matter, " she explained, "but you were so far away. "

He told her something of what had been in his thoughts, and sherewarded him with a swift speculative interest. "I hadn't realized youwere so critical about your guinea hen, " she acknowledged. "Well, ifwhat you say is true, what can you do about it?"

"Nothing, " Lee returned non-committally; "I am comfortable. " This, heinstantly decided, sounded unfair to Fanny, and he substituted happy. Mrs. Craddock obviously was not interested in the change. "I get astired of this as you do, " she asserted abruptly; "it's like being on amerry-go-round someone else started and can't stop. You have no ideahow we get to hate the tunes. "

"But you mustn't forget the chance of catching a gold ring, " hereminded her. 

"It's brass, " Mrs. Craddock asserted. 

The orchestra began in the other room and, though dinner was not over, there were breaks in the table, couples dancing beyond. Anette rose, and Lee Randon, taking her into his arms, swept out from the doorway. "What was she talking about?" Anette demanded. "You, " he repliedexperimentally. "I like her; experience has brought her some wisdom;and she knows men, too. "

"God knows she ought to, " Anette's face was close to his, and he caughtthe flash of malice in her eyes. Conscious of the flavor of anacceptable flattery he didn't let this disturb him. "What a marvelousdance, " she proceeded; "there must be twenty men over. But I like itbetter when the porch isn't inclosed, and you can sit on the bunkers. "

How was it that she contrived to make nearly everything she said stirhis imagination? Anette had the art of investing the most trivialcomments with a suggestion of license. It was a stimulating quality, but dangerous for her--she was past thirty with no sign of marriage onthe horizon. He wondered if she really had thrown her slipper over thehedge? It wasn't important, Lee decided, if she had. How ludicrous itwas to judge all women, weigh their character, by the single standardof chastity. But this much must be admitted, when that convention ofmorality was broken it had no more significance than the fragments of acoconut shell. The dance came to an end and they returned to theirvanilla mousse, coffee and cigarettes. 

Some of the men were leaning over the table, drunk and noisy; a woman'slaugh was shrill, senseless. Senseless! That, for Lee Randon, describedthe whole proceeding. He had looked forward to the dance with a happyanticipation, and, now that it was here, even before he had come, hewas out of key with it. The efforts of the people about him to forgetthemselves were stiff and unconvincing; their attitudes were no morethan masks held before their faces; there wasn't a genuine daringemotion, the courage of an admitted thrill, to be found. And then, asif to mock his understanding, he saw Peyton Morris with such adesperately white face bent over Mina Raff that he had an impulse toreprove him for his shameless exposure. 

Instead, he cut in on their dancing and carried her to the other end ofthe floor. "I don't know why you did that, " she complained; "you don'tlike me. But you can dance, and with Peyton it's a little like rushingdown a football field. There! Shall we drop the encore and go outside?My wrap is on a chair in the corner. "

 * * * * *

"I don't go to parties, " she explained; "I am only here on Anette'saccount. That was Oscar Hammerstein's idea--he wouldn't let hisactresses even ride in a public car; he said that mystery was a part oftheir value, and that people wouldn't pay to see them if they werealways on the streets. Beside, I am tired all the time; you can'tpossibly know how hard I work; a hundred times harder than you, forinstance. "

"I've been told that about moving pictures. "

"The glare of the silver-foil reflectors is unbearable, " she looked up, with a pointed and famous effect. "But you don't like me?"

"I do; aside from that, though, I'm not sure; probably because you areso remote and cold. "

"Thank God!" she replied. "You haven't stopped to think where I'd be ifI weren't. And yet, no one, in their work, is supposed to be moreemotional. It's funny, and I don't pretend to understand. The troublewith me is that I have no life of my own: ever since I was sixteen I'vedone what directors told me, for the public; it is time I had someprivate feelings. "

"It must be a nuisance, " he agreed. 

Another dance began, but neither of them stirred; from where Lee satthe long doors were panels of shifting colors and movement. The musicbeat, fluctuated, in erratic bars. A deep unhappiness possessed him, anappalling loneliness that sometimes descended on him in crowds. EvenFanny, the thought of his children, could not banish it. Above the drumhe thought he could hear the sibilant dissatisfaction of the throngstriving for an eternity of youth. The glass about the porch, blottedwith night, was icy cold, but it was hot within; the steam pipes wereheated to their full capacity, and the women's painted and powderedfaces were streaked--their assumption of vitality and color was runningfrom them. 

"Hideous, " Mina Raff said with a small grimace. She had the strangeability of catching his unexpressed thoughts and putting them intowords. "Women, " she went on, "spend all their money and half theirlives trying to look well, and you'd suppose they would learnsomething, but they don't. "

"What do women dress for?" he demanded; "is it to make themselvesseductive to men or to have other women admire and envy them?"

"Both, " she answered, "but mostly it's a sort of competition with menfor the prize. I'll tell you something about us if you like--we are notmade of sugar and spice and other pleasant bits, but only of two:prostitute and mother. Not, of course, separately, or in equal parts;some of us have more of one, others more of the other. That girl acrossthe table from you is all prostitute, the married woman you weretalking to is both, quite evenly divided; your wife is a mother, evenwith her remarkable eyes. " She stopped his obvious inquiry:

"I am an artist, and no one has yet discovered what that is. Do youremember the straw you used to get with a glass of soda water? You see, often I think I'm like that, a thing for bright colors to pour through. It's very discouraging. There is Peyton, and he'll want to dance. " Sherose, slipping out of her cloak. 

Lee Randon saw Fanny not far away, and he dropped into a chair besideher. "Well, " he asked, "how is it going?"

"It seems all right, " she told him, with one of her engaging smiles. "Iwas surprised that you talked so long to Mina Raff; I had the idea youdidn't like her. " Women, he reflected, were uncanny. "Three women arejust plastered up in the dressing-room, " she continued; "Sophie Taneruined her dress completely, and Crystal Willard has been sobbing foran hour. Lee, there are horrid bruises on her arm--do you think he isbrutal?"

He told her not to bother about the Willards, and then rose to get achair for Claire Morris. "Peyton is simply fascinated, " Claire assertedlightly. "This Mina ought to have something handsome for giving himsuch a splendid time. She is a lovely wench, Lee. "

"You have it over her like a tent, Claire, " he insisted; "you're lovelyand human both. "

"Thank you, darling; I'm human, fast enough, now that the drink isdying. I believe for the first time in my life I am ready to leave adance before the last flourish of the music. Fanny, we are gettingolder; it's hideous but so. We're getting on, but our young men aregayer every day. "

Fanny Randon's smile, her expression, were secure. 

This made Lee restive, and, patting her hand, he left to dance withAlice Lucian. "When this is over, " she informed him, "we'll get Anetteand George, and go out to my car. There is a Thermos bottle ofcocktails hidden under the seat. " The girl who had sat at Lee's rightwas dancing with a tall fair-haired boy in a corner. Entirely obliviousof the rest of the room, they were advancing two matched steps and thenretreating, their eyes tightly shut and cheeks together. A man fell inthe middle of the floor, catching his partner's skirt and tearing itfrom the waistband. Everywhere the mad effort at escape!

Lee Randon lost his impression of the triviality of the occasion: theyall seemed desperately searching for that something he had lost andwhich was overwhelmingly important to him; and all the while the musicstuttered and mocked and confused a tragic need. Or it was like amomentary release from deadly confinement, a respite that, by its rareintoxication, drove the participants into forms of incredulous crampedabandon. Positively, he thought, they were grasping at light, at color, at the commonplace sounds of a few instruments, as though they wereincalculable treasures. Alice, when she danced, held her head back witheyes half closed; and suddenly, with her mouth a little parted, she, too, had a look of Cytherea, a flash of the withheld beauty whichfilled him with restlessness. 

It startled him, and, sub-consciously, his arm tightened about her. Sheresponded immediately, with an accelerated breath, and the resemblancewas gone. Greatly to his relief, a man cut in on them, and once more hefound himself dancing with Anette. She asked him, in a murmurouswarmth, if he liked her, at all. And, with a new and surprising, adistasteful, sense of lying, he replied that he did, tremendously. No, a feeling in him, automatic and strange, responded--not Anette! Hewanted to leave her, to leave everyone here, and go. For what? At thesame time he realized that he would stay, and go out, drink, in theLucians' car. He had a haunting impression, familiar to him in the pastweeks, that he was betraying an essential quality of his being. 

Yet along with this his other consciousness, his interest in Anette, lingered; it existed in him tangibly, a thing of the flesh, not to bedenied. She was all prostitute, Mina Raff had said, using the word in ageneral sense rather than particularly, without an obvious condemningmorality. Indeed, it might easily be converted into a term of praise, for what, necessarily, it described was the incentive that foreverdrove men out to difficult accomplishment, to anything rather thanease. Good or bad, bad or good--which, such magic or maternity, waswhich?

"What are you thinking about?"

"It would take years to tell you. "

"I wish ... You might; but I didn't mean to say that, to let you know--"

"You didn't let me know anything, " he broke into her periodimpatiently. "If we get on together isn't that enough? It's really notnecessary to hide ourselves behind a lot of pretentious words. And whatwe feel tonight hasn't a thing to do with tomorrow; probably then we'llbe entirely different; how can it matter?"

"It does, though, because you might hate me tomorrow for being myselftonight. What you think of me has to be big enough to guard againstthat. You hurt me, Lee, very much, talking in that way. "

 * * * * *

Alice Lucian, with George Willard, passed them and nodded significantlytoward the entrance. "You will need a cloak, " Lee told Anette; "it'sblowing colder and colder. " She vanished up the stairs, to thedressing-rooms, while Lee stood waiting with Willard. He didn'tespecially like the latter, a man with an exuberant loud friendliness, a good nature, that served as a cover for a facilely predatorysensuality. 

He was continually taking hold of feminine arms, bending close overdinner dresses; and he used--with a show of humorous frankness--hislong knowledge of the girls of Eastlake as a reason for kissing them onevery possible occasion. 

Anette and Alice appeared, with their wraps turned to exhibit the silklinings, bright like their dresses; and, at a favorable moment, theyslipped out into the malice of the wind beating on them from thedarkness. Anette was pressed tightly against Lee, Alice and GeorgeWillard were vaguely ahead; and, after a short breathless distance, they were in the protection of the shed. The Lucians' automobile had anelaborate enclosed body: shutting the doors they were completelycomfortable, unobserved and warm. "No, " Alice directed, "don't put onthe light; I can find it. There! We'll have to use the cap for aglass. " The aluminum top of the bottle was filled and refilled; thefrigid gin and orange juice brought Lee Randon a glow of careless well-being, irresponsibility. 

The others had gone to the front seat, where they were squeezed into aremarkably small space. Anette sat leaning forward, her chin propped inher left hand and the right lightly resting on Lee's knee. A looseboard in the shed kept up an exasperating clatter. A match flared andWillard lighted a cigarette. It was curious about Alice--only in thelast year, and for no reason Lee could discover, had she done thingssuch as this. Perhaps, with no children, and the money Warner hadaccumulated comparatively lately, she hadn't enough to do. Of course, Warner, a splendid individual, could not be called entertaining; he wastotally absorbed in his business, often away at the wood-pulp mill, inthe Laurentian Mountains, in which he had a large interest. 

Warner Lucian had nearly all the principal virtues--integrity, generosity, courage, and he was as single in mind as Willard wasdubious; but, in spite of so much, it was clear that he had begun toweary Alice. She was publicly indifferent to him, careless of hiswishes; she had even complained to Lee about her husband's goodconduct, explaining that if he would only have what she termed anaffair he would be more human. 

"I am still very cross at you. " Anette spoke out of a gloom in whichher face was barely distinguishable. "You took all the niceness out ofour friendship and made it seem horrid; just as though you had pulledoff my clothes; I--I haven't the same feeling about you. "

His effort at honesty, at discovering the mystery of profounddisturbing needs, had been vain. Gathering Anette in his arms Leekissed her. She rested there for a moment; then, with her hands againsthis chest, pushed him away. "I can't, now, " she told him; "somehow it'sall spoiled. It seemed as though you were studying me disapprovingly. I'm not just bad, you know. "

"I don't think you are bad at all, " he replied irritably; "you broughtthat into it. Why, in the name of heaven, should I?"

"Fanny doesn't like me, " she said at a tangent. 

"Who put that in your head?"

"Fanny. She's hardly civil. "

"If you mean she's jealous, she isn't. "

"You hardly need to add that. Of course, I realize Fanny Randoncouldn't be jealous of me. Good Lord, no! Why should she be? No onewould give me a thought. "

Anette, wholly irrational, was furious. Damn women, anyway! It wasimpossible to get along with them, since they hadn't a grain of reason. He was superior to her temper, indifferent to it, because he wasindifferent to her. Suddenly the charm she had had for him was gone, the seductiveness dissolved, leaving only Anette, a fairly good-lookinggirl he had known for a great while. His warm response to her was dead;whatever she had aroused and satisfied, or left in suspense, no longercontented him. The memory of his interest in her, the thought he hadexpended, was now a cause of surprise, incomprehensible. Lee wanted toreturn to the club house and Fanny. 

There was an obscure indication of Alice's hands raised in therearrangement of her hair. George Willard half turned, facing the rearof the car. "I can't see much, " he said, "but it is evident that youtwo have been fighting. Why don't you live in peace and happiness? Thetrouble's all with Lee, too, you don't have to tell me that, Anette; heis too cursed cantankerous; and it would serve him right if you'd comeup here with us. "

Anette opened the door and an icy draft swept about their knees. "Notyet, " Willard begged; "we won't be missed. "

"You may stay as long as you want, " Anette replied, "but I am goingback. " Positively her voice bore a trace of tears. What, what was itall about? It was Alice who decided that they should return together:"The bottle's empty, my hair net is fixed for the third time, and wehad better. You get out, George, please. No, I told you. "

Lee Randon welcomed the solid rushing of the wind; it swept in fullblast across the open of the golf course and made walking precarious. Anette was lost, forgotten. If the chill air could only take the fever, the desire, out of his mind and blood! He wished that he might beabsorbed into the night, the storm, become one with its anonymousforce, one with the trees he heard laboring on their trunks. Instead ofthe safety of being a part of nature he felt that, without directions, he had been arbitrarily set down on earth, left to wander blindly withno knowledge of his destination or its means of accomplishment. 

Fragments of a dance measure were audible, and he returned to thepounding music, the heat, the perceptibly chlorinated perfumes anddetermined activity. He went at once in search of his wife; she hadapparently not moved from the chair in which he had left her. Meetingher slightly frowning, questioning expression he told her simply, without premeditation or reserve, that he had been out in anautomobile. Fanny was obviously not prepared for his candor, and shestudied him with the question held on her lifted face. Then banishingthat she proceeded to scold him:

"You know how I hate you to do such things, and it seems precisely asthough my wish were nothing. It isn't because I am afraid of how you'llact, Lee; but I will not let you make a fool of yourself. And that, exactly, is what happens. I don't want women like Anette to haveanything on you, or to think you'll come whenever they call you. Ican't make out what it is in your character that's so--so weak. Theresimply isn't any other name for it. I don't doubt you, Lee, " sherepeated, in a different, fuller voice, "I know you love me; and I amjust as certain you have never lied to me. I'm sure you haven't, inspite of what the girls say about men. "

He was cut by an unbearably sharp, a knife-like, regret that he hadever, with Fanny, departed from the utmost truth. Lee Randon had asudden vision, born of that feeling returning from the shed, of theillimitable tranquility, the release from all triviality, of an honestybeyond equivocation or assault. Fanny, in her way, possessed it; butthat, he saw, was made vulnerable, open to disaster, through her lovefor him. It was necessary, for complete safety, to be entirelyinsulated from the humanity of emotions. That condition heinstinctively put from his thoughts as being as undesirable as it wasbeyond realization. Lee, with all his vitality, drew away from aconception, a figure, with the cold immobility of death. After all, hereassured himself, he had never essentially lied to Fanny; he hadmerely suppressed some unnecessary details in order to make theirexistence smoother. The welcome collapse of his small affair withAnette proved the wisdom of avoiding the exaggeration and difficulty ofexplanations. 

"Lee, " Fanny said, changing the direction of their thoughts, "I don'twant to bother you, but I am uneasy about Claire and Peyton. He hasn'tleft Mina Raff a minute this evening. And he has such an unhappyexpression, not at all as though he were enjoying himself. "

"I noticed that, " Lee agreed; "but it will do him no good with Mina--she's a cold potato, career's the only thing in her head. " Then heremembered what Mina Raff had told him about her individuality, herpersonal desire; and he repeated it to his wife. 

"I don't think Claire is entirely wise, " she went on; "but you can'ttell her a thing. She listens as sweetly as possible and then says thatshe won't interfere with Peyton. Well, someone else will. Claire hastoo much reserve, she is too well-bred and quietly superior. You waitand see if I am not right; life is very vulgar, and it will takeadvantage of her. "

"I wonder if you are? Well, as you say, we shall see. If Mina Rafffixes her mind on him there will be a lot to watch. "

"You must speak to him. "

"Now there, " Lee expostulated, "you make me sick. How--will you tellme--can I speak to Peyton until he first says something? And when thathappens, as easily as not it may be a cable from Peru. You want tointerfere too much, Fanny, and insist that everybody follow your ideaof right. "

She retired into a silence of wisdom that merely looked down on him. Her face was troubled, her lips tightly compressed. "What time is it?"she asked sharply; "the ribbon of my watch is worn out. Oh, we can gohome with decency. It makes me rather sick here. "

He went below, for his hat and coat, and found the room beyond thelockers, built as an informal café before the era of prohibition, occupied by a number of men transferring the balance of fulness from arow of bottles to themselves. 

He accepted a drink, more for the purpose of considering Peyton Morris, moodily abstracted by the table, than for itself. It seemed to Lee thatthe young man had actually aged since the cocktail party at his house, earlier in the evening. Peyton's mouth was hard and sullen; his browwas corrugated. "We're going home, " Lee told him; "and it seemed to methat an hour ago Claire was tired. "

"She didn't tell me, " Peyton responded punctiliously; "and certainly ifshe's low we'll go too. " He rose promptly, and, with his outer garb, accompanied Lee Randon. His step was uncertain, and Lee put a handunder his elbow. "Liquored?" he asked casually. 

"Not in my brain, " Peyton Morris returned: "it seems like I could neverget drunk again; but my dam' feet are all over the place. Thanks forhanging on to me: I have an idea you are going to drop me prettyquickly. "

"I don't want to question you, " Randon said, "or in any way force aconfidence, but, Peyton, in addition to the relationship, I amexceptionally fond of Claire; and, since helping you is practically thesame thing as helping her--"

"I wish to Christ I had been sunk in the North Sea, " Morris broke inbitterly. 

They were up the stairs and standing on the emptied floor of anintermission. Fanny, prepared to leave, was gazing about for him. "You've been an age, " she cried to Lee; "and, Peyton, Claire is at lastlooking for you; although she'd kill me for saying it. You had bettergo outside a minute, first, and clear your head. "

He came very near to her, slightly swaying. "Fanny, you are a darling, but you are hard; you are hard as the Commandments. "

"That is not very kind, Peyton, " she protested; "but I have some commonsense. "

"Haven't you any uncommon sense?" he begged. "That's what I want. Alittle just now might save everything. "

"You must try to find out, " she informed him; "I think I have beensuccessful with Lee; anyhow he ought to say so. "

"I do, " Lee Randon asserted quickly. "Fanny is wonderful. If I'm of nouse go to her. "

"You don't know, " Peyton muttered; "you can have no idea. "

"What in the world was he talking about?" she asked Lee in theautomobile. 

"Peyton is in love with Mina Raff, " he admitted shortly, in a pressureof conflicting emotions. 

"Lee!" she exclaimed; "are you sure? Did he say so? That is simplyfrightful. "

"I imagine it's worse than you realize. "

"Do you mean--"

"Nothing actual yet, " he interrupted her impatiently; "perhaps nothingyou would bother about. But you'd be wrong. It's all in his thoughts--some damned spoiled ideal, and as dangerous as possible. "

"Poor Claire, " she said. 

"Of course, that's the thing to say, " he agreed. "The man is always acriminal in such situations. "

"You are not trying to defend him?" she asked quietly. 

"Maybe I am; I don't know. After all, we are jumping at conclusions;Peyton was drunk. But, for heaven's sake, if either of them comes toyou don't just be moral. Try to understand what may have happened. Ifyou lecture them they will leave you like a shot. "

Fanny was driving, and she moved one hand from the wheel to his cheek. "It isn't us, anyhow, Lee; and that is really all I care for. We arecloser than others, different. I don't know what I'd do if you shoulddie first--I couldn't move, I couldn't go on. "

"You would have the children, " he reminded her. 

"They are nothing compared with you. " It was the only time she had madesuch an admission, and it moved him profoundly. It at once surchargedhim with gratitude and an obscure disturbance. 

"You mustn't pin so much to me, " he protested; "you ought to think of ahundred other things. "

"I would if I could; I often try, but it is impossible. It is terribleto care for a man the way I do for you; and that's why I am so glad youare what you are: silly at times, ridiculously impressionable, but notat all like George Willard, or Peyton Morris. "

He had an overwhelming impulse to explain himself in the most searchingunsparing detail to Fanny, the strange conviction that in doing it hewould anticipate, perhaps escape, grave trouble. Lee Randon realized, however, that he would have to begin with the doll, Cytherea; and thedifficulty, the preposterousness, of trying to make that clear to hiswife, discouraged and kept him silent. No woman, and least of any theone to whom he was married, could be trusted to understand his feeling, his dissatisfaction in satisfaction, the restlessness at the heart ofhis peace. 

Fanny went up at once, but he lingered, with a cigar, in the livingroom. A clock struck one. A photograph of Claire with her bridesmaids, Peyton and his ushers, on a lawn, in the wide flowered hats of summerand identical boutonnières, stood on a table against the wall; andbeyond was an early girlish picture of Fanny, in clothes alreadyabsurdly out of mode. She had a pure hovering smile; the aspect ofinnocence time had been powerless to change was accentuated; and herhands managed to convey an impression of appeal. He had been, in thephrase now current, crazy about her; he was still, he told himselfstrictly. Well, he was ... Yet he had kissed Anette; not for the firsttime, either; but, he recognized, for the last. He was free of that! Aspace, a phase, of his life was definitely behind him. A pervadingregret mingled with the relief of his escape from what he had finallyseen as a petty sensuality. The little might, in the sequence, besafer, better, than the great. But he vigorously cast off thatignominious idea. A sense of curious pause, stillness, enveloped Leeand surprised him, startled him really, into sitting forward andattentive. The wind had dropped, vanished into the night and sky: thesilence without was as utter as though Lee Randon were at the center ofa vacuum. 

II

On Saturday morning Lee telephoned to his office, found nothing thatrequired his immediate attention there and, the brief-case again inevidence, stayed at Eastlake. Fanny, too, with her hair severely plainand an air of practical accomplishment, was occupied with her day book. She kept this faithfully; but Lee couldn't decide whether the obviouslabor or her pleasure in the accomplishment were uppermost. Sheaddressed the day book with a frowning concentration, supplementaryadditions and subtractions on stray fragments of paper, which at timesbrought him with an offer of assistance to her shoulder. But this sheresolutely declined--she must, she insisted, maintain her obligationalong with his. However, Fanny, like all other women, he thought, wasentirely ignorant of the principle of which money was no more than asymbol: she saw it not as an obligation, or implied power, but as anactuality, pouring from a central inexhaustible place of bright ringinggold and crisp currency. 

However, Fanny had always been accustomed to the ease of itspossession, familiar with it; and that had stamped her with itssuperiority of finish. How necessary, he continued, money was to women;or, rather, to the women who engaged his imagination; and women wereusually the first consideration, the jewelled rewards, of wealth. As hevisualized, dwelt on, them, their magnetic grace of feeling and bodywas uppermost: sturdy utilitarian women in the kitchen, red-faced maidsdusting his stairs, heavily breasted nurses, mothers, wives at theirpetty accounts--he ended abruptly a mental period escaping from thebounds of propriety. What he meant, all that he meant, was that beautyshould be the main consideration. Lee applied himself to far differentvalues; and, before he had finished, lunch was ready. 

"I have been thinking half the morning about Claire and Peyton, " Fannytold him; "I do feel that we exaggerated the situation last night; itall seemed more immediate, bigger, than it will turn out. Heavens, asyou said, they can't do anything, nothing can happen. "

He was still inclined to believe that. "There is a tremendous lot oftalk and no result; yes--no one really does a thing. They want to, andthat's all it comes to. "

Fanny cast a glance of repressed attention at him across a lowercenter-piece. "If you could be whatever you wanted, what and where, what would you choose?" she asked. 

"Here, with you and the children, " his voice replied withouthesitation. The youth of her expression was happily stained by a flush. He meant it, Lee told himself sharply. But about Peyton--

"Of course, he was drunk last night, and he said nothing conclusive; hewas only wretchedly unhappy--wished he had been killed in the war andall the romantic rest. "

"It is too much for me, " Fanny decided generally; "but I am glad that Iwas young when I was; being alive was quite simple then. I amcomparatively young, Lee, 'way under forty--well, two years--but youcan't realize how things have changed in such a short while. The womenwe knew didn't even smoke then. Wasn't it only five or six years agothey were first allowed to in nice cafés? And, not simply that, mendidn't, either, when they were with us. We used to go to Cape May; theycalled the dances hops; and do you, oh, do you, remember the bathingsuits?"

"I am not so certain about any great change, " he objected. "I seem torecall--"

"Horrid people will always be horrid!" she exclaimed. "I knew one ortwo very fast girls; but they were different about it from now, it wasonly whispered around and condemned, and it's shouted out today. I wishI had known you sooner; I would have done a lot better than yourmother. I'd like to have had you, Lee, as a little boy; but I supposeyou're enough that yet. "

His opposition to Fanny's maternal manner, directed at him, wasstronger than customary; she seemed to accept in herself everyresponsibility for him; as though, whenever his actions wereunfortunate, it had been due to her imperfect control. With practicallyno experience of life, guarded from its threatening aspects, herattitude was that, not without patience, she brought him with relativesafety through a maze in which otherwise he'd be lost. This was evidentnow in what he felt to be the complacency of her voice and expression;and a perverse impulse grew in him to combat and shatter her blindsatisfaction. Lee subdued this, in the merest decency; but the effortleft him thoroughly irritated. He found, finally, an outlet for hisannoyance in the restlessness of Helena; and he ordered her from thetable. 

This show of paternal discipline Fanny met with lowered eyes and asilence that endured until Gregory had walked sedately from the room;then she reminded Lee that he must never, absolutely never, correct hischildren when he was in an ill temper. 

"That's nonsense, " he returned shortly; "you ought to see that becauseit's impossible. Even theoretically I don't agree with you--a child canunderstand a punishment in which there is some warmth. You are dealingwith a little animal and not a reasonable being. " To this Fanny repliedthat her children were not animals. 

"Really, Fanny, you don't know what you are talking about, " heasserted; "we are all, men and women and children and giraffes, animals. You might look that up in the dictionary. "

"I haven't any need to, " she observed, with a calmness that furthertried him. "If the dictionary says that it isn't a very good one. Andif you are trying to tell me that Helena and Gregory are no better thangiraffes you're sillier than usual. "

"That isn't in the least what I said, " Lee retorted, with widelyseparated words. "I wasn't speaking of the comparative but of theabsolute. It is a fact that we are animals, more responsible and withgreater powers than the others, but animals, animals. "

"Then what is an animal?" Fanny demanded. 

"A mammal. "

A marked expression of distaste invaded her. "It has a nasty sound, "she admitted with her instinctive recoiling from life. "I don't see howwe got on this subject anyhow, it's too much like sex. It seems you areable to discuss nothing else. "

"It is only nasty in your mind, " he declared. 

"That's exactly like you, you all over, to blame things on me. It'sconvenient, I must say, but not fair nor true: it was you who got in awicked temper and sent Helena, who was feeling miserable, away. "

"You always say the children are sick when they misbehave. "

"I wish I could be as sure of you as I was of that, " she answeredquickly; "for instance, when you go out in automobiles at the danceswith women. "

"Now, we are beginning, " he told her with emphasis; "we never had anargument that didn't degenerate into this; and I'm sick of it. "

"I thought I was the one who was sick of it, " Fanny complained; "Iwonder that I don't just let you go. "

"I wish you would, " he said, rising; "I give you my word, I'd rather bedamned comfortably than have this endless trouble. " In a position ofunassailable quiet behind his papers he told himself that the scenewith Fanny had been particularly vain because, underneath, he agreedwith her opinion about the casual expression of small emotions; he nolonger wanted it any more than she did. Yes, at last they were onethere. And yet he felt further from her even than before--whatever hismarriage hadn't satisfied, that he had stilled in minor ways, was nowwithout check. The truth was that it had increased, become moreserious, insistent. 

The tangible facts, the letters and memoranda, before him, retreatedand came back to his consciousness. Tobacco worms had been boringthrough his cigars, and destroyed a third of the box. Helena passed, affecting a grievance out of any proportion to its cause in him. Outside, the country was flooded with a deceptive golden radiance; andhe remembered, suddenly, that Alice Lucian had told him to bring Fannyto the Club and a tea that afternoon, which she was giving for MinaRaff. He repeated this to his wife, in a conciliatory regret at hisforgetfulness; and she replied that if he cared to go she would comeover later for him in the car. Lee, standing at a window, thought hewouldn't; but, adding that Peyton would be there, he decided that, inview of the possible developments, his presence might be wise. 

 * * * * *

The early gloom gathered familiarly in the long main room of theclubhouse; the fire cast out fanwise and undependable flickering lightupon the relaxed figures; it shone on tea cups, sparkled in richtranslucent preserves, and glimmered through a glass sugar bowl. It wasall, practically, Lee Randon reflected, as it had been before and wouldbe again. How few things, out of a worldful, the ordinary individualsaw, saw--that was--to comprehend, to experience: a limited number ofinteriors, certain roads and streets, fields and views. He made his waythrough life blinded to the customary and unaware of the strange;summer was hot and winter, usually, cold; the spring became green underrain; winds blew and the leaves fell in fall--of how much more was heconscious?

It was the same with regard to people; he, Lee Randon, knew a greatmany, or rather, he could repeat their names, recognize theirsuperficial features at sight. But to say that he actually knew them--that was nonsense! Why, he was almost totally ignorant of himself. Howmuch could he explain of Fanny's late state of mind? She had done allthat was possible to make it clear to him; with little result. Fannywas an extraordinarily honest person; or, damn it, she seemed to be. Hehad a reputation for truthfulness; but how much of what was in his mindwould he admit to his wife? The discrepancy between what he appearedand what he felt himself to be, what he thought and what published, wasenormous, astounding. 

There, as well, was Peyton Morris; Lee would have sworn that heunderstood him thoroughly--a character as simple, as obvious asFanny's. But here was Morris seated with Mina Raff on the stairs to theupper floor, beyond the radius of the fire; and, though they were notten feet away, he could not hear a word of what they were saying. Atintervals there was an indistinct murmur, nothing more. Claire, at LeeRandon's side, was sitting with her chin high and a gaze concentratedon the twisting flames: talking generally had fallen into a pause. 

The door from without opened, Fanny entered, and there was a momentaryrevival of animation. "Is Lee here?" she demanded; "but I know he is. The fire is just as attractive at home, yet, even with nothing to do, he'll hardly wait to give it a poke. Where's Peyton?"

"On the stairs, " someone answered casually. 

There was a movement, and Mina Raff approached. "It's so hot here, " sheasserted. 

"It is warmer out, " Fanny informed her; "I wonder what the weather isin New York?"

"I can't say, I'm sure; but I shall discover tomorrow morning. I haveto be back as early as possible. Then--work, work, work. "

"Mina has been made a star, " Peyton Morris announced. But he stoppedawkwardly, apparently conscious of the warmth, the largeness, in hisvoice. Fanny whispered to Lee that it was quite too outrageous. Inreturn, he asked, "What?" and, indignant, she drew away from him. 

The conversation died again. Lee Randon could see Mina Raff's profile, held darkly against the glow; her lips and chin were firm. "Where, "Anette asked her, "shall you stay when you get back--at SavinaGrove's?" No, Mina replied, her hours would be too long and uncertainto allow that; probably she would be at the Plaza. Lee had heard theGroves' name mentioned before in connection with Mina Raff; and he madean effort to recall the reason. The Groves--it was the William LoydGroves--were rather important people, financially and socially; and oneof them, yes, that was it, was related to Mina, but which he didn'tknow. 

More came back to him: Mina Raff's parents had died when she was ayoung girl, and the Groves had rescued her from the undistinguishedevils of improvidence; she had lived with them until, against theirintensest objections, she had gone into moving pictures. Probably theGroves' opposition had lasted until Mina's success; or, in other words, their support had been withheld from her through the period when it hadbeen most needed. 

Yes, the girl had a determined mouth. If he, Lee Randon, had followedhis first inclinations--were they in the way of literature?--howdifferent his life would have been. Mina Raff had been stronger, moreselfish, than her environment: selfishness and success were synonymous. Yet, as a human quality, it was more hated, more reviled, than anyother. Its opposite was held as the perfect, the heavenly, ethics ofconduct. To be sacrificed, that was the accepted essence of Christ;fineness came through relinquishment. He didn't believe it, he toldhimself fiercely; something deep, integral, in him revolted absolutely. 

Mina Raff had been wholly justified; the very people who had thrown alltheir weight against her admitted it fully. It was only when such aself-belief was without compensating result, value, that it was wrong. But who could say what any outcome would be? Some people took thechance and others didn't; he had not. Then the question came up ofwhether he had not failed as it was? No one would agree with him thatit might be failure; he hadn't called it that. Suddenly, vehemently, hewished that he could grow old at once, in a second; anything to quietthe restlessness at his heart. 

Lee had a conviction that he ought to decide the case of the individualagainst the world, the feeling that it was of the greatest importanceto him; but for centuries men had considered, without answer, justthat. The thing to do was to live, not to think; for it was possiblethat those who thought, weighed causes and results, hardly lived at allin the sense he meant. All the people he knew were cautious before theywere anything else; they existed primarily for their stomachs. Thewidely advertised beauty of self sacrifice was golden only when itadorned like a halo the heads of others. That was natural, inevitableto the struggle for survival; it didn't answer Lee's question, which, he felt, was of the spirit rather than the body. 

"It's getting late, " Fanny said briskly. There was a general movement, sighs and the settling of skirts. The lights were switched on, and thefire, that had been a source of magic, became nothing more than uglygrey charring logs with a few thin tongues of flame. Lee, with hiswife, stopped to say good-bye to Mina Raff; Fanny's manner was bright, conventional; as palpably insincere to the other woman, Lee wascertain, as it was to him. He said:

"I hope your new picture will go well. "

"Thank you, " she responded, her slight hand lingeringly holding his;"perhaps you will like me better on the screen than in reality. "

"Could you tell me which was which?"

She hesitated. "Three months ago, yes, but not now; I'm not sure ofmyself. "

"That was positively indecent, " Fanny observed afterward; "she is asbold as brass. I hope I am not as big a fool as Claire. "

"Claire and you are very different, " he told her; "I have an idea thatshe is doing whatever is possible. But then we don't know what we aretalking about: it's fairly evident that Peyton and Mina Raff areinterested in each other, they may be in love; and, if they are, whatdoes that mean? It isn't your feeling for the children or mine for you;they are both love; yet what is it?"

"It is God in us, " Fanny said gravely; "and keeps us all, Helena andGregory and you and me, safely together. "

She seldom spoke to him of religion, but it dwelt closely, vitally, within her, and not as an inherited abstraction or correct socialobservation, but definitely personal in its intercommunication. LeeRandon had none at all; and in her rare references to it he could onlypreserve an awkward silence. That had always been a bar between hisfamily and himself, particularly with the children: he was obliged tomaintain an endless hypocrisy about the miracles, the dogmas andaffairs, of Sunday school and the church. As a child he had been sofilled with a literal Presbyterian imagery that, when a degree ofreason discarded figures of speech seen as concrete actualities, nothing had been left. With the lapse of a purely pictorial heaven andhell, the loss of eternal white choirs and caldrons of the unrepentant, only earth remained. 

 * * * * *

He could recall in gloomy detail his early impression of Paradise: itwas a sombre plain floating cloud-like in air, with, doubling throughit, an unspeakable sluggish river of blood; God, bearded and frowningin the severity of chronic judgment, dominated from an architecturalthrone a throng of the saved in straight garments and sandalled feet;and, in the foreground, a lamb with a halo and an uplifted cross wasintent on the baptism of individuals issuing unaccountably white fromthe thickly crimson flood. 

Yet his children, in a modified Episcopalian form, were being taughtthe same thing: the Mosaic God; Christ Jesus who took unto Himself thesin of the world; the rugged disciple, St. Peter and the lovingdisciple, St. John. The sky, they learned, was the habitation of light-winged angels. The ark was still reported on its memorable voyage, withits providential pairs of animals gathered from every zone, but therewas a growing reticence about Jonah. The persistence of such credulity, Lee thought, was depressing; just as the churches, leaning on thebroken support of a charity they were held to dispense, were acommentary on the poverty of the minds and spirits of men. 

Yes, the necessity of charging Helena and Gregory with such assurances, their rigid bending into mental forms, large and small, in which he hadno confidence, put Lee outside the solidity of his family. In theinstruction, the influences, widely held paramount in the welding ofpolite Christian characters, Fanny was indefatigable--the piece ofsilver firmly clasped in the hand for collection, the courtesy whenaddressed by elders, the convention that nature, birds, weresentimentally beneficent. When Gregory brought out these convictions, lessons, in his indescribably fresh eager tones, Lee listened with ahelpless disapproval. 

Everything, it seemed to Lee Randon, increased the position of self-delusion at the expense of what he felt to be reality. His doubts, forexample, were real; with no will, no effort on his part, they invadedhis mind ceaselessly. Cytherea's disturbing charm was real, as definiteas Fanny's quiet actuality. However, he wasn't interested in anabstract arraignment of life, but intent only on the truth abouthimself. Lee wanted to discharge fully his duty to existence--in themore inglorious phrase, he didn't want to make a fool of himself--andyet it was growing more difficult all the while to distinguish follyfrom sense. 

This affair, if it did exist, of Peyton's with Mina Raff wasn't soeasily determined as Fanny insisted. Perhaps, like his own, PeytonMorris' life had been restricted by artificial barriers thrown aboutthe rebellious integrity of his fundamental being. Few children couldstand out against the combined forces of the older world; but it wasconceivable that, later, like a chrysalis, they might burst the hard, superimposed skin and emerge triumphant. 

That damned problem of self-sacrifice!

How much claim had men upon each other? What did children gain whosacrificed their lives for their parents? It was supposed to bring themnobility; but, at the same time, didn't it develop in the parents theutmost callous selfishness; didn't the latter, as their needs wereexclusively consulted, grow more exacting, unreasonable? Was not loveitself the most unreasonable and exacting thing imaginable?

Once surrendered to it, the tyranny of a beloved subject was absolute:Lee told himself that the emotion he was considering--the most sacredof earthly ties--ignominiously resembled the properties of fly paper. He turned abruptly from that graceless thought: it was a great dealwarmer, and a mist, curiously tangible in the night, was rising throughthe bare branches of the maple trees. 

"I am going to talk to Claire, " Fanny said firmly. 

"It would do both of you no good, " he informed her; "besides, you'llhave to take so much for granted. "

"Claire will tell me. "

"I wonder?" They were in their room, preparing for bed; Fanny, with herhair spread in a thin brown tide over the chaste shoulders of hernightgown, was incredibly like a girl. The mechanical sweep of her handwith a brush kept a brief sleeve falling back from the thinness of herarm. How delicately methodical she was--an indispensable quality in therepeated trying contacts, the lost privacy, of marriage. So muchdepended upon the very elusiveness which the security of possession, habit, destroyed. 

"This love, " he continued his speculations aloud, "isn't at allunderstood--we are ignorant about it in spite of endless experience andreports and poetry. Take us, " he had one of his dangerous impulses ofcomplete honesty, "before we were married, while we were engaged, wehad an impracticable romantic attraction for each other. I know that Ithought of you all the time, day and night; and, just because youexisted, the whole world was full of prismatic colors; it was as thoughan orchestra were playing continually and I were floating on the finestmusic. You were like a figure in heaven that drew me up to you. 

"Well, that lasted quite a while into our marriage; at first I had aneven greater emotion. Then, as Helena and Gregory were born, itchanged. " Midway in the brushing of her hair Fanny was motionless andintent. "I don't say it decreased, Fanny, that it lost any of itsimportance; but it did change; and in you as well as me. It wasn't asprismatic, as musical, and there's no use contradicting me. I canexplain it best for myself by saying that my feeling for you becamelargely tenderness. "

"Oh!" Fanny exclaimed, in a little lifting gasp; "oh, and thattenderness, " her cheeks were bright with sudden color, "why, it is nomore than pity. "

"That isn't just, " he replied; "unless you want to speak of pity at itsvery best. No, that won't do: my affection for you is made of all ourexperiences, our lives and emotions, together. We are tied by athousand strings--common disappointments and joy and sickness and hopeand pain and heaven knows what else. We're held by habit, too, andconvenience and the opinion of society. Certainly it is no smaller thanthe first, " he argued, but more to himself than to Fanny; "that wasnothing but a state of mind, of spirit; you can't live on music. "

"Don't you think you have said enough for one night?" she asked, in acalm voice belied by the angry sparkle of her eyes, the faintirrepressible trembling of her lips. "Do you think I want to hear thatit is only convention and our neighbors that keep you with me? You haveno right to insist that your horridness is true of me, either. I--Icould hear music, if you would let me. " She sank on the littlecushioned bench before her dressing table, where her youthfulness tookon a piercing aspect of misery. Fanny's declaration, not far fromtears, that she was just as she had always been was admirably upheld byher appealing presence. 

The tenderness he had admitted, reduced by a perceptive impatience andthe sense of having been wholly, wilfully, misunderstood, carried himover to her. He took Fanny, with her face strained away from him, intohis arms. "Don't be an idiot, " he begged softly; "you ought to be usedto my talking by now. Let me go on, it can't come to anything--" Shestiffened in his embrace:

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing, nothing, " he answered shortly, releasing her; "where is allthat certainty you assured me of? If you go on like this I shall neverbe able to tell you my thoughts, discuss problems with you; and itseems to me that's very necessary. "

"It has been lately, " she spoke in a metallic voice; "nothing satisfiesyou any more; and I suppose I should have been prepared to have you saythings to me, too. But I'm not; you might even find that I am not theidiot you suspect. "

"I was giving you a chance to prove that, " he pointed out. 

"Now you have discovered the fatal truth you can save yourself moretrouble in the future. " She emphatically switched off a light besideher, leaving him standing in a sole unsparing illumination. Yet in herextreme resentment she was, he recognized, rubbing Vaseline into herfinger nails, her final nightly rite. Then there was silence where oncehe had kissed her with a reluctance to lose her in even the shortoblivion of sleep. 

 * * * * *

Throughout Monday, at his office, Lee Randon thought at uncomfortableintervals of the late incipient scenes with Fanny. They had quarrels--who hadn't?--but they had usually ended in Fanny shedding some tearsthat warmly recemented their deep affections. This latter time, however, she had not wept--at the point of dissolving into the oldsurrender she had turned away from him, both in reality andmetaphorically, and fallen asleep in an unexpected cold reserve. He wassorry, for it brought into their relationship a definite new quality ofdifference. He was aware of the thorough inconsistency of his attitudetoward their marriage; again two opposed forces were present in him--one, Fanny, as, bound to her, he knew and cherished; and the other--thedevil take the other!

He was organizing a new company, and, figuring impatiently, he pressedthe button for Mrs. Wald, his secretary. She appeared at once andquietly, her notebook and pencil ready, took a place at his side. "Runthis out, please, Mrs. Wald, " and an involved financial transactionfollowed. What he wanted to ascertain was, with a preferred stockbearing eight per cent at a stated capitalization, and the gift of abonus of common, share for share, how much pie would remain to be cutup between a Mr. Hadly, Sanford, and himself? The woman worked rapidly, in long columns of minute neat figures. "About thirty-four thousanddollars, each, Mr. Randon, " she announced almost directly. "Is thatclose enough; or do you want it to the fraction?"

"Good enough; send Miss Mathews in. "

Almost anyone on his staff, Lee reflected, knew more about theprocesses of his business than he did; he supplied the energy, theresponsibility of the decisions, more than the brains of hisorganization; and it perfected the details. The stenographer, MissMathews, was very elaborately blonde, very personable; and, dictatingto her, Lee Randon remembered the advice given him by a large wielderof labor and finance. "Lee, " he had said, touching him with theemphasis of a finger, "never play around with an employee or a client. "

He, John Lenning Partins, had been a man of eccentric humors, and--likeall individuals who supported heavy mental burdens, inordinately taxedtheir brains--he had his hours, unknown to the investing public, oferratic, but the word was erotic, conduct. On more than one occasion hehad peremptorily telegraphed for Lee to join him at some unexpectedplace, for a party. Once, following a ball at the Grand Opera House, inParis, they had motored in a taxi-cab, with charming company, toCalais. During that short stay in France John Partins had spent, flungvariously away, four hundred thousand dollars. 

The industrious, the clerks, efficient women like Mrs. Wald, themiddle-aged lawyers in his office, were rewarded... By a pension. It wasall very strange, upside down: what rot that was about the infinitecapacity for taking pains! He supposed it wouldn't do to make thispublic, the tritest maxims were safer for the majority; but it was toobad; it spread the eternal hypocrisies of living. He asked MissMathews:

"You're not thinking of getting married, are you? Because if you doI'll have your young man deported; I simply won't let go of you. "

"I don't see any signs of it, Mr. Randon, " she replied, half seriousand half smiling; "my mother thinks it's awful, but I'm not in anyhurry. There are men I know, who might like me; they show me a verygood time; but somehow I am not anxious. I guess in a way it's theother married girls I see: either they housework at home, and Icouldn't be bothered with that; or they are in an office and, somehow, that seems wrong, too. I want so much, " she admitted; "and with whatclothes cost now it's terrible. "

"Moralists and social investigators would call you a bad girl, " he toldher; "but I agree with you; get your pretty hats and suits, and smartshoes, as long as you are able. You're not a bit better in a kitchenthan you are here, taking dictation from me; and I am not sure youwould be more valuable at home with a child or two. You are a veryunusual stenographer, rapid and accurate, and you have a good mind inaddition to your figure. Why should you lose all that at once, give itup, for the accidents of cholera infantum and a man, as likely as not, with a consumptive lung?"

"But what about love, Mr. Randon? That's what throws me off. Some sayit's the only thing in life. "

"I'm damned if I know, " he admitted, leaning back from his wide flat-topped desk. "I hear the same thing, and I am rather inclined tobelieve it. But I have an idea that it is very different from what mostpeople insist; I don't think it is very useful around the house; it hasmore to do with the pretty hat than with a dishpan. If you fall in lovego after the thing itself, then; don't hesitate about tomorrow oryesterday; and, above all else, don't ask yourself if it will last;that's immaterial. "

"You make it sound wild enough, " she commented, rising. 

"The wilder the better, " he insisted; "if it is not delirious it'snothing. "

The road and countryside over which he returned in the motor sedan, partly frozen, were streaked by rills of muddy surface water; the sky, which appeared definitely to rest on the surrounding hills, was greywith a faint suffusion of yellow at the western horizon. It was all asdreary, as sodden, as possible. Eastlake, appearing beyond a shoulderof bare woods, showed a monotonous scattering of wet black roofs, rawbrick chimneys, at the end of a long paved highway glistening withsteel tracks. 

Lee Randon was weary, depressed: nothing in his life, in any existence, offered the least recompense for the misfortune of having been born. Heleft his car at the entrance of his dwelling; Christopher, thegardener, came sloshing over the sod to take it into the garage; and, within, he found the dinner-table set for three. "It's Claire, " hiswife informed him; "she called up not half an hour ago to ask if shecould come. Peyton was away over night, she said, and she wanted to seeus. " He went on up to his room, inattentive even to Claire's possibletroubles. 

He dressed slowly, automatically, and descended to the fire-lit spacethat held Cytherea in her mocking, her becoming, aloofness. In thebrightly illuminated room beyond the hall Helena and Gregory wereplaying parchesi--Gregory firmly grasped the cup from which he intentlyrolled the dice; Helena shook the fair hair from her eyes and, itimmediately developed, moved a pink marker farther than proper. 

"You only got seven!" Gregory exclaimed; "and you took it nine right onthat safety. "

"What if I did?" she returned undisturbed. "I guess a girl can make amistake without having somebody yell at her. Your manners aren't verygood. "

"Yes, they are, too, " he asserted, aggrieved; "I have to tell you ifyou move to a safety where you don't belong. " He shook the dice fromthe cup. "Now, see there--that just brings me to your man, and I cansend him home. "

"I don't care, " Helena informed him; "it's a young sort of game, anyhow. Now I'm wearing waists and buttoned skirts I'd just as leaveswrite a letter to Margaret West with no boys in it at all. "

She left the parchesi board, and crossed the room to the piano, whereshe stood turning over sheets of music with a successful appearance ofcritical interest. Gregory, silently struggling with the injustice ofthis, gazed up with a shadowed brow at Lee. "I was going to beat her, "he said, "I was almost home, and she went away. She just got up likenothing was happening. " Helena put in, "Neither there was. " Lee Randontook her place. "You can beat me instead, " he proposed. His interest inthe game, he felt, was as false as Helena's pretended musicalpreoccupation; but he rolled the dice and shifted the counters, underGregory's undeviating scrutiny, with the conviction that parchesi wasnot conspicuously different from the other more resounding movements ofthe world and its affairs. Gregory easily vanquished him, and Lee rosewith a curt, unwarranted nod of dismissal. 

 * * * * *

Freezing cocktails in the pewter pitcher, in the repetition of minorduties which, Lee Randon thought, now constituted four-fifths of hislife, he told himself that Claire Morris had never looked better: shewas wearing a dress of a soft negative blue material, high about herthroat, with glimpses of bright embroidery that brought out her darklyvivid personality. Claire had a slim low-breasted figure, gracefullybroad shoulders; and her face, it might be because of its definite, almost sharp, outline, held the stamp of decided opinions. Claire'sappearance, he recognized, her bearing, gave an impression of arrogancewhich, however, was only superficially true--she could be verydisagreeable in situations, with people, that she found inferior, brutally casual and unsympathetic; but more privately, intimately, shewas remarkably simple-hearted, free from reserve. She was related toLee through her father, a good blood, he told himself; but her motherhad brought her a concentration of what particular vigorousaristocracy--an unlimited habit of luxury without the responsibility ofacknowledged place--the land afforded. 

The drinks had been consumed, the soup disposed of, when Claire saidabruptly, "Peyton is going to leave me. "

Although, in a way, Lee had been prepared for such an announcement, theactuality upset him extremely. Fanny gasped, and then nodded warninglytoward the waitress, leaving the dining-room; at any conceivabledisaster, he reflected, Fanny would consider the proprieties. 

"When did he tell you?" Fanny demanded. 

"He didn't, " Claire replied; "I told him. It was a great relief to bothof us. "

"Say what you like outside, " Lee put in vigorously; "but at least withus be honest. "

"I am, quite, " she assured him; "naturally I don't want Peyton to go--Ihappen to love him. And there's Ira. But it was an impossible position;it couldn't go on, Peyton was absolutely wretched, we both were; and soI ended it. I laid out all his best silk pajamas so that he'd looksmart--"

"How can you?" Fanny cried; "oh, how can you? It is too wicked, all toohorrible, for words. I don't think you are advanced or superior, Claire, you failed him and yourself both. It's perfectly amazing to me, after the men you have met, that you don't know them. You must keepthem going in the right direction; you can't let them stop, or lookaround, once; I only learned that lately, but it is so. They haven't anidea of what they want, and they try everything. Then if you let a mango he is the first to blame you; it's like winking at murder. "

"How could I keep him when he didn't want to stay?" Claire askedwearily; "I am not too moral, but I couldn't quite manage that. Thenwhat you say might do for some men, but not Peyton. You see, he hasalways been very pure; all his friends at Princeton were like that;they were proud of it and very severe on the other. And afterwards, when he went into the city, it was the same; Peyton would get drunk anynumber of times with any number of men, but, as he said, he was offwomen. The stage door, it seems, is very old-fashioned now. 

"When we were engaged, and he told me that he was really pure, I wassimply mad with happiness. I thought it was such a marvelous thing fora girl to find. I still think that; and yet, I don't know. If he weredifferent, had had more experience, perhaps this wouldn't have hit himso hard. He would have kissed his Mina on the porch, outside the dance, and come home. "

"As for that Raff woman--" Fanny stopped, at a loss for a term toexpress her disgust. 

"Why not?" Claire asked. "She wanted Peyton and went after him: heisn't for her art, I believe, but for herself. I haven't talked to her;I can't make up my mind about that. Probably it would do no good. Peyton is splendidly healthy; it won't be necessary to tell heranything about draughts and stomach bands. "

"Claire, you're utterly, tragically wrong, " Fanny wailed. "I wish Icould shake sense into you. Up to a point this is your fault; you arebehaving in a criminally foolish way. "

"What do you think Claire should do?" Lee asked his wife. 

She turned to him, a flood of speech on her lips; but, suddenly, shesuppressed it; the expression, the lines, of concern were banished fromher face. "There is so much, " she replied equably; "they haven'tdiscussed it enough; why, it ought to take a year, two, before theyreached such a decision. Peyton can't know his mind, nor Claire hers. And Ira, that darling innocent little child. "

"Damn Ira!" Claire Morris exclaimed. 

"You mustn't, " Fanny asserted; "you're not yourself. Mina Raff shouldbe burned alive, something terrible done to her. " Fanny's voice had thehard cold edge of fanatical conviction. "If she had come into my housemaking trouble.... But that couldn't have happened; I'd have known atonce. "

"You are more feminine than I am, " Claire told her. "I see this in avery detached manner, as if it didn't concern me. I suppose I can'trealize that it has happened to us. It has! But if you are right, Fanny, and it's necessary to treat a man like a green hunter, then thiswas bound to occur. I couldn't do anything so--so humiliating; he couldbolt sooner or later. I did the best I knew how: I was amusing aspossible and always looked well enough. I never bothered Peyton abouthimself and encouraged him to keep as much of his freedom as possible. 

"I don't believe in the other, " she said to Fanny Randon in a sharpaccession of rebellion; "it is degrading, and I won't live that way, Iwon't put up with it. If he wants to go, to be with Mina Raff, how inGod's name can I stop it? I won't have him in my bed with another womanin his heart; I made that clear to you. And I can't have him hot andcold--now all Mina and then the sanctity of his home. I've never had ahouse of that kind; it was christened, like a ship, with champagne. 

"I have never cared for domestic things. I'd rather wear a dinner-gownthan an apron; I'd a damn sight rather spin a roulette wheel than rocka cradle. And, perhaps, Peyton wanted a housewife; though heaven knowshe hasn't turned to one. It's her blonde, no bland, charm anddestructive air of innocence. I've admitted and understood too much;but I couldn't help it--my mother and grandmother, all that lot, werethe same way, and went after things themselves. The men hated sham andsentimentality; they asked, and gave, nothing. "

Fanny, it was evident, was growing impatient at what was not withoutits challenge of her character and expressed convictions. "I do agreewith you, Claire, that we are not alike, " she admitted. Her voice borea perceptible note of complacency, of superior strength and position. "Just last week I was telling Lee that I belonged before the war--things were so different then, and, apparently, it's only in my housethey haven't changed. We are frightfully behind the times, and you'd besurprised at how glad we are. It was your mother's father, wasn't it, who fell in love with the Spanish woman while he was in the Embassy atSeville? My family weren't people of public connections, although agreat-aunt married Senator Carlinton; but they had the highestprinciples. "

"They were lucky, " Claire Morris replied indifferently; "I am beginningto think it isn't what you have so much as what happens to it. Anyhow, Peyton is going away with Mina Raff, and I am sorry for him; he's soyoung and so certain; but this has shaken him. Peyton's a snob, really, like the rest of his friends, and Mina's crowd won't have that for amoment: he can't go through her world judging men by their slang and bywhom they knew at college. I envy him, it will be a tremendouslyinteresting experience. " If her eyes were particularly brilliant it wasbecause they were surrounded by an extreme darkness. Her voice, commonly no more than a little rough in its deliberate forthrightness, was high and metallic. She gave Lee the heroic impression that no mostmighty tempest would ever see her robbed of her erect defiance. It wasat once her weakness and strength that she could be broken but notbent. 

 * * * * *

After dinner Claire, who was staying with the Randons until tomorrow, played picquet with Lee; and his wife, her shapely feet elevated abovethe possible airs of the floor, continued to draw threads from thehandkerchiefs she was making for Christmas. Claire played very welland, at five cents a point, he had to watch the game. On a speciallybig hand she piqued and repiqued. "That, " she declared, "will pay youfor caputting me. " The jargon of their preoccupation, "A point of six;yes, to the ace; paid; and a quatorze, kings, " was the only sound untilFanny rose, decidedly. "I am going to bed. " She hesitated at the door. "I hope you'll be comfortable, Claire: I had some club soda and rye putin your room, since you like it so well. Don't be too late, please, Lee; it makes you tired starting so early in the morning. "

"You'll have to forgive me, " Claire said, when Fanny had gone; "but Idon't--I never did--like women. "

"Do you think any more of men, now?"

"Heavens, yes. I wish I could find someone to blame for what hashappened, Peyton specially, but I can't, not to save my life. It seemsso hopelessly inevitable. I don't want you to suppose I'm not unhappy, Lee; or that I care only a little for Peyton. I love him very much; Ineeded him, and my love, more than I can explain. As Fanny as good astold me, I am a wild bird; anything, almost, with what is behind me, may happen. It was just the irony of chance that this affair caughtPeyton, the immaculate, instead of me. I was awfully glad that I had ananchor that seemed so strong; in my own faulty way I adored everythingI had; I wanted to be tranquil, and it had a look of security. "

"It isn't over, Claire, " Lee asserted. "I haven't seen that young foolyet. "

"Please don't bother him; and it's too much to drag out the moralitieson my account. "

"Moralities!" he echoed indignantly, "who said a word about them? I'mnot interested in morals. Lord, Claire, how little you know me. And asfor bothering him, he'll have to put up with that. He has invited acertain amount of it. "

They forgot the game and faced each other across the disordered cards. "If I won't argue with him, " she insisted, "you can't. But we needn'tdiscuss it--he won't listen to you, Peyton's all gone. I never saw sucha complete wreck. "

"He can't avoid it, " Lee went on; "I'll have to do it if it is only formyself; I am most infernally curious about the whole works. I want tofind out what it's about. "

"If you mean love, he can't tell you; he hasn't had enough experienceto express it. You might do better with me. "

"No, I want it from the man; a woman's feeling, even yours, would do meno good. You see, this has always been explored, accounted for, condemned, written about, from the feminine side. Where the man isconsidered it is always in the most damnable light. If, in the novels, a man leaves his home he is a rascal of the darkest sort, and his endis a remorse no one would care to invite. That may be, but I am notprepared to say. No, dear Claire, I am not considering it inpreparation for anything; I want to know; that's all. "

"The books are stuff, of course, " she agreed. "The grandfather of minewho was killed in Madrid--it wasn't Seville--must have had a gorgeoustime: a love affair with one of the most beautiful women alive. Itlasted five months before it was found out and ended; and his wife andhe had been sick of living together. After it was over she was pleasedat being connected with such a celebrated scandal; it made her betterlooking by reflected loveliness. She was rather second class, Ibelieve, and particularly fancied the duchess part. "

"It wouldn't be like that in the current novels, or even in the better:either your grandparent or the duchess would be a villainous person, and the other a victim. I'm inclined to think that most of the ideasabout life and conduct are lifted from cheap fiction. They have thelook of it. But that realization wouldn't help us, with the worldentirely on the other side. "

"No, it isn't, " Claire objected; "and it's getting less so all aroundus. Perhaps men haven't changed much, yet; but you don't hear the womentalk as I do. I don't like them, as I said; they are too damnedskulking for me; but they are gathering a lot more sense in a shortwhile. "

"I don't agree with you there, " he replied; "you are getting your owninfinitesimal world confused with the real overwhelming majority; youhaven't an idea how it feels and, in particular, of what it thinks ofyou, smoking and gambling and damning your fate. It may be largelyenvy--personally I am convinced it is--but they have you ticketedstraight for hell just the same. "

"It doesn't interest me. " Claire increasingly showed the strain, theunhappiness, through which she was parsing. Nor did it him, he endedlamely, except in the abstract. This at once had the elements of a lieand the unelaborate truth; he couldn't see how his curiosity applied tohim, and yet he was intent on its solving. The fixed mobile smile ofCytherea flashed into his thoughts. His perpetual restlessness struckthrough him. 

His attitude toward the Morrises was largely dictated by his fondnessfor Claire. He had determined what, exactly, he would say to Peyton. Yet, as a fact, he returned to his former assertion to Fanny; the boywould make it difficult, if not impossible, to discuss such intimaterelationships. And as Claire had pointed out, the very openness ofPeyton's life would make him exceptionally far to reach; he wasparticularly youthful in his hardness, his confidence in his acts andfriends and beliefs; yet all that couldn't help but be upset now. 

"Fanny will think I have designs on you, " Claire remarked; "go up whenyou like. I am not a bit sleepy. "

Lee had no intention of going to bed then, and told her so. It seemedto him that, perhaps, with Claire, he might discover something thatwould set his questioning at rest. Vain delusion. He asked what herplans were:

"I'll stay in Eastlake for the winter, and, in March, go to Italy, togive Peyton his divorce--Florence; I lived a while at Arcetri; it'svery lovely. "

He had a momentary experimental vision of a small yellow villa amongthe olives of the Florentine hills, of crumbling pink walls withemerald green lizards along the stones, of myrtles and remarkablelilies-of-the-valley. Twenty years ago it would have drawn himirresistibly; but not now; he wanted--where his wants were articulate--a far different thing. It had nothing to do with Italy, or any othercountry; his intentness had been withdrawn from the surfaces of life, however charming; they had plunged into the profounder mysteries ofbeing. Lee had gained nothing if not a certain freedom from exteriorcircumstance; his implied revolt against trivialities, if it did noother good, had at least liberated him from the furniture of existence. However, it had begun to appear that this was not an unmixed blessing;he had the uncomfortable sensation of having put out, on a limitlesssea, in a very little boat too late to arrive at any far hiddendesirable coast. 

Claire shivered, and, discovering that she was cold, he insisted on hergoing upstairs. "To my pure sheets, " she said, with a touch of herfamiliar daring. Left alone, Lee was depressed by the hour; the room, his house, seemed strange, meaningless, to him. There was a menace inthe unnatural stillness; Fanny's unfinished handkerchief, her stool, were without the warmth of familiar association. It might have been aplace into which he had wandered by accident, where he didn't belong, wouldn't stay. It was inconceivable that, above him, his wife andchildren were sleeping; the ceiling, the supine heavy bodies, seemed tosag until they rested on his shoulders; he was, like Atlas, holding thewhole house up. It was with acute difficulty that he shook off theillusion, the weight. From outside came the thin howling of a dog, andit, too, seemed to hold a remote and desperate interrogation. 

 * * * * *

He slept badly, in short broken stretches, with the Morrises constantlyin his mind; and what, in the slightest dislocation of reality, wasdream and what waking he couldn't determine; at times his vision seemedto hold both--a door, the irrevocable door, swung open, the endimpended, but he was unable to see the faces of the man and woman; whenhe looked anxiously a blind spot intervened. The morning found himunrefreshed, impatient; and he was glad that his early breakfast wassolitary; Lee didn't want then to see either Claire or Fanny, he was inno mood to discuss Peyton's seizure. That, it seemed to Lee Randon, wasexactly what had happened to the younger man--Peyton had gone withinthe region of a contagious fever that had run through all his blood. 

Yet, at dinner, to his surprise, Fanny said very little about what hadentirely occupied their thoughts; she was quiet, reserved; her attitudewas marked by a careful dignity. Her gaze, even more than commonly, rested on her husband. "I had a wretched night, too, " she told him; "myhead is like a kite. I've thought and thought until my brain aches, itis so full. But there are some things I decided; and if you don't agreewith them I'm sorry; because, Lee, I am right, I am indeed. "

"Of course you are, " he replied; "but, possibly, only for yourself. Imean, for instance, that you can't be sure you're right for Claire. "

"No, no, that's just the same as saying there isn't any right or wrongat all, and you know better. Yes, what I am certain about is duty; youmust do that before everything else. Peyton's duty is to Claire andtheir child. It is as clear as this soup. Nothing else matters so much, or at all. Why, Lee, the world is made up of people doing their duty;what, I'd like to know, would become of it if they didn't? You don'tseem to realize it, but there are loads of obligations I get dreadfullytired of, like the Social Service when it is my month to follow theaccounts, and visits to Annie Hazard who has a cancer of the stomachand is dying, and thinking every day what to get you and the childrenand the servants to eat. Suppose, some morning, I didn't stir, but justrested in bed--what would happen? What did happen last winter when Ihad pleurisy? Why, the whole house went to pieces, and, when youweren't worrying about me, while I was getting well, you were the mostuncomfortable man imaginable. I don't want you to think I amcomplaining, or that I don't love every minute and stick and stone ofmy home and life; I do. But you seem to forget about me ... That'sbecause the house goes along so smoothly. It would be a good lesson ifyou had to live with some other woman for a while. "

"I'm sure every word is so, " he returned; "no one could have a betterwife; you've spoiled me outrageously; I feel like that pig Christopherhas in a pen out by the stable. "

"You might think of something nicer to say, " she protested. "You're noteasy to live with, either, " Fanny continued; "you hardly ever agreewith what other people think; and you curse fearfully. I wish youwouldn't swear like that, Lee. I object to it very much in Claire; Ican't help believing that she thinks it is smart or funny. And youencourage her. If Claire had been different--no, don't interrupt me--this would never have happened. You may say what you like about hergood breeding: she's been too flippant. I felt that last night. Clairedoesn't accept her obligations seriously enough. She's kept herselflovely looking, but that isn't the whole thing. "

"What is the whole thing?" he demanded. 

"I've told you, but you won't listen--duty. "

"You put that above all the rest?"

Fanny hesitated. "I said my head hurt because I've thought so much. Love and duty, yes; I see them as the same. Duty without love would behard, and there isn't any love without duty. " Fanny evidently grewaware of her threatening incoherence. "It isn't necessary to tell youin so many words, " she said defensively; "you are only being contrary. "

"You have explained yourself beautifully, " he hastened to assure her;"I am the person who is at sea. "

"Why, Lee!" she exclaimed, surprised; "I don't know anyone who is sodecided. That's what makes me raging, you're so dogmatic. There, thatis a splendid word. Don't eat that apple, it isn't baked; I can seefrom here. " She rang. "Varney, " Fanny addressed the maid, "take Mr. Randon's apple out and see if there isn't another better done, please. I warned you about that; he can't eat them uncooked. "

"Let me keep it, " he protested; "it might have an excellent effect onmy disposition. "

"Don't interfere, Lee, " she responded coldly: "yes, Varney. It's reallyidiotic of you, " she turned to him; "you are not a boy any more, you'renot even a young man, and you can't take liberties with your digestion. You are quite like Helena with her prayers--if she feels very wellshe's apt to forget them, but if she's sick she says them as hard aspossible. I wish she were like Gregory. "

"Gregory and you are cut out of the same gold cloth, " Lee Randonpronounced. 

"That was lovely of you, Lee. " Fanny radiated happiness. "No one couldsay anything prettier to his old wife. " Dinner was over, and, rising, she walked around the table and laid a confident arm on his shoulders. The knife-like tenderness which, principally, he had for heroverwhelmed him; and he held Fanny against him in a silent andstraining embrace. For that reason he was annoyed at himself when, sitting through an uneventful evening, his simile of the pig, enormously fat, sleepily contented, in its pen, returned to him. Itwasn't that he found an actual analogy between the pig and life, individuals, on a higher plane, so much as that he was vaguelydisturbed by the impression that there was an ultimate similitudebetween him, Lee Randon, and a fattened somnolence of existence. 

After all, were his individual opinions and doubts expressed in amanner forceful enough to diversify him from a porcine apathy? The pig, secure against the inequalities of fate and weather, wallowed throughlife with a dull fullness of food as regular as the solar course. Christopher was his wife. Now that, Lee told himself, with a vision ofthe gardener's moustache, sadly drooping and stained with tobacco, hispale doubtful gaze, was inexcusable. He abruptly directed his thoughtsto Peyton and Claire Morris; how exact Claire had been in theexpression of her personality! What, he grasped, was different in herfrom other women was precisely that; together with an astonishing lackof sentimental bias, it operated with the cutting realism of asurgeon's blade. She had, as well, courage. 

That was the result of her heritage; and he wondered if all strongtraits were the action of superior blood strayed into expected andunexpected places? It was probable, but not susceptible of proof. Thepig's blood was that of the best registered Berkshire. God damn thepig!

He asked Fanny if she had heard any further particulars of the proposedrearrangement of the Morrises' lives; when they were to separate; butshe knew no more than he. "I hope he doesn't come here, " she saidvigorously: "I should refuse to speak to him or have him at my table. Outrageous! I can't make out why you take it so coolly. Mina Raff's arotten immoral woman; it doesn't matter how it's arranged. Why, " shegasped, "she can be no more than Peyton's mistress, no better than thewomen on the street. "

"That is so, " he agreed. But his following question of the acceptedbadness of mistresses and streetwalkers he wisely kept to himself. Werethey darker than the shadow cast by the inelastic institution ofmatrimony? At one time prostitutes were greatly honored; but that hadpassed, he was convinced, forever; and this, on the whole, heconcluded, was fortunate; for, perhaps, if prostitution were thoroughlydiscredited, marriage might, in some Elysian future, be swept of mostof its rubbish. Houses of prostitution, mistresses, like charity, absorbed and dissipated a great deal of the dissatisfaction inseparablefrom the present misconceptions of love and society. The first move, obviously, in stopping war was the suppression of such amelioratingforces as the Red Cross; and, conversely, with complete unions, infidelity would languish and disappear. 

 * * * * *

He thought of this further in the darkened theatre to which, driven byhis growing curiosity, he had gone to see Mina Raff in the leading partof a moving picture. It was a new version, in a new medium, of an oldand perennial melodrama; but, too late for the opening scenes, thestory for the moment was incomprehensible to him. However, it had to dowith the misadventures of a simple country girl in what, obviously, wasthe conventional idea of a most sophisticated and urbane society. Leewaited, and not vainly, to see the feminine grub transformed, bybrilliant clothes, into a butterfly easily surpassing all the selectglittering creatures of the city; and he told himself that, personally, he vastly preferred Mina Raff in her plainest dress. 

It was strange--seeing her there; while, in fact, she was in New Yorkwith far different things occupying her thoughts. Here she was no morethan an illusion, a pattern, without substance, of projected light andshade; she had neither voice nor warmth nor color; only the mostprimitive minds could be carried away, lost, in the convention of herflat mobile effigy! Yet, after a little, he found that he as well wasabsorbed in the atmosphere of emotional verity she created. It wasclear to him now that not the Mina Raff in New York, but this, was theimportant reality. In herself she was little compared to what she somiraculously did. Then--the final step in a surrender, however much hehated the word, to art--he forgot Mina Raff completely. He lost herpartly in his own mental processes and partly in the unhappy girl shewas portraying:

It was an uncomplicated story of betrayal, of a marriage that was nomarriage, and the birth, in circumstances of wretched loneliness, of anillegitimate baby. The father annoyed Lee excessively; he was theanciently familiar inaccurate shape of conventionalized lust without anidentifying human trait. Not for a second did Lee believe in hisgrease-pencilled incontinence and perfidy; but the child he seduced, incidents of the seduction charged with the beauty of pity, throngedLee's mind with sensations and ideas. However, it was the worldsurrounding the central motive, the action, that most engaged him;hardly a trait of generosity dignified it; and, exaggeratedly as auniversal meanness and self-righteous cruelty was shown, it scarcelydeparted, he felt, from the truth. 

Why was it that virtue, continence, corroded the heart? Why did peoplewho, through predilection, went to churches, regard those who didn'twith such an insistent animosity? Why did the church itself seek toobliterate--as though they were a breathing menace--all who stoodoutside its doors? There was something terribly wrong in the reactionof life to religion, or in the religion that was applied to life. Itbegan, in the symbolical person of Christ, with, at least, a measure ofgenerosity; but that had been long lost. Now the bitterness of thereligious rather resembled envy. 

In the picture flickering on the screen the girl who had suffered theagonies of birth sat, with her baby on her young lap, in the forlornroom of a village boarding house. The baby was sick, a doctor had leftshortly before, and one minute clenched hand rested on the mother'sbare breast. Lee found himself gazing fixedly at the girl's face:trouble slowly clouded it, the trouble was invaded by fear, a terriblequestion. He realized that the hand was growing cold--the baby wasdead. 

Waves of suffering passed darkly over the mother, incredulity swiftlyfollowed by a frozen knowledge; she tried with her lips, her mouth, tobreath life into the flesh already meaningless, lost to her. Then thetragedy of existence drew her face into a mask universal and timeless, a staring tearless shocked regard as white and inhuman as plaster ofParis. Emotion choked at Lee's throat; and, in a sense of shame athaving been so shaken, he admitted that Mina Raff had an extraordinaryability: he evaded the impressive reality by a return to the trivialfact. In the gloom there was only a scattering of applause, a failureof approbation caused either by an excess of emotion in the audience, or--this he thought more probable--a general uneasiness before a greatmoment of life. The crowded theatre was wholly relieved, itself again, in a succeeding passage of trivial clowning. 

Hatred pursued the youthful informally maternal figure: that, eventually, she was saved by the love of an individual was small beforethe opposed mass--women surrounded her with vitriolic whispers, womenturned her maliciously from house to house, a woman had betrayed her. Finally the tide of Christianity rose, burst, in a biblical father whodrove her into a night of snow that was a triumph of the actualsubstituted for the cut paper of stage convention. That she would berescued, no doubt was permitted; and Lee took no part in the storm ofapplause which greeted this act of satisfactory heroics. 

The other spirit had appalled him: in his state of mental doubt--itmight equally have been a condition of obscure hope--he had been rudelyshoved toward pessimism; the converse of the announced purpose of thepicture. The audience, for one thing, was so depressingly wrong in theplacing of its merriment: it laughed delightedly at a gaunt femininevindictiveness hurrying through the snow on an errand of destruction. The fact that the girl's maternity was transcendent in a generous andconfident heart, made lovely by spiritual passion, escaped everyone. The phrase, spiritual passion, had occurred to him without forethoughtand he wondered if it were permissible, if it meant anything? It diddecidedly to him; he told himself further that it was the fusion of thebody and all the aspirations called spirit in one supreme act offeeling. 

It had been his and Fanny's ... At first. Then the spirit, though ithad lingered in other relationships, had deserted the consummation ofpassion. That hadn't grown perfunctory, but it became a thing more andmore strictly of the flesh; with this it was less thrilling. There, hebelieved, they were not singular; or, anyhow, he wasn't; he saw what hewas convinced was the same failure in the men past youth about him. Butin Fanny there was, he recognized, that fierce if narrow singleness ofimpulse, of purity. His thoughts of other women were not innocent ofprovocative conjecture--Anette's sinuous body, now as dead to him asAlohabad, recurred to his mind--but in this Fanny was utterly loyal. Yes, she had, a thing impossible for any man he had known, a mentalsingleness of desire. 

Was it that which had in her an affinity with the oppressors of thepicture, which made her, mechanically, the vigorously enlisted enemy ofthe actual Mina Raff? It startled him a little to realize that Fanny--for all her marked superiority--was definitely arrayed with therighteous mob. She was sorry for those who failed in the discharge ofduty to God and man, and she worked untiringly to reinstate them--inher good opinion. That was it, and it was no more! All such attemptedsalvation resolved itself into the mere effort to drag men up to thecomplacent plane of the incidental savior. 

This recognition took a great deal of the vigor from his intendedconversation with Peyton Morris: anything in the way of patronage, hereflected, would be as useless as it would be false. But he had noimpulse to forego his purpose; he was engaged to help Claire who wastoo proud to help herself; yes, by heaven, and too right for the leasthumiliation. If Claire suffered, it must be because the world was tooinferior for hope of any kind. 

Lee was not unaware of the incongruity of his position, for he wasequally ignoring the needs of two others, Peyton and Mina Raff. It wasevident to him now, since he had seen her in a picture, that she waswell worth the greatest consideration. She lay outside the stream ofordinary responsibilities. What held him steady was the belief that sheand Peyton were not so important to each other as they thought; Claireneeded him more badly than Mina. There was a possibility--no, it wasprobable--that Claire deserted would develop into an individual asempty and as vacantly sounding as a drum. She had said as much. Herheritage, together with its splendors of courage and charm, signallycarried that menace. 

 * * * * *

So much, joined to what already was thronging his thoughts, broughtLee's mind to resemble the sheet of an enormous ledger covered with ajumble of figures apparently beyond any reduction to an answer. He wasconsidering Claire and Mina Raff, Mina and Claire, at a hunt breakfastat Willing Spencer's in Nantbrook Valley, north of Eastlake, when, witha plate of food in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, hecollided with Peyton Morris, his face pinched and his eyes dull from alack of rest. The Spencer house was sparely furnished, a squareunimpressive dwelling principally adapted to the early summers of itsenergetic children; and Peyton and Lee Randon allowed themselves to becrowded into the bare angle formed by a high inner door. 

"Claire told you, " the younger said. 

"Yes, " Lee replied briefly. It wouldn't, after all, be difficult totalk to Peyton; he was obviously miserable from the necessity ofsuppressing what absorbed his entire consciousness. 

"Well, I suppose you think there's nothing to be said for me, " hisvoice was defiant; "and that I ought to be shot. "

"Very much to the contrary, " Lee asserted; "there is so much to saythat it's difficult to know where to begin. With another situationpractically the same, I might have agreed with you thoroughly; but, with Claire and what I have gathered of you, in this special one Ican't. "

"It isn't absolutely necessary, " the other pointed out; "Mina and Iwill have a lot to ignore. "

"The first thing you'll have to manage, " Lee observed sharply, "is togrow up. You are not in a place to be helped by leather-headed satireand visions of solitary grandeur. My interest comes only from Claireand some personal curiosity; Mina Raff doesn't require anyone'sassistance. Of you all, her position is clearest. I don't know if youcan be brought to see it, but this is only incidental, a momentaryindulgence, with her. "

"What you don't seem to get, " Peyton told him, with a brutally coldface, "is that I may smash you; now, where you are. "

"That was possible, " Lee agreed; "and you are right--I had overlookedit. I think that's passed, though; I'm going to keep on as if it were. Why, you young fool, you seem to have no conception, none in the world, of what you propose to do. In a week, in your frame of mind, you'd havea hundred fights; there would be time for nothing else but knocking outthe men who insulted you. You'll collapse over Sunday if you are notabsolutely and totally impervious to everything and everybody. The onlyway you can throw the world over is to ignore it; while you appear tohave the idea that it should put a rose in your buttonhole. "

"You don't have to tell me it's going to be stiff, " Peyton Morrisasserted gloomily. "I can take care of that. Claire and Ira are thehard part. Lee, if anyone a year ago had said that I was like this, that I was even capable of it, I'd have ruined him. God, what a thingto happen! I want you to understand that we, Mina and I, didn't have aparticle to do with it--it just flatly occurred. I had seen her onlythree times when it was too late; and if you think I didn't try tobreak it, and myself, too--"

Lee nodded. "Certainly. Why not, since it's bound to knock you on thehead? You've been very unfortunate: I can't imagine a man to whom thiswould come worse. "

"If I can make Mina happy I don't care about myself. "

"Of course, that is understood, " Lee Randon returned impatiently; "itis nothing but sentimental rot, all the same. If you are not contented, easy in mind, how can she be happy? You have got to believe entirely inwhat you are doing, it must be right to you on every possible side; andyou can't make that grade, Peyton; you are too conventionalunderneath. "

"Sink your spurs in me, " he said doggedly; "it's funny when you reallythink about it. Why, only a little while ago, if I had heard of a mandoing this, I would have beaten him up just on general principles:running away from his wife and child, with another woman, an actress, that's what it is! I tell myself that, but the words haven't a trace ofmeaning or importance. Somehow, they don't seem to apply to me, to us;they can say what they like, but Mina isn't wicked. She--she loves me, Lee; and, suddenly, that swept everything else out of sight. 

"But go back to me--you realize that I was rather in favor of what Iwas, what I had. Brandenhouse is a good school and my crowd ran it. Wewere pretty abrupt with boys who whored about; and, at Princeton, well, we thought we were it. We were, still, there; and I got a heavy idea ofwhat I liked and was like. We were very damned honorable and the icingon the cake generally. That was good after I left college, too; butwhat's the use of going into it; I was in the same old Brandenhousesurrounding. The war split us wide open. Or I thought it did; but, Lee, by God, I don't believe it changed a thing. I got my touch ofconcussion early, Ira was born, and, and--"

"Disaster, " Lee Randon pronounced shortly. 

"Call it that if you choose; there isn't much use in calling it at all:it simply is. "

"With someone else, yes; but with you, no, not finally; you haven't thecharacter and disposition to get away with it. You don't, secretly, approve of yourself, Peyton; and that will be fatal. The truth is that, while you want this now, in a year, or two years, or five, you'lldemand the other. You think it is going to be different from everythingelse in heaven and earth, you're convinced it's going to stay all inthe sky; but it will be on the solid familiar ground. Understand again--it isn't your plan I'm attacking; but your ability; that and your realignorance of Mina Raff. 

"If you imagine for an instant that this love will be bigger than herwork, if you suppose that, against her acting, it will last, you are anidiot for your pains. If I don't know the side of her you do, I havebecome fairly familiar with one you haven't dreamed of. She is agreater actress than people yet recognize, principally because of thegeneral doubt about moving pictures; but that recognition will come, and, when it does, you will be swept out of sight. 

"No, you haven't the slightest suspicion of what it is about; that sideof her, and it's very nearly the whole woman, is a blank. She admittedto me that she couldn't understand it herself. But what she is doing isdragging into her genius what it needs. She loves you now, and tomorrowshe'll love a Belgian violinist, a great engineer, a Spanish prince atSan Sebastian. How will you take sitting in the salon and hearing thempadding around over your head? It's no good your getting mad at me; Iam not blaming Mina Raff; you are. I admire her tremendously. 

"In the beginning I said she could watch out for herself, and Iintimated that I was reasonably indifferent to what happened to you: itis Claire I am concerned about. Unfortunately for her, and without muchreason, she loves you too. When Mina is done with you and you strayback, from, perhaps, South America, Claire won't be here. I don't meanthat she will have gone away, or be dead in the familiar sense. Ihaven't any doubt but that she would live with you again--she is notsmall-minded and she's far more unconventional than you--what there wasof her. "

"If you or anyone else thinks that I don't admire Claire--" he stoppeddesperately. "We won't get far talking, " Peyton added; "even if all youhave said is a fact. You can't hit on much that I've missed. You mightjust as well curse me and let me go. "

"Nothing of the sort, " Lee Randon returned equably; "that's exactlywhat I have no intention of doing. In the interest of Claire I must tryto open your eyes. " The younger man said indignantly:

"You talk as though I were a day-old kitten. It's cursed impertinent: Idon't seem to remember asking for so much advice. "

 * * * * *

Throughout their conversation they were both holding the plates ofsausage and scrambled eggs, from which rose a pungent odor, inevitableto the occasion. And, in a silence which fell upon them, Lee realizedthe absurdity of their position behind the door. "We can't keep thisup, " he declared, and moved into the eddying throng, the interminglingceaseless conversations. Almost at once Peyton Morris disappeared, andLee found Fanny at his shoulder. Neither of them fox-hunted, althoughthey hacked a great deal over the country roads and fields, and theyhad ridden to the Spencers' that morning. Fanny wore dark brown and aflattened hunting derby which, with her hair in a short braid tied by astiff black ribbon, was particularly becoming. She was, he toldhimself, with her face positively animated, sparkling, from talk, unusually attractive. Fanny was like that--at times she was singularlyengaging. 

"What did he say?" she demanded, nodding in the direction in whichPeyton had disappeared. "I have avoided him all morning. "

"An uncommon lot for Peyton, " Lee acknowledged. "I almost think he hasbeen jarred out of his self-complacency. But, on the whole, that is notpossible. It's temporary with him. At one time I thought--in thelanguage of youth--he was going to crown me. "

"The little beast!" she exclaimed viciously. "If he had I'd have madehim sorry. I saw Claire a few minutes ago, and she asked me to tellyou, if she missed you, that she had something for you to see. Wasn'tit strange that she said nothing to me about it? I should think, in herscrape, she'd rather turn to a woman than to a man. But Claire isn'tvery feminine: I've always felt her hardness. "

"Then that's why she didn't speak to you, " Lee assented superficially. "I'll go over tonight, after dinner. They must be pretty nearly readyto drop the fox, and it's beginning to drizzle. "

There was, soon after that, an exodus from the back of the house to thefields beyond. It was a very fair hunting country, rolling and clear ofbrush, with grouped woods on the surrounding hills and streams in theswales below. The clouds were broken and aqueous, and the grass held asilver veil of fine raindrops. Only an inconsiderable part of thosepresent were following the hounds; the others, in a restricted varietyof sporting garb--the men in knickerbockers and gaiters or ridingbreeches, the women breeched and severely coated or swathed in widereddish tweed capes--stood, with a scattering of umbrellas and upturnedcollars, in a semi-circle on the soggy turf. 

There was a baying of hounds from the direction of the stables, and theMaster swung up on a bright chestnut horse with a braided tail. Ahuntsman appeared with a shuttered box, holding the fox, and an oldbrown and white hound bitch, wise with many years of hunting, to followand establish and announce the scent. "If you are ready, Brace, " theMaster said to his huntsman, "you may drop. " A stable boy held thehound, and, raising the shutter, Brace shook the fox out on the ground. 

The animal--in view of the commotion about to pursue it--wassurprisingly small, slim flanked; proportionately the tail seemedextravagant. "I hope the brush won't get wet, " a man behind Lee spoke;"when it does they can't run. " As it was, the fox, obviously, wasreluctant to start; it crouched in the rough grass and glanced fleetlyaround with incredibly sharp black eyes. The men shouted and flung uptheir arms; but the animal was indifferent to their laudable efforts. The hunt, Lee Randon thought, had assumed an aspect of the ridiculous;the men and women on expensive excited horses, the pack yelping frombeyond a road, the expectant on-lookers, were mocked by the immobilityof the puzzled subject of the chase. Finally the fox obligingly moved afew steps; it hesitated again, and then trotted forward, slipping undera fence. Lee could follow it clearly across the next field and into thenext; its progress was unhurried, deliberate, insolent. 

"Give him six minutes, " the Master decided. 

When the time had gone the leash of the single hound was slipped. Sheran around in a circle, whining eagerly, her nose to the sod, and thenwith a high yelp, set smartly off in a direction absolutely opposite tothat taken by the fox. She was brought back and her nose held to thehot scent; again, with a fresh assurance, the bitch gave tongue, followed the trail to where it went under the fence, and turned, instead of bearing to the right, to the left. There were variousexclamations. A kennel man declared, "She knows what she's about, andthe fox will swing into Sibley's Cover. " Someone else more scepticallyasserted that the hound was a fool. Her sustained cry floated back fromunder the hill; and, in another minute, the pack, the hunt, was off. The horses rose gracefully in a sleek brown tide over the first fence;and then there was a division--the hounds scattered and bunched andscattered, some of the riders went to the left after the palpablecourse of the fox, others pounded direct for Sibley's Cover, and theremainder reined up over the hounds. 

Although long association and familiarity had made such scenes a piecewith Lee Randon's subconsciousness, today the hunt seemed nothing morethan nonsense. He laughed, and made a remark of disparaging humor; buthe found no support. Willing Spencer, kept out of the field by a brokencollar bone, gazed at him with lifted eyebrows. Fanny and Lee turned totheir horses, held for them by a groom at a mounting block, and wenthome. The rain had increased, but, not cold, Lee found it pleasant onhis face. They jogged quietly over the roads bordered with gaunt sombrehedges, through the open countryside, into Eastlake. 

Nothing, he realized, had been accomplished with Peyton Morris; theother was too numbed, shocked, by the incredible accident that hadovertaken him to listen to reason. Lee felt that he could hardly havesaid more. He wondered what Claire had to show him. Still, he wasn'tthrough with her husband; he had no intention of resting until everyhope was exhausted. What particularly impressed him--he must speak ofit to Peyton--was that no matter where Morris might get he would findlife monotonously the same. It was very much like mountain climbing--every peak looked different, more iridescent and desirable, from theone occupied; but, gazing back, that just left appeared as engaging, asrare, as any in the distance. Every experience in the life surroundinghim was the same as all the others; no real change was offered, becausethe same dull response permeated all living; no escape such as Peytonplanned was possible. 

Escape, Lee Randon continued, happened within; it was not, he repeated, a place on earth, or any possession, but a freedom, a state, of mind. Peyton Morris, while it was quite possible for him to be destroyed, wasincapable of mental liberty, readjustments; he might drive himself onthe rocks, on the first reef where he disregarded the clamor of warningbells and carefully charted directions, but he was no Columbus for thediscovery of a magical island, a Cuba, of spices and delectable palms. Peyton had looked with a stolid indifference at the dangerouslyfascinating, the incomprehensible, smile of Cytherea. Yes, if the youngdonkey could be forced past this tempting patch of grazing, if he couldonly be driven a short distance farther down the highway of custom, Claire would be safe. 

But she must be made to think that such a conclusion had been purelythe result of Peyton's reserved strength, and not of a mere negativesurrender following doubt. And, above all, there must be no appearanceof Mina Raff having, after a short trial, herself discarded him. Onsuch trivialities Claire's ultimate happiness might hang. Truth wasonce more wholly restrained, hidden, dissimulated; the skillfulshifting of painted masks, false-faces, continued uninterrupted itsprogress. A new lethargy enveloped Lee: his interest, his confidence, in what he was trying to prevent waned. What did it matter who went andwho stayed? In the end it was the same, unprofitable and stale. All, probably, that his thought had accomplished was to rob his ride of itsglow, make flat the taste of the whiskey and charged water he prepared. However, shortly a pervading warmth--but it was of the spirits--broughtback his lately unfamiliar sense of well-being. 

 * * * * *

The Morrises lived in a large remodelled brick house, pleasantlypseudo-classic, beyond the opposite boundary of Eastlake; and, leavinghis car in the turn of the drive past the main door, Lee walked intothe wide hall which swept from front to back, and found a small dinnerparty at the stage of coffee and cigarettes. It was composed, he saw atonce, of Peyton's friends; as he entered three young men rosepunctiliously--Christian Wager, with hair growing close like a mat on anarrow skull and a long irregular nose; Gilbert Bromhead, a roundfigure and a face with the contours and expression, the fresh color, ofa pleasant and apple-like boy; and Peyton. They had been at theiruniversity together; and, Lee Randon saw, they were making, with acharacteristic masculine innocence, an effort to secure their wives inthe same bond of affectionate understanding that held them. 

Claire, who had smiled acknowledgingly with her eyes when Leeapproached, returned to a withdrawn concentration upon the section oftable-cloth immediately before her; she answered the remarks directedto her with a temporary measure of animation vanishing at once with theeffort. Christian Wager, who was in London with a branch of an Americanbanking firm, had married an English girl strikingly named Evadore. Shewas large, with black hair cut in a scanty bang; but beyond theseunastonishing facts there was nothing in her appearance to mark orremember. However, a relative of hers, he had been told, distant butauthentic, had been a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Gilbert Bromhead'swife was southern, a small appealing compound of the essence of thesuperlatively feminine. 

Lee Randon, in a chair drawn up for him at the table, studied thewomen, arbitrarily thrown together, with a secret entertainment. Evadore Wager was frankly--to a degree almost Chinese--curious aboutthe others. At short regular intervals, in a tone of unvaried timbreand inexhaustible surprise, she half exclaimed, "Fancy. " Claire wasmetallic, turned in, with an indifference to her position that wasactually rude, upon herself. But Mrs. Gilbert Bromhead made up for anysilence around her in a seductive, low-pitched continuous talking. Apart of this was superficially addressed to Claire and the solidlyamazed Evadore; but all its underlying intention, its musical cadencesand breathless suspensions for approval, were flung at the men. Theimpression she skillfully conveyed to Lee Randon, by an art which neverfor an instant lost its aspect of the artless, was that he, at least, older in experience than the rest there, alone entirely understood andengaged her. 

The men--even Peyton, temporarily--resting confident on a successfulbringing of their wives into the masculine simplicity of their commonmemories and affection, said little. With eyes puckered wisely againstthe cigarette smoke they made casual remarks about their presentoccupations and terse references to companions and deeds of the past. Only Peyton had been of any athletic importance; he had playeduniversity foot-ball; and, in view of this, there was still a tinge ofrespect in Bromhead's manner. A long run of Peyton's, crowned with aglorious and winning score, was recalled. But suddenly it failed tostir him. "How young we were then, " he observed gloomily. 

Christian Wager protested. "That isn't the right tone. We were youngthen, true, but Princeton was teaching us what it meant to be men. Inthat game, Morris, you got something invaluable to you now, hardendurance and fairness--"

"In my day, " Lee interposed, "the team was told to sink a heel in anyback that looked a little too good for us. "

"There were instructors like that, " Gilbert Bromhead assented; "andsome graduate coaches are pretty cunning; but they are beingdiscredited. "

Wager largely, obliviously, passed over this interruption. "We learneddecency, " he proceeded, "in business and ideals and living; and to giveand take evenly. In the war and in civil life we were and are behindthe big issues. This new license and socialistic rant, the mental andmoral bounders, must be held down, and we are the men to do it. Yes, and I believe in the church, the right church, we're all for that: Itell you the country depends on the men the best colleges turn out. "

"My God, Christian, you must have made a lot of money lately, " Bromheadobserved. "You talk exactly like the president of a locomotive works. You have been dining with the best, too; I can tell that withcertainty. Answer us this, honestly--do you mention the Royal Family inyour prayers?"

Evadore laughed. "Do you know, that's really awfully good. He does putit on a bit, doesn't he?"

"If you let Christian go on, " Peyton added, "he'll talk about thesacred ties of Anglo-Saxon blood and tradition, with the English andAmerican exchange ruling the world. Gilbert, how did your artillerycompany get along with the Londoners?"

"All right, if we were near a brick yard. "

Claire rose abruptly, and they drifted out to a reception room opening, with a wide arch, beyond the hall. Gilbert Bromhead's wife hesitated;then, confidentially, she told Lee that she adored to sit on stairs. "Very well, " he assented; "these of the Morrises' are splendid. " He wasa step below her, and her knees and his shoulder settled together. 

"I like older men so much, " she admitted what she had already soadroitly conveyed; "patches of grey above the ears are sodistinguished. "

"Older than what?"

Apparently forgetful that her gesture included Gilbert Bromhead sheindicated the rooms that now held the others. "Young men are so headover heels, " she particularized; "they are always disarranging things. "She laughed, a delectable sound. "I oughtn't to have said that, and Iwouldn't--to them. I might almost tell you the story about the man inthe department store and the drawers. " Their contact was morepronounced. "Isn't that English girl extraordinary? I didn't believefor a minute that was her own color till I was close to it. Her hairisn't dyed; but why does she wear that skimpy bang?" Again she laughed, a pure golden melody. "But you admired it, I know you did; men are sounaccountable. Could you trust her, do you think? It wasn't very niceto make fun of her husband. " Adroitly, without the flutter of a ruffle, she moved to a higher step, and Claire--before Lee had any premonitionof her appearance--stood below them with chocolates. 

"She is rather attractive, " his companion admitted, when Claire hadgone. "She doesn't like me, or Mrs. Wager, though; and I must say shemade it plain in her own house. I've been studying her, and there issomething wrong. Is she happy with Peyton Morris? I thought he wasright nice until you came. " She turned for a better view, through thebalustrade, of the doors beyond, and then drew her skirt close so thathe could move up beside her. "It's just like a smoke-house in there, "she reported. "I don't truthfully think cigarettes are nice for awoman; and I wouldn't dream of taking whiskey; in the South we never. You'd call that out of date. " She bent forward, arranging the ribbon ofa slipper, and her mouth met his in a long kiss. 

"What made you suppose you could do that?" she demanded; "how did youknow I wouldn't be cross with you? But ... Somehow I didn't mind. Although you mustn't again, so publicly. I wonder why, with you, itseemed so perfectly nice, and not at all as if I had only met you?"

There was a response to that as recognized, as exact, as the bishop'smove in chess; indeed, it was expected of him; she was hesitating, waiting for it; but he was unable to reassure her with the conventionalsentiment. A month ago he would have commanded and developed anenticing situation; but now, for Lee Randon, it was withoutpossibilities, hardly more than perfunctory. A shade of vexationinvaded her bearing, and she moved a significant infinitesimal fractionaway from him. Then she discovered a wind blowing down the stairs. "Ihave to take such good care of myself, " she told Lee, preparing todescend. "It is because I am so delicate--I can get upset at nothing. Here you are all so strong; you have an advantage over me. Gilbert, dear, " she called from the hall, her voice musical with tenderreproach, "I can't see how you love me, you stay away so far. "

 * * * * *

"What did the little ass say to you?" Claire asked. Lee was standingwith her by the piano, and the others were around the fireplace in thefarther spaciousness. "Nothing much, " he replied. "You mean that shenever stopped. I'll admit she's skillful; but she needn't think I'm afool. But you will never guess what I want to tell you. My dear Lee, that Mrs. Grove wrote me a letter. I have it here in my dress, for youto read. It's a scream. " He took the sheet of note paper: it was greywith an address on East Sixty-sixth Street embossed in pale vermilion, and had an indefinable scent. The writing was decisive:

"MY DEAR MRS. MORRIS, "It is so difficult for me to express my disturbance at what Mina Raffhas just told me, that I am asking to see you here, at my house in NewYork. Engagements make it difficult for me to leave at present. I hopeyou will not find this impertinent from an older woman, threatened verymuch as you in her affections by an impossible calamity--"

The signature, Savina Grove, had the crispness of a name often attachedto opinions and papers of authority. 

"That's rather cool, " he agreed. 

"Cool! The woman's demented. No, I suppose she thinks I am an honestwronged woman or something objectionable of the sort. I was going tothrow it away when I kept it to amuse you. "

"It does, Claire; and I'm glad to see it; impertinent as she admits itmay be, you must consider. As Mrs. Grove writes, you are both caught. "

"If you think I'll go see her you are madder still. "

"I realize you won't; but worse things could happen. It's the onlypossible approach to Mina Raff; I had a chance to try Peyton, but itdid no good. It seems to me this Mina ought to have someunderstanding. "

Claire Morris said: "You can do it. "

He reflected. "Well, perhaps; I'm your uncle; there are no brothers, and what other family you have is away. It might be useful. Anyhow, shewould hear a thing or two about you from me. "

"Seriously, Lee, you'd only get angry: I can see Mrs. Grove as thoughshe were in the room--the utmost New York self-satisfaction. And Iwon't have you discussing my affairs. "

"Absurd. A thousand people will be talking about them soon if thisisn't managed. I have an idea I had better go to New York and try whatcan be done there. I got along well enough with the girl herself; andperhaps, though it's not likely, Mrs. Grove has some influence. "

"Of course, I can't stop you, " Claire said; her hand strayed over his, on the piano. "I'm simply enraged at myself, Lee. Why, I should let himgo with cheers--except where I was sorry for him--but I can't. He issuch a sweet child; and, you see, he was all mine. "

"I can't leave before Thursday. " He considered. "I'll have a wire sentto the Groves, say something regretful and polite about you--measles. "

"Don't bother, " she returned. 

Peyton came stiffly up to them. "I happened to mention, Claire, that wehad some champagne left, and it created the intensest excitement. Itold them it would do no good, that you were keeping hold of it; butthey insisted on a look at the bottles. "

"Get them, Peyton, " she replied unhesitatingly. "I was keeping it, butperhaps for now. This is a very appropriate time for you and me, andthe last of the cases left over from our wedding. "

An expression of pain tightened his mouth; he turned away withoutfurther speech. "We'll have it in the dining-room, " Claire announced;"big glasses filled with ice. " They gathered about the bare table, andPeyton Morris ranged the dark green bottles, capped in white foil, onthe sideboard. He worked with a napkin at a cork: there was arestrained sibilant escaping pressure, and the liquid rose in frothingbubbles through the ice. 

It was, Lee thought, a golden drink, flooded, up to a variable point, with an inimitable gaiety. In comparison whiskey was brutalizing;sherry was involved with a number of material accompanying pleasures;port was purely masculine and clarets upset him; beer was a beverageand not a delight; ale a soporific; and Rhine wines he ignored. Champagne held in solution the rhythm of old Vienna waltzes, of ballrooms with formal greenery, floating with passions as light as thetarleton skirts floating about dancing feet. But it wasn't, heinsisted, a wine for indiscriminate youth--youth that couldn'tdistinguish between the sweet and the dry. It was for men like himself, with memories, unrealized dreams. Ugly women, and women who were old, and certainly prudes, should never be given a sip. 

Peyton Morris again filled all the glasses; there was a clatter oftalk, the accent of the South, about Lee; but he grew oblivious of it. Champagne always gave Fanny a headache; neither was it a drink forcontented mothers, housewives. Contrarily, it was the ideal, the only, wine for seductions. It belonged most especially to masked balls, divine features vanishing under a provocative edge of black satin. Hethought of little hidden tables and fantastic dresses, fragile emotion;lips and knees and garters. It all melted away before the intentness ofClaire's expression. Peyton was doggedly holding to the rim of thetable; Gilbert Bromhead was very close to Evadore; the black sheath ofher hair had slipped and her eyes were blank; the blanched delicatehand of the South nearest Christian Wager had disappeared, Christian'shand on that side could not be seen. Peyton once more filled theglasses:

"It must all go, " Claire insisted; "I won't have a drop left. "

Wager's sentimentality overflowed in approved and well-establishedchannels: Princeton was their mother, their sacred alma--alma mater. Here, under Peyton's roof, they had gathered to renew ... Friendshipsunbroken with their wives, their true wives; oceans couldn't separatethem, nor time, nor--nor silver locks among the gold. They must come toLondon next December: anniversary of mutual happiness and success. Takethe children, the sons of old Princeton, to Christmas pantomine. 

"Once, " Evadore told them, "I went to a night club. Do you know whatthat is, over here? I don't believe I can explain it; but there arequantities of champagne and men and principally girls; but they're notgirls at all, if you see what I mean, not by several accidents. Itwould have been splendid, but I got sick, and it turned into a ghastlymess, mostly in the cab. That was rather thick, wasn't it?"

Claire rose, and Lee Randon heard her say, under her breath, "Oh hell";but there was another full bottle, and she had to sit again. He hadpromised Fanny not to stay long, and, if he were coming home, she neverwent to sleep until he was in the house. Lee wasn't drunk, but then, herecognized, neither was he sober. Why should he be the latter? hedemanded seriously of himself. His glass was empty, the champagne wasall gone. Mrs. Gilbert Bromhead was perceptibly leaning on ChristianWager, her skill blurred; Evadore's face was damply pallid, her mouthslack; she left the table, the room, hurried and unsteady, evidentlyabout to repeat the thickness of the act that had marred her enjoymentof the night club; Claire was openly contemptuous of them all. 

Outside, it had grown much colder, the ruts in the road were frozen, treacherous, but Lee Randon drove his car with a feeling of inattentivemastery. He saw some stars, an arc light, black patches of ice; and, ashe increased his speed, he sang to an emphatic lifted hand of a beingin the South Seas who wore leaves, plenty of leaves ... But none of thesilly songs now could compare with--with the bully that, on the levees, he was going to cut down. However, in his house, he grew quiet. "Lee, "his wife called sleepily from their room, "you are so late, dear. Iwaited the longest while for some of the addresses for our Christmascards. You must remember to give them to me tomorrow. "

Her voice, heavy with sleep and contentment and love, fell upon hishearing like the sound of a pure accusing bell. He wasn't fit to have awife like Fanny, children as good as Helena and Gregory: he, LeeRandon, was a damned ingrate! That bloody doll--he had threatened toput it in the fire before--could now go where it belonged. But thehearth was empty, cold. Cytherea, with her disdainful gaze, evaded hiswavering reach. 

III

Fanny, where the Groves were concerned, was utterly opposed to the planwhich, Lee gathered, Claire had half supported. "It's really toofoolish, " his wife told him; "what can Mrs. Grove and you have to sayto each other? And you won't get anywhere with Mina Raff. Indeed, Lee, I think it isn't quite dignified of you. "

"That won't bother me, " he replied indulgently. "I was wondering--youhaven't been away for so long--if you'd come with me. This other affairwouldn't take half a day: you could buy clothes and there are thetheatres. "

"I'd love to. " She hesitated. "When did you mean to go?" But, when hesaid the following noon, she discovered that that didn't allow herenough time for preparations. "You don't realize how much there is todo here, getting the servants and the children satisfactorily arranged. You might telephone me after you're there; and, if you didn't come backat once, perhaps I could manage it. "

Lee telegraphed Mrs. William Loyd Grove of his intention; and, with atable put up at his seat in the Pullman car for New York, he occupiedhimself opportunely with the reports of his varied profitable concerns. He had had a reply, sufficiently cordial, to his telegram, arrangingfor him to go directly to the Groves' house; but that he had declined;and when he gave the driver of a taxi-cab the address on East Sixty-sixth Street it was past four and the appropriate hour for afternoontea. 

The house, non-committal on the outside--except for the perceivedelaboration of the window draperies within--was, Lee saw at once, arich undisturbed accumulation of the decorative traditions of theeighteen-eighties. The hall was dark, with a ceiling and elaboratepanels of black walnut and a high dull silver paper. The reception roominto which he was shown, by a maid, was jungle-like in its hangings anddeep-tufted upholstery of maroon and royal blue velvets, its lace andtwisted cords with heavy tassels, and hassocks crowded on the sombrelybrilliant rugs sacred in mosques. There was a mantle in coloredmarbles, cabinets of fretted ebony, tables of onyx and floriatedormolu, ivories and ornaments of Benares brass and olivewood. 

In the close incongruity of this preserved Victorianism Mrs. WilliamLoyd Grove, when she appeared soon after, startled Lee Randon by hercomplete expression of a severely modern air. She was dressed for thestreet in a very light brown suit, rigidly simple, with a small blackthree-cornered hat, a sable skin about her neck, and highly polishedEnglish brogues with gaiters. Mrs. Grove was thin--no, he correctedthat impression, she was slight--her face, broad at the temples, narrowed gracefully to her chin; her eyes were a darker blue than thevelvet; and her skin at once was evenly pale and had a suggestion oftransparent warmth. The slender firm hand she extended, her bearing andthe glimpse of a round throat, had lost none of the slender flexibilityof youth. 

"The first thing I must do, " she told him in an unsympathetic, almostharsh, voice, "is to say that I agree with you entirely about thishouse. It's beyond speech. But William won't have it touched. Probablyyou are not familiar with the stubborn traditions of old New Yorkers. Of course, when Mrs. Simeon Grove was alive, it was hopeless; but I didthink, when she died, that something could be done. You can see howwrong I was--William can't be budged. "

She was, he silently continued his conclusions, past forty, but by notmore than a year, or a year and a half. All that her signaturesuggested was true: she was more forcible, decisive, than he hadexpected. Money and place, with an individual authentic strength ofpersonality, gave her voice its accent of finality, her words theirabruptness, her manner an unending ease. 

"Mina said she might be here, " Mrs. Grove went on, from anuncomfortable Jacobean chair, "if something or other happened at thestudio. But I see she is not, and I am relieved. "

"Mrs. Morris regretted she couldn't come, " Lee told her inanely; andhis hostess replied:

"I can't at all say that I believe you--I was so upset I couldn'tresist the attempt. But I hope she understood that it was absolutelyimpossible for me to go to Eastlake. "

He nodded, a shade annoyed by the briskness of her attack. 

"We are immensely concerned about Mina, " Mrs. Grove went on. "You see, with our son killed in the Lafayette Escadrille early in the war, practically she has been our only child. She is a daughter of a cousinof William's. Mina, I must admit, has become very difficult; I supposebecause of her genius. She is perfectly amenable about everything inthe world, until her mind gets set, like concrete, and then she is outof reach. Tell me a little about Mr. And Mrs. Morris. "

Lee Randon spoke sharply for a minute or two, and a frown gathered onhis hearer's brow. "Why, " she observed, "it is worse than I had hoped. But I should have guessed from the name--Peyton Morris. I am verysorry; you are fond of her, of Claire, that is evident. "

"I should not have come here for any other reason, " he admitted. "I amnot much of a meddler: it is so dangerous for everyone concerned. Thenit might be that this was the best for all three of them. "

"What a curious, contradictory thing for you to say, " she commented, studying him. "You mustn't let William hear that; he's far worse than Iam. "

"I don't mean we can proceed from that attitude, " Lee explained, "itwas a sort of digression. I want to do whatever is possible to break itup; yes, purely for Claire. "

"I hope we may succeed. " Her voice showed doubt. "William isn't alwaystactful, and I've told him again and again he's taking the wrong tonewith Mina. What a pity the Morrises have turned out thoroughly nice--don't tell me your Claire didn't curse me, I know these girls--it is somuch easier to deal with vulgar people. I can see now what it was inthe young man that captured Mina, she'd like that type--the masculinewith an air of fine linen. " The tea-table was rolled up to them. "Ifyou would rather have Scotch or rye it's here, " she informed him. "Buteven the tea, you'll notice, is in a glass with rum; positively, soonno one will look at soup unless it's served as a highball. "

Lee Randon did prefer Scotch: none better, he discovered, was to beimagined; the ice was frozen into precisely the right size; and thecigars before him, a special Corona, the Shepheard's Hotel cigarettes, carried the luxury of comfort to its last perfection. Mrs. Grove smokedin an abstracted long-accustomed manner. "Well, " she demanded, "what isthere we can do?"

"I rather trusted you to find that. "

"How can I? What hold have we on her? Mina is getting this nonsensicalweekly sum; her contract runs for two years yet; and then it will beworse. Outrageous! I tell her she isn't worth it. And, now, thistiresome Morris has money, too; and you say he's as bad as Mina. Haveyou talked to her about Mrs. Morris? Mina is strangely sensitive, and, if you can find it, has a very tender heart. "

"I might do that over here, " he suggested. "In Eastlake it wasn'tpossible. You've discouraged me, though; I suppose I had the idea thatyou could lock her up on bread and water. "

She laughed. "An army of Minnesota kitchen maids would break into thehouse; millions of people have voted Mina their favorite; when she isout with me the most odious crowds positively stop my car. I won't gowith her any more where she can be recognized. " Lee rose, and hisexpression showed his increasing sense of the uselessness of theirefforts. 

"You mustn't give up, " she said quickly; "you never can tell aboutMina. You will come here for dinner, certainly; I'll send the car toyour hotel at seven-thirty, and you will bring your bag. We can't argueover that, can we? William will enjoy having you very much. Do you mindmy saying he'll be relieved? He is such a Knickerbocker. I needn't add, Mr. Randon, that you shall be entirely free: whenever you want to godown town Adamson will take you. " The exact moulding of her body wasinsolent. "Well, then, for the moment--" She gave him no chance atrefusal, but, with the curtness of her hand, the apparent vanishing ofall knowledge of his presence, dismissed him before he was aware of itto the adroitness of the maid in the hall putting him into hisovercoat. 

 * * * * *

In a double room at his hotel, repacking the articles of toilet he hadspread around the bathroom, Lee thought, but without heat, damn thatGrove woman. He didn't want to go to the Grove house, it wouldcomplicate things with Fanny; and, if William did enjoy him, LeeRandon, would he enjoy William? It was questionable in the presentstate of his mind. Dinner, a servant at the Groves' informed him, wouldbe at eight. His bag was swiftly and skillfully unpacked for him--thisalways annoyed Lee--and the water was turned into the tub. His room, richly draped and oppressive as the one downstairs, had a bed with ahigh carved oak headboard from which a heavy canopy, again of velvetand again crimson, reached to the floor at its foot; and by the side ofthe bed ran a long cushion over which he repeatedly stumbled. 

His immediate necessity was to telephone Fanny; she was delighted atthe sound of his voice; but, when he told her what had happened, wherehe was, an increasing irritation crept into her voice. "I can'tunderstand it at all, " he heard her say, so clearly that itreconstructed her, expression and probable dress and setting, completely. "You asked me to come over and shop, and go to the theatrewith you; and now that I have everything arranged, even Christopherpacified, you go to the Groves'. It seems to me most peculiar. "

He couldn't help it, he replied, with a slight responsive sharpening ofhis own speech; he had driven to the hotel, where he had secured theirroom, and Mrs. Grove had made it impossible for him to stay there. Whenhe left--it would be late tomorrow or early the next day, Lee thought--she could meet him and do as they planned. But Fanny refused to agree:it would, now, be a needless expense. No, the other was what she hadeagerly looked forward to. Lee, drawing her attention once more to thefact that it wasn't possible, was answered by so long a silence that heconcluded she had hung up the receiver. 

"Have a good time, " Fanny said at last; "you will, anyhow, with theRaff woman. I suppose Mrs. Grove, who seems to get everything shewants, is fascinating as well. "

"Indeed, I don't know, Fanny!" he exclaimed, his patience almostexhausted. "It hasn't occurred to me to think about her. I'm sorry youwon't do what I suggest; it's not different from what we first thoughtof. "

"Good-bye, " she answered reluctantly; "the children are here and sendtheir love. They'd like to speak to you, but probably you're in ahurry. "

"I may be late for dinner now, " he admitted. 

The receiver in his house was abruptly, unmistakably, replaced. No oneelse, and for so little perceptible cause, could make him as mad asFanny frequently did. He put on his waistcoat, changed his money fromthe trousers on the bed to those he was wearing, in a formlessindignation. This wasn't his fault, he repeated; positively, judged byher manner, he might be doing something wrong. Fanny even managed toconvey a doubt of Mrs. Grove, Mrs. William Loyd Grove. But she couldn'tsee how ridiculous that was. 

William Grove Lee liked negatively; there was, patently, nothing in himto create an active response. His short heavy body was faultlesslyclothed; his heavy face, with its moustache twisted into points, theclouded purple of his cheeks contradicted by the penetration of asteadily focussed gaze, expressed nothing more than a niceness ofbalance between self-indulgence, tempered by exercise, games in openair, and a far from negligible administration of the resources he hadinherited. 

"You are a relative of the Morrises?" he asked Lee, turning from themenu set before him in a miniature silver frame. This Lee Randonadmitted, and Grove's eyebrows mounted. "Can't anything be done withthe young man?"

"How are you succeeding with the young woman?" Lee returned. 

"Oh, women--" William Grove waved his hand; "you can't argue withwomen. Mina wants her Peyton--if that's his name; God knows I've heardit enough--and there's no more to that. "

"It begins to look as though she'd get him, " Lee observed; "I must saywe haven't got far with Morris. "

"Extraordinary. "

It was Mrs. Grove who spoke. She was dressed in grey, a gown cut awayfrom sheer points on her shoulders, with a girdle of small gilt roses, her hair in a binding of grey brocade and amber ornaments; and aboveher elbows were bands of dull intricately pierced gold. 

"I wonder what it's all about?"

Lee gazed at her with a new interest. "So do I, " he acknowledged; "Iwas thinking of that, really, before this happened: what is it allabout?"

"I can answer that readily enough, " Grove assured them; "anyone couldwith a little consideration. They saw too much of each other; they rantheir heads into the noose. Trouble always follows. I don't care whothey are, but if you throw two fairly young people of opposite sextogether in circumstances any way out of the ordinary, you have asituation to meet. Mina has been spoiled by so much publicity; heremotions are constantly over-strung; and she thinks, if she wants it, that she can have the moon. "

"You believe that, I know, William, " his wife commented; "I have oftenheard you say so. But what is your opinion, Mr. Randon--have youreached one and is a conclusion possible?"

"I can't answer any of your questions, " he admitted; "perhaps this isone of the things that must be experienced to be understood; certainlyit hasn't a great deal to do with the mind. " He turned to WilliamGrove, "Your view has a lot to recommend it, even if it solves nothing. Suppose you are right--what then?"

"I don't pretend to go that far, " Grove protested; "I am not answeringthe questions of the universe. Savina has an idea there's a mystery init, a quality hidden from reason; and I want to knock that on the head. It's a law of nature, that's all; keep away from it if you wantsecurity. I can't imagine people of breeding--you will have to overlookthis, Mr. Randon, on the account of Morris--getting so far down theslide. It belongs to another class entirely, one without traditions orpractical wisdom. Yet, I suppose it is the general tone of the day:they think they can handle fire with impunity, like children withparlor matches. "

"It can't, altogether, be accounted for so easily, " Lee decided. "Thewhole affair has been so lied about, and juggled to suit differentclimates and people, that hardly any of the original impulse is left onview. What do you think would happen if for a while we'd lose our ideasof what was right and wrong in love?"

"Pandemonium, " Grove replied promptly. 

"Not if people were more responsible, William, " Savina Grove added;"not for the superior. But then, all laws and order were made for thegood of the mob. I don't need the policeman I see in the streets; and, really, I haven't a scrap more use for policeman-like regulations; Icould regulate myself--"

"And there, " he interrupted, "is where Mina fails; she can't runherself for a damn; she ought to have a nurse. Your theories contradicteach other, as well--you say one thing and do quite differently. "

She was silent at this, gazing at her hands, the beautifully madepointed fingers bare of rings. On their backs the veins, blue-violet, were visible; and there was a delicate tracery inside the bend of herarms. But her face, Lee reflected, was too passive, too inanimate; herlack of color was unvaried by any visible trace of emotion, life. Shewas, in fact, plain if not actually ugly; her mouth was too large; onthe street, without the saving distinction of her dress, he wouldn'thave noticed her. 

But what, above the rest, engaged him was her resemblance to someone heknew but couldn't recall. What woman, seen lately, had Mrs. Grove'sstill, intent face, her pointed chin and long throat? She lifted herhand, and the gesture, the suspended grace of the wrist, was familiarto him. Finally Lee Randon, unable to satisfy his curiosity, exasperated at the usual vain stupidity of such comparisons, gave upthe effort. William Grove informed Lee that he might accompany him tohis club, stay, or go as he willed. Mrs. Grove, it developed, would beat home, where, if he chose, they might pursue the cause of LeeRandon's presence there. 

 * * * * *

There was, Lee soon grasped, very little that was useful to be said. They repeated what had been gone over before. Mrs. Grove explainedagain Mina Raff's unpredictable qualities, and he spoke of Peyton andClaire Morris. Beyond the admission of their surrender, Peyton's andhers, to each other, Mina had told the Groves nothing; Savina Grove wasignorant of what they intended. That it would begin at once wasevident. "William is always a little annoyed by my contradictorycharacter, " she observed, gazing down at her slippers. They were grey, slight like a glove, on slight arched feet that held his attention. Theconversation about the situation before them, expanded to its farthestlimits, inevitably dragged; they said the same things, in hardly variedwords, a third and even a fourth time; and then Lee's interest in itwholly deserted him--he could excite himself about Mina no longer. 

This left him confronted with himself and Mrs. Grove. A clock on thestairway struck ten. Her face hadn't a vestige of cordiality, and hewondered if she were fatigued, merely polite in remaining in the roomwith him? She needn't inconvenience herself on his account! It waspleasant enough at the Groves'; without doubt--in her own world--shewas a woman of consequence, but he wasn't carried away by the privilegeof studying her indifferent silences. Then she completely surprisedhim:

"I suppose you have been to all the cafés and revues you ever want tosee; but I almost never get to them; and it occurred to me that, if youdidn't too much mind, we might go. What do you think--is it utterlyfoolish?"

On the contrary, he assured her, it would amuse him immensely. LeeRandon said this so convincingly that she rose at once. To be with Mrs. William Loyd Grove at Malmaison--that, of all the places possible, presented itself at once--would furnish him with an uncommon evening. Consequently, driving smoothly over Fifth Avenue, a strange black riverof solidified asphalt strung with fixed moons, in answer to her query, he proposed Malmaison, and the directions were transmitted into theivory mouth-piece beside her. At the moment when the day was mostthreatened it had shown a new and most promising development. Over thegrey dress Mrs. Grove wore a cloak with a subdued gold shimmer, her hatwas hardly more than the spread wing of a bird across the pallor of herface, and the deep folds of the gloves on her wrists emphasized theslender charm of her arms. No young--younger woman, he decided, couldcompete with her in the worldly, the sophisticated, attractiveness shecommanded: on the plane of absolute civilization she was supreme. Inthe semi-gloom of the closed car, sunken in her voluminous wrap of dullgold, with a high-bridged nose visible, a hand in its dead-whitecovering pressed into the cushion, she satisfied his every aestheticrequirement. Women, he reflected, should be primarily a show on a stagecarefully set for the purpose of their loveliness. Not many men, andscarcely more women--so few were lovely--would agree with him there. Argument would confront him with the moral and natural beauty ofmaternity; very well, in such instincts, he thought with a resignationquite cheerful, he was lacking. Birth, self-oblivion, was no longer theend of his dream-like existence. Lee Randon wanted to find thejustification, preserve the integrity, of his personality, and not loseit. Yes, if nature, as it seemed fully reasonable, had intended theother, something incalculable had upset its plans; for what now stirredLee had nothing to do with breeding. Long-continued thought, instead ofmaking his questioning clearer, endlessly complicated it. There wasalways a possibility, which he was willing to consider, that he waslacking in sheer normality; and that, therefore, his doubts, no morethan neurasthenic, were without any value. 

He was ready to face this, but unable, finally, to accept it, todismiss himself so cheaply. Whatever it was, troubling his imagination, was too perceptible at the hearts of other men. It wasn't new, singular, in him; nor had he borrowed it from any book or philosophy:it had so happened that he had never read a paragraph, satisfactory tohim in the slightest, about the emotional sum of a man and a woman. What he read he couldn't believe; it was a paste of moralistic lies;either that or the writer had no greater power of explication than he. But, while he might deny a fundamental irregularity, the majority ofmen, secretly delivered to one thing, would preach virtuously at himthe other. He recalled how universal were the traces of dissatisfactionhe had noticed; an uneasiness of the masculine world that resembled aharborful of ships which, lying long and placidly at anchor, began in arising wind to stir and pull at their hawser chains. 

Lee didn't mean that this restlessness was confined to men; simply hewas intent on his own problem. The automobile turned into a cross-townstreet; they met, entered, a mass of cars held at Broadway, advanced afew feet, stopped, went on, and, twisting through the traffic, reachedMalmaison. He left his outer things at the door, but Mrs. Grove kepther cloak, and they mounted in an elevator to the café floor. The placewas crowded with brightly filled tables surrounding the rectangularopen dancing space, and Lee signalled for a captain. That experiencedindividual, with a covert glance at Lee Randon's companion, a handfolded about a sum of money that would have paid the butcher for a weekat Eastlake, found, however, exactly what they wanted; and Mrs. Grove'sdominating slimness emerged by degrees, like a rare flower from leavesof quiet gold. 

They sat facing each other. At a table on Lee's left, on a floor a foothigher, sat a woman, Spanish in color, with a face like a crumpledpetunia. The girls of a larger party, beyond Savina Grove, were young, with the vigorous nakedness of their shoulders and backs traced byblack cobwebs of lace. The music began, and they left to dance; thedeserted tables bore their drinks undisturbed while the floor waschoked by slowly revolving figures distilling from the rhythm frankgratification. There was an honesty of intention, the admission thatlife and nights were short, lacking in the fever at the Eastlakedancing; here, rather than unsettled restraint, was the determinationto spend every excited nerve on sensation, to obtain the last drop fromglasses the contents and odors of which uniquely resembled the drinksof pre-prohibition. These girls, consciously animating their shapelybodies with the allurement if not the ends of creation, prostitutes ofboth temperament and fact, were, Lee Randon decided, calmer--yes, safer--in mind and purpose than were his most admirable friends. 

Certainly they were better defined, more logically placed than, forexample, Mrs. William Loyd Grove--her dress, her powdering and perfume, the warm metal clasped about the softness of her arms, and theindicated purpose about them, were not worlds apart. But the latter metits announced intention; it was dissipated--normally--in satiety. But, where Mrs. Grove was concerned ... Lee speculated. She was evidentlyhighly engaged, not a shade repelled, by what she saw; in a cool mannershe drew his gaze to a specially scarlet and effective dress:

"With her figure it's very successful, " she commented. 

What struck him immediately was that the proportions she had pointedout and her own were identical; and Lee had a vision of Mrs. Grove inthe dress they were studying. The same thing, it appeared, was in hermind. "Well, " she challenged him, "I could, you know. " This he admitteddiscreetly, and asked her if she cared to dance. 

"Why not?"

In his arms she was at once light and perceivable; everything a part ofher was exquisitely finished; he discovered more and more surely thatshe was flesh and blood, and not, as he had regarded her, an insulatedsocial mechanism. Leaving the dancing floor, she was careless, in themanner everywhere evident, in the disposition of her skirt. Lee hadcome prepared for the pleasure to be had from on-looking; but he hadbecome the most oblivious of all the active participants. After asecond brief understanding with the captain, another quickly-disposedcurrency note, there was the familiar smothered uncorking of champagneby his ear. To Lee Randon's lavishness Mrs. Grove gave no attention, and he was obliged to banish a petty chagrin by the knowledge that hehad fully met the obligations of her presence. The propping of herelbows on the table, her casual gazing over the lifted rim of herglass, her silences, all admitted him to her own unremarked, herexclusive and inalienable, privilege. 

 * * * * *

She still, however, retained her personal remoteness from him; what shegave belonged to him, in their situation, conventionally; it had nogreater significance; and, forming nearly all of the duty of life, herlife, she discharged her responsibility beautifully. She wasn't, certainly, gay in the sense most familiar to him--Anette, in the samecircumstances, would have radiated a bubbling sensual pleasure, indulged in a surface impropriety; any girl around them would havegiven more than Mrs. Grove; everything, probably. But he preferred thepenetrating judgments, the superior mental freedom, of his companion. If she were interested in a prostitute, she didn't, with a laboriousself-consciousness, avoid that term; she was neither obviously aware ofthose fragile vessels of pleasure nor ignorant of them; indeed, Leetold himself, she was more a part of their world, however continent shemight remain, than she was of Fanny's. 

Fanny, here, would have been equally fascinated and shocked; but, essentially, she'd be hurt; and, at the same time, rebellious with theinnate resentment of the pure, the contained, for the free. She wouldnever have agreed to the champagne, either; they would have orderedlemonades or claret cup; and, by midnight, gone back to the hotel. Itwas now past two o'clock. There was no lessening in the vigor of thedancing, the laughter, or in the stream of laden trays; no trace offatigue in Mrs. Grove. She had the determined resilience of a womanapproaching, perhaps, the decline, but not yet in it; of one who haddanced into innumerable sun-rises from the night before, destroyingmany dozens of pairs of satin slippers. 

When it occurred to her to gather up the petal-like folds of her cloak, get her hands into the gloves rolled back on her wrists, it was nearerthree than two. A hollow voice on the street called the number of theGrove automobile, the door closed smoothly on them, and again she wasabsorbed into the cushions and her wrap. But there was a change in hisfeeling for her, an indefinable but potent boundary had been crossed:they had looked together, informally, at life, at passion, and theresulting sympathy had, finally, put aside the merely casual. Leelighted a cigarette, and, without speech, she took it from him, transferred it to her own lips. 

Eastlake and Fanny, Helena and Gregory, seemed very remote; a qualityof his being suppressed at home here possessed him completely: in ablack silk evening waistcoat, with no responsibilities, no thought oftime or work, he was, lightly and wholly, an idler in a polite sphere. The orchids in their glass holder, dimly visible before him, were asymbol of his purely decorative engagement with life. Now Lee couldn'treconcile himself to the knowledge that this was no more than aninterlude--with music--in his other, married existence. It was asunsubstantial as an evening's performance, in temporary finery, of ahigh comedy of manners. 

Savina Grove said, "It has been surprisingly nice. "

"Hasn't it, " he agreed; "and, when you spoke, I was trying to realizethat it will be so soon over. "

Immediately after he cursed himself for a blunder, a stupid error inemphasis, from which she drew perceptibly away. She extinguished thecigarette, his cigarette, and that, as well, added to the distancebetween them. 

"I should go back to Eastlake tomorrow afternoon, " he observed, in amanner which he made entirely detached. To that she objected that hewould not see Mina Raff, nothing would be accomplished. "She might havedinner with you tomorrow night, " she thought; "Mina gets back to thePlaza a little before seven. But we can call the studio. "

In view of what he had already done, Mrs. Grove's proposal seemedunavoidably reasonable. He would telephone Fanny again in the morningand explain. Fanny, his wife! Well, he continued, as though he wereangrily retorting to a criticism from without, no man ever betterrealized the splendid qualities of his wife. That was beyondcontradiction; and he sharply added that not Fanny, but the role of awife, a housewife, was under observation. Mrs. Grove was married, butthat didn't keep her from the Malmaison, at what Eastlakedisapprovingly called all hours of the night. She had no aspect of aservitude which, while it promised the most unlimited future rewards, took the present grace, the charm, from women. That--the consequentloss or gain--was open to question; but the fact remained: for themajority of women marriage was fatal to their persons. Only the rich, the fortunate and the unamenable escaped. 

"In a very few minutes now, " Mrs. Grove said, "you will be able tosleep. "

"I've never been wider awake, " he protested; "I was thinking of howmarriage submerged most women while you escaped. "

She laughed quietly, incomprehensibly. 

"Well, " he insisted, aggrieved, "haven't you?"

She leaned toward him; almost, he told himself, there was a flash ofanimation on her immobile face. "Escape, what do you mean by that?" shedemanded. "Does anyone escape--will young Morris and Mina? And you?"

"Oh, not I, " he replied, thrown off his mental balance by the rapidattack of her questioning; "I am tied in a thousand ways. But yousurprise me. "

"I could, " she remarked, coldly, returning to her corner. "Your self-satisfaction makes me rage, How do you dare, knowing nothing, to decidewhat I am and what I can do? You're like William, everyone I meet--sosure for others. "

"No, I'm not, " he contradicted her with a rude energy; "and, after all, I didn't accuse you of much that was serious. I only said you wereapparently above the circumstances that spoil so many women. "

"It isn't necessary to repeat yourself, " she reminded him disagreeably;"I have a trace of memory. "

"And with it, " he answered, "a very unpleasant temper. "

"Quite so, " she agreed, once more calm; "you seem fated to tell meabout myself. I don't mind, and it gives you such a feeling of wisdom. "The car stopped before the Grove house and, within, her good-night wasindifferent even for her. What, he wondered, what the devil, had upsether? He had never encountered a more incomprehensible display of thearrogantly feminine. 

In his room, however, re-establishing his sense of comfort, he found, on a low table by the bed, a choice of whiskies, charged water, cigarettes, nectarines, orange-brown mangoes, and black Belgian grapes, Attached to an electric plug was a small coffee percolator; for themorning, Lee gathered. His pajamas, his dressing gown and slippers, were conveniently laid at his hand. He was, in fact, so comfortablethat he had no desire to get into bed; and he sat smoking, over a talldrink, speculating about his hostess. Perhaps she had difficulties withthe obdurate correctness of William; but Mrs. Grove would have been toowell-steeled there to show any resentment to a virtual stranger; no, whatever it was lay within herself. He gave it up, since, he proclaimedaloud, it didn't touch him. 

The opened windows admitted the vast unsubdued clamor of New York; theimmeasurable force of the city seemed to press in upon the room, uponhis thoughts. How different it was from the open countryside, the quietscene, of his home in Eastlake. There the lowing of a chance cow robbedof her calf, her udder aching, the diminishing barking of dogs and thebirds--sparrows in winter and robins in the spring--were the onlysounds that disturbed the dark. In the morning the farmer above Leerolled the milk down the road, past his window, on a carrier, and themilk cans made a sudden rattle and ringing. Then Christopher washed theporches. Fanny, no matter how late she had been up the night before, was dressed by eight o'clock, and put fresh flowers in the vase. Hehazarded the guess that Mrs. Grove was often in bed until past noon;here servants renewed the great hot-house roses with long stems, theelaborate flowers on the dining-table. 

In the morning, as he had foreseen, the percolator was connected, creamand sugar placed beside it; and before his shaving was over, he had acup of coffee with a cigarette casting up its fragrant smoke from thesaucer. His shoes might have been lacquered from the heighth of thelustre rubbed into them; a voice the perfection of trained sympatheticconcern inquired for the exacted details of the suspended preparationof his eggs. 

 * * * * *

His dinner engagement with Mina Raff, arranged through her secretary, was for fifteen minutes past seven; and, meanwhile, as Mrs. Grove hadoffered, Adamson drove Lee down-town. The afternoon had nearly gonebefore he returned to East Sixty-sixth Street; but the maid at the doortold him that there was tea up in the library. This he found to be along gloomy room finished in a style which, he decided, might bemassively Babylonian. A ponderous table for the support of weightlesstrifles filled the middle of the rug; there were deep chairs of roanleather, with an immense sofa like the lounge of a club or steamer; lowbookcases with leaded glass; and windows the upper panes of which werestained in peacock colors and geometrical design. 

The tea things were on a wagon beside the center table; there were anumber of used cups and crumpled napkins, and whiskey glasses, inevidence, but Mrs. Grove was alone. She had been about to have themremoved, she told him, when he rang. "No, I am not in a hurry; and it'ssuch a disagreeable day you ought to have a highball. "

She was in black, a dress that he found unbecoming, with a collar highabout her throat and wide sleeves heavily embroidered in carmine. "Youwill hate that one, " she said of the chair he selected; "I can't thinkwhy chairs have to be so very uncomfortable--these either swallow youwhole or, like a toboggan slide, drop you on the floor. " Lee drew up atabourette for his glass and ash tray. The banal idea struck him that, although he had met Mrs. Grove only yesterday, he knew her well; ratherhe had a sense of ease, of the familiar, with her. The sole evidenceshe gave of an agreement in his feeling was that she almost totallyneglected to talk. She smoked, absorbed in a frowning abstraction. Afloor lamp behind them was lighted, and there was an illumination atthe mantel, but the depths of the library were wrapped in obscurity:its sombreness had increased, the air was heavy with the dust ofleather, a vague funereal oppressiveness. 

Lee's sense of familiarity increased, but his ease left him, drivenaway by the strength of a feeling not exactly of being at home but ofreturning to an old powerful influence. Mrs. Grove's head was inshadow. There was a stir at the door, and William Grove entered. Hewas, he told Lee civilly, glad that Adamson had been of use. "I walkwhenever it's possible, " he proceeded; "but that way you wouldn't havereached Beaver Street yet. Nothing to drink, thanks, Savina, but acigarette--" Lee Randon reached forward with the silver box and, inadvertently, he pressed into Mrs. Grove's knee. He heard a thinclatter, there was a minute hot splash on his hand, and he realizedthat she had dropped her spoon. She sat rigidly, half turned toward thelight, with a face that shocked him: it was not merely pale, but white, drawn and harsh, and her eyes, losing every vestige of ordinaryexpression, stared at him in a set black intensity. 

"I'm sorry, " Lee Randon said mechanically, and he offered the cigarettebox to the other man; but, internally, he was consumed with anger. Thewoman positively was a fool to mistake his awkwardness; he hadn'tsupposed that anyone could be so super-sensitive and suspicious; and itdamaged his pride that, clearly, she should consider him capable ofsuch a juvenile proceeding. Lee rose and excused himself stiffly, explaining that it was time for him to dress; and, in his room, telephoning Fanny, he determined to leave New York, the Groves, asearly as possible in the morning. 

Fanny responded from Eastlake in a tone of unending patience; nothinghe could do, her voice intimated, would exhaust her first considerationof him; she wouldn't--how could she?--question the wisdom of hisdecisions, even when they seemed, but, of course, only to her faultyunderstanding, incomprehensible. 

"You make it sound as though I were over here on an errand of my own, "he protested cheerfully; "I'd rather be in Eastlake. "

Helena, she told him, had been bad again; there was a recognizedopinion between them that, while Gregory was like his mother, Helenasurprisingly resembled Lee Randon. "Well, don't be too severe, " hesaid. Someone had to be, the reply came, faint and indistinct. "Isthere anything else?" he asked. Of course, how stupid, she was keepinghim; the sound was now open and colored with self-reproach. She was sosorry. "Damn!" Lee exclaimed, leaving the telephone with the feelingthat Fanny had repelled his affection. Women were beyond him. 

In this mood he was unprepared for the appearance of Mina Raff, immediately after his name was sent up to her rooms, on the minutearranged. What, next, about her occurred to him was the evidence of herweariness. A short and extremely romantic veil hung from the close brimof her hat--with her head bent forward she gazed at him seriouslythrough the ornamental filaments; her chin raised, the intent regard ofher celebrated eyes was unhampered. She didn't care where they went, she replied to his question, except that she preferred a quiet place, where they could talk. 

The St. Regis, he thought, would best answer this requirement; and hehad started toward the taxi-cab stand when she informed him that shehad kept her car. It was larger and more elaborately fitted than theGrove limousine; in its deep upholstery, its silk curtains and velvetcarpet and gold mounted vanities, Mina Raff was remarkably child-like, small; her face, brightening at intervals in the rapidly passing lightsoutside, was touched by pathos; she seemed crushed by the size, theswiftness and complexity, of her automobile, and by the gatheringimperious weight of her fame. She was still, however, appealinglysimple; no matter what she might do it would be invested with theaspect of innocence which, admirable for her art, never for an instantdeserted her personality. 

Lee Randon, who liked her better with each accumulating minute, wondered why he was completely outside the disturbance of her charm. Asa young man, he concluded, he would have been lost in a passionatedevotion to her. Mina realized to the last possible indefinite gracethe ideal, always a silver abstraction, of youth; the old worn simileof an April moon, distinguished in her case by the qualification, wistful, was the most complete description of her he possessed. Youngmen--Peyton Morris--were worshippers of the moon, the unattainable; andwhen they happily attained a reality they hid it in iridescent fancy. 

What now formed Lee's vision had, together with no less a mystery, agreater warmth and implied reality from him. Cytherea and Mina Raffshared nothing; somehow the latter lacked the magnetism essential tothe stirring of his desire. This, perhaps, was inevitable to his age, to the swift passage of that young idealism: after forty, the nebulousbecame a need for sensuous reality. Certain phases of Mina, as well, were utterly those of a child--she had the eluding sweetness, theflower-like indifference, of Helena, of a temperamental virginity soabsolute that it was incapable of understanding or communicating anemotional fever. But, in the degree of her genius, she was above, superior to, experience; it was not, for her, necessary; she was notchanged by it, but changed it into herself, into the validity ofwhatever she intrinsically was. 

His thoughts returned to the unfortunate occurrence in the library atthe Groves'; his indignation at Mrs. Grove was complicated, puzzled, bythe whole loss of the detached self-possession which, he had thought, was her most persistent characteristic. Her expression, in memory, specially baffled him; under other, accountable, circumstances heshould have said that it was a look of suffering, of drawn pain. Hecouldn't recall the appearance of a shade of anger; yet the spoon hadfallen as if from a hand numb with--with resentment. No other deductionwas possible. He wished it were permissible to speak to her again aboutwhat--but obviously--had been no more than an accident; he objected toleaving such a ridiculous misconception of himself lodged permanentlyin her mind. But he couldn't bring it up again; and, after all, itmattered very little. Mrs. Grove was welcome to whatever flattering ofher seductiveness her pride demanded. When he had dispatched, with MinaRaff, his duty to Claire, succeeded or failed--the latter, he added, was of course inevitable--he'd return to Eastlake and the Groves wouldgo out of his life. 

The curtain of what he had thought of as a play, an interlude, wouldfall heavily, conclusively, and the music end. 

 * * * * *

At the St. Regis he chose the more informal dining-room with panellingsand high columns of wood, and medallions in white marble. It wasneither full nor empty, and they were conducted to a table set for two. Lee was conscious of heads turning, and of a faint running whisper--Mina Raff had been recognized. However, without any exhibitedconsciousness of this, she addressed herself to him with a prettyexclusion; and, pausing to explain her indifference to food, she leftthe selection of everything but the salad to Lee; she had, sheadmitted, a preference for alligator pears cut into small cubes with aFrench dressing. That disposed of, he turned to her:

"I noticed, at the Plaza, that you are hard at it. "

"Indeed, yes, " she replied; "but we are still only rehearsing; not ascene has been shot. You see, that makes it all so expensive; I want todo as well as possible for the men who have money and confidence inme. "

This, from her manner, her deceptive look of fragility everywheredrooping with regret, was patent. What she said, thought, felt, wasmagnificently reflected, given visibility, by her fluid being. "But youhaven't come over here to talk to me about that, " she said directly;"you want me to give up Peyton. "

He nodded, relieved that she had made the introduction of his purposeso easy. 

"I ought to tell you, before we begin, " she warned him, "that I can't. Nothing can convince me that we are wrong. We didn't try to have thishappen, we did all we could--but it was too late--to prevent it, " MinaRaff repeated Peyton's own assurance to him. "Things were taken out ofour hands. Why I went to Eastlake I don't know, it was dreadfullyinconvenient, and my director did what he could to keep me working. But, as you know, I persisted. Why?" She stopped and regarded himimploringly, through the romantic veil. "I haven't the smallest idea, "she continued. "Peyton had seen me again in New York; I knew then thatI meant a lot to him; but it couldn't have happened if I hadn't stayedwith Anette. "

Her voice, her wonderment, he thought, were colored by superstition. Evidently, up to a certain point, she had resisted, and then--howcharming it must have been for Morris--she collapsed. She had convincedherself that they were intended for each other. Lee asked, "How well doyou know Peyton?"

"Not at all in the way you do, " she admitted candidly; "I understandhim only with my heart. But isn't that everything? I know that he isvery pure, and doesn't ordinarily care for women--usually I have nofeeling about men--and that he played football at Princeton and is verystrong. You have no idea, Mr. Randon, how different he is from the menI am thrown with! There are some actors, of course, who are very fine, wonderful to work with; but the ones not quite so finished.... It'snatural, for many reasons, in a woman to act; but there is something, well--something, about men acting, as a rule; don't you agree?"

Lee did, and told her so with a growing pleasure in the rightness ofher perceptions. "Peyton is altogether different from the men of thestage, " he developed her observation; "and it is a capital thing he didplay football; for, in the next year or so, until he grows used to yourlife, he'll have a collection of men to knock down. I'd like to tellyou whatever I have discovered about him, for your own consideration, and Peyton is a snob. That isn't necessarily a term of contempt; withhim it simply means that he is impatient, doubtful, at what he doesn'tknow. And first under that head come the arts; they have no existencefor him or his friends. A play or a book pleases him or it doesn't, heapproves of its limiting conventional morals, or violently condemnswhat he thinks is looseness, and that's the extent of his interest. "

Mina Raff gazed at him blankly, this time from under the scallops ofthe veil. "That is hard to believe, " she objected; "he talks to mebeautifully about my pictures and a future on the stage. He says that Iam going to revolutionize moving pictures--"

"I don't question that, " he put in; "but did Peyton show you how itwould be done?"

She hesitated, gracefully lowering her potent gaze. 

"Probably, " Lee Randon added keenly, "it was to happen because you wereso excessively beautiful. " There was no reply to this. "I don't need totell you, " he admitted, "that I did my best to discourage him; and Ipointed out that the time must come when you would fancy, no, need, someone else. "

"Oh, that was cruel!" she cried softly; "and it isn't, it won't betrue. Do you think, just because I happen to be an actress, that Ican't be faithful?"

"It is all a question of degree, " he instructed her, "of talent orgenius. Talent may be faithful to a number of things--a man or acountry or even an ideal; but the only fidelity of genius is toitself. "

"I hadn't thought of that, " she reflected, sadly. 

"Why should you?" he demanded; "you are being natural; I am thedisturbance, the conventional voice sentimentally reading from the callbook. But you don't have those in moving pictures: it would be asentimentally stupid director. You must believe me: your acting willalways be incomprehensible to Peyton: he will approve of the resultsand raise hell--for the comparatively short time he will last--with themeans. Tell me this: together with his conviction that you'd carry thestage up into heaven, didn't he speak of your retiring?"

The faint smile about her lips was a sufficient answer. That smile, herecognized, pensive and unlingering, served a wide and practicalvariety of purposes. "In the end, " he insisted, "Peyton will want totake you to a home in a correct suburb; that conception he'll never getaway from. " She answered:

"And what if I liked that, wanted it? You mustn't think my life isentirely joyful. "

"I don't, " he as promptly assured her; "but you will never get awayfrom it; you will never sit contentedly through long afternoons playingbridge; you're cursed, if you want to call it that. "

"I saw Peyton's child, " she said at a tangent. "He had hold of thenurse's apron in such a funny decided fist. I wanted to hug him, but Iremembered that it wasn't the thing to do. She has that, " a shade ofdefiance darkened her voice at her reference to Claire. 

"Babies are no longer overwhelmingly important, " Lee retorted; "not inthe face of emotion itself; they have become a sort of unavoidable, almost an undesirable by-product. "

"They won't be with me, " Mina Raff promised. 

It was evident to him that she saw herself in the role of a mother; herface had a tender maternal glamour, her eyes were misted withsentiment; a superb actress. "A baby of my own, " she whispered; "a babyand a house and Peyton. "

"Nothing duller could be imagined. " Momentarily he lost his self-restraint. "You have something inimitable, supremely valuable, and youare dreaming like a rabbit. If you must be a mother, be that one on thescreen, for the thrilling of millions of limited minds. "

"He seemed to like me. " She had paid no attention to him, back again inthe thought of the Morrises' son. 

"If he did, " Lee dryly added; "he will very soon get over it; Ira won'tlove you conspicuously. "

"Why--why that never entered my head, " Mina was startled; "but, yes, how could he? And I can't bear to have anyone, the most insignificantperson alive, hate me. It makes me too wretched to sleep. They willhave to understand, be generous; I'll explain so it is entirely clearto them. " Her voice bore an actual note of fear, her delicate lipstrembled uncontrollably. 

"You can't blame them, Ira and his mother, if they refuse to listen. Eastlake as a town will dispense with you; and Claire's family--it isreally quite notable--will have their say wherever they live, inCharleston and London and Spain. When Ira is grown up and, in his turn, has children, they will be very bitter about your memory. However, publicly, I suppose it will do you more good than harm. The publicloves such scandal; but, with that advertisement, the other willcontinue. It isn't logical, I'll admit; except for Claire I shouldsupport you. That is where, and only where, I am dragged into yourprivacy. And, too, for your sake, it would have been better if you hadhit on a different sort of man, one without the background of suchstubborn traditions. You will have to fight them both in him--wherethey, too, may come to blame you--and about you. There is a strain ofnarrow intolerance through all that blood. "

 * * * * *

Mina Raff's eyes fluttered like two clear brown butterflies which, preparing to settle, had been rudely disturbed. Then her mouth wascompressed, it grew firm and firmer, obdurate; as though an internalstruggle, evident in her tense immobility, had been decided againstwhat was being powerfully urged upon her. A conviction that here, too, finally, he had failed, was in possession of Lee Randon, when he sawthe determination drain from her face: it assumed a child's expressionof unreasoning primitive dread. She drew a hand across her forehead. 

"I shall have to think, " she told him; "I am very much upset. It makesme cold, what you said. Why did you come to New York and talk to melike this? Oh, I wish Peyton were here; he'd answer you; he isn't acoward like me. "

"Since you are so tired, and I've been so very objectionable, I thinkperhaps you had better go back to your hotel, " Lee proposed. "It'safter ten. " She rose immediately, but had to remain until the waiterwas summoned with their account. In her limousine she seemed smaller, more lost in her fate and money, than before. She resembled a crushedand lovely flower; and Lee reflected that it was a shame no one wasthere to revive her. Mina Raff, at the Plaza, insisted, holding hishand in a mingled thoughtfulness and pictorial misery, on sending himto the Groves'; and his last glimpse of her, over his shoulder, was ofa slight figure hurled into upper expensive mansions by an expresselevator. 

A car not the Groves' was outside their house; and, as Lee was passingthe drawing-room doors, William Grove called him in. He found there aDr. Davencott and his wife, obviously on terms of close intimacy withthe house. The physician was a thickly-built man with an abrupt mannercontinually employed in sallies of a vigorous but not unkindly humor. Lee gathered that his practice was large and select; and he quickly sawthe reason, the explanation, of this: Dr. Davencott had carried thetonic impatience of earlier years among inconsequential people into asphere where bullying was a novelty with a direct traceable salutaryeffect. But whatever harshness was visible in him was tempered by hiswife, who was New England, Boston itself, at its best. She had a gravecharm, a wit, rather than humor, which irradiated her seriousness, andgave even her tentative remarks an air of valuable finality. 

To this Mrs. Grove contributed little. She practically avoided speakingto Lee Randon; and he was certain that she was, cheaply andinexcusably, offended at him. Then, in moving, her gaze caught his, their eyes held fixed; and, as he looked, the expression he had seen onher face that afternoon in the library, drawn and white with staringblack eyes, came upon her. It amazed him so much that he, too, satregarding her in an intentness which took no account of the others. Oneof Mrs. Grove's hands, half hidden in green tulle, was clenched. Shebreathed in an audible sigh and, with what appeared to be a wrenchingeffort, turned from him to the general conversation. 

Lee Randon, losing his first impression of her attitude, was totallyunable to comprehend the more difficult state that had its place. Apossible explanation he dismissed before it had crystallized intothought. At the same time, the restlessness which had left him for thepast twenty-four hours returned, more insistent than ever. He felt thatit would be impossible to remain seated, calmly talking, for anotherminute. The conversation of the Davencotts that had so engaged him nowonly sounded like a senseless clatter of words and unendurablelaughter. He wished they would go; that all of them except Savina Grovewould vanish; but why he wanted her to stay, why he wished to be alonewith her, and what, in such a circumstance, he would say, were allmysteries. Lee determined to rise and make his bow, to escape; he wasaware of an indefinable oppression, like that he had often experiencedduring a heavy electric storm; he had the absurd illusion that a boltof lightning.... Lee Randon didn't stir: he sat listening with a setsmile, automatic small speech, and a heart with an unsteady risingpound. 

The Doctor's stories, he thought, went on unsupportably; his wife waswise, correct, just, to a hair's breadth. Good God, when would they go?Now--there was a break in the conversation--he would rise and say good-night. Probably they wanted to discuss things more personal than hispresence allowed and were waiting for just that. He was aware that Mrs. Grove's gaze, as though against her resolute effort, was moving towardhim; but, quite desperately, he avoided it; he gazed up at a chandelierof glittering and coruscating glass and down at a smooth carpet withChinese ideographs on a light background. He heard the flexiblevibration of the pleasure traffic on Fifth Avenue; and, perhaps becauseit was so different, it reminded him of the ringing milk cans in theearly morning by his house. 

Lee Randon made a sharp effort to rouse himself from what threatened tobe a stupor faintly lurid with conceptions of insanity; and the resultof this mental drawing himself erect was even more startling, moredisconcerting, than his previous condition. It came from therealization that what animated Mrs. Grove was passion. This wasincredible, but it was true; he had never before seen, nor imagined, such an instant sultry storm of emotions held precariously in check. Beyond measure it surprised and baffled and agitated him. He understoodnow that sense of impending lightning; and, at the same time, he had asense that a peremptory brass gong had been struck beside him, and thathe was deafened by the reverberations. Mrs. Grove's still pallid face, her contained, almost precise, manner, took on a new meaning--he sawthem, fantastically, as a volcanic crust that, under observation, hadhardened against the fire within. Then he was at a loss to grasp whyhe, Lee Randon, was permitted to see so much. 

His thoughts returned to himself--the voices of the Davencotts, ofWilliam Loyd Grove, echoed from a distance on his hearing--and he triedto re-arrange his bearing toward his unsought discovery: this was ofenormous importance. He must at once regulate his approach to Mrs. Grove, get himself firmly in hand; the situation, for him particularly, had far-reaching unpredictable possibilities. For all her exactness, Savina Grove had a very exclusive and definite attractiveness; and, faced by such a dilemma, Lee had the best of reasons for doubting theultimate regularity of his response. 

But he was, he thought, mentally halting, racing absurdly tounjustified conclusions; nothing, naturally, disturbing would arise;but that assurance, the heights of reason, soon faded. There could beno doubt of the cause of Mrs. Grove's blanched staring: just as therewas no evasion of the danger created by no more than his scantrecognition. Passion discovered was a thousand diameters increased;mutually admitted, it swept aside all opposition. Lee Randon, however, had no intention of involving himself there while, ironically, he wasengaged in securing for Claire Morris her husband; he didn't propose tocompromise his ease of mind with William Grove's wife. There was, aswell, the chance that she was a little unbalanced; progressing, hemight involve himself in a regrettable, a tragic, fix. He would notprogress, that was all there was to that! Lee felt better, freeralready, at this resolution; he wasn't, he protested inwardly, aseducer of women; the end itself, the consummation, of seduction, waswithout tyrannical power over him. Lee wasn't materially, patiently, sensual in that uncomplicated manner. No, his restlessness was moremysterious, situated deeper, than that; it wasn't so readily satisfied, drugged, dismissed. The fact struck him that it had little or no animalurgency; and in this, it might be, he was less lucky than unlucky. 

Mrs. Davencott rose and resumed her wrap, retained with her on the backof the chair. Lee met the pleasant decisiveness of her capable hand, the doctor grasped his fingers with a robust witticism; and he wasreplying to the Davencotts' geniality when he had a glimpse of Mrs. Grove's face turned slightly from him: the curve of her cheek met thepointed chin and the graceful contour of her exposed long throat; therewas the shadow of a tormenting smile on the pale vermilion of her lips, in her half closed eyes; her hair, in that light, was black. Asensation of coldness, a spiritual shiver, went through Lee Randon; theresemblance that had eluded him was mercilessly clear--it was to thedoll, to Cytherea. 

 * * * * *

When Dr. Davencott and his wife had gone Lee sank back into his chair, more disorganized by his culminating discovery than by any of theextraordinary conditions that had preceded it. Its quality of theunexpected, however, wasn't enough to account for the profound effecton him; that was buried in the secret of instinctive recognitions. "Well, the thing for me to do is to go to bed, " he said aloud, but itwas no more than an unconvinced mutter, addressed to the indeterminateregion of his feet. Savina Grove was standing by the door, in theplace, the position, in which she had said good-bye to the Davencotts. Her flamboyant tulle skirt, contrasted with the tightly-fitting upperpart of her dress, gave her, now, in the sombre crowded furnishings, the rich draped brocades, of the room, an aspect of mid-Victorianunreality. 

"It is for me, as well, " she agreed, but so long after he had spokenthat the connection between their remarks was almost lost. However, neither of them made a movement to leave the drawing-room, Savina Grovereturned slowly to her chair. "No one, I think, has ever found it outlike that. " Her remark was without intelligible preliminary, but hegrasped her meaning at once. "How you happened to stir it in me I haveno idea--" she stopped and looked at him intently. "A terribleaccident! I would have done anything, gone any distance, to avoid it. Iam unable, with you, to pretend--that's curious--and that in itselfgives me a feeling of helplessness. All sorts of impossible things arecoming into my head to say to you. I mustn't. " Her voice was brittle. 

"There is no need for you to say what would make you miserable, " hereplied. "I am not in a position to question you; at the same time Ican't pretend--perhaps the safest thing of all--not to understand what, entirely against your will, I've seen. I am very much, very naturally, disturbed by it; but you have nothing to worry about. "

"You say that because you don't know, you can't possibly think, whatgoes on here, " she pressed a hand to her breast. "Why, " her words wereblurred in a mounting panic, "I have lost my sense of shame with you. It's gone. " She gazed despairingly around as if she expected to seethat restraining quality embodied and recoverable in the propriety ofthe room. "I'm frightened, " she gasped. Lee rose instinctively, andmoved toward her with a gesture of reassurance, but she cried, "Don't!don't! don't!" three times with an increasing dread. He went back tohis chair. 

"Now I have to--I want to--tell you about it, " she went on rapidly; "ithas always been in me as long as I can remember, when I was hardly morethan a child sitting alone; and I have always been afraid and ashamed. The, nicest thing to call it is feeling; but in such an insane degree;at night it comes over me in waves, like a warm sea. I wanted andwanted love. But not in the little amounts that satisfied the others--the men and girls together. I couldn't do any of the small things theydid with safety: this--this feeling would sweep up over me and I'dthink I was going to die. 

"All that I had inherited and been told made me sure that I washorridly immodest; I wouldn't, if it could be helped at all, let anyonesee inside me; I couldn't have men touch me; and whenever I began tolike one I ran. It was disgusting, I was brought up to believe; Ithought there was something wrong with me, that I was a bad girl; and Istruggled, oh, for days on end, to keep it hidden. "

It was strange, Lee told himself, that marriage, the birth of her son, hadn't made her more happily normal; and, as if she had perceived histhoughts, she added, "Even from William. It would have shocked him, sickened him, really, more than the rest. He had to dominate me, bemasculine, and I had to be modest, pursued--when I could have killedhim. " Her emotion swept her to her feet. "But I was, he thought, proper; although it tore and beat and pounded me till I was more oftenill than not. Young William nearly grew up and, because of him, I wassure I had controlled it; but he was killed. Still, in five or sixyears it would be over; and now you, I--"

"Nothing has happened, " he heavily reiterated; "nothing has or canhappen. We are neither of us completely young; and, as you say, in afew years all will be over, solved. We are both, it seems, happilymarried. " She interrupted him to cry, "Is anyone happily married? Don'twe fool ourselves and doesn't life fool us?"

"It's the best course in a bad affair. "

"Bah!" She was infuriated at him. "You are like the others--worms inchestnuts. It is bad because you are contented. I hate life as much asyou do, far more; but I am not satisfied; how could anyone be?"

He, too, had risen, and stood close before her. "Don't make a mistakeabout me, " he warned her; "there are a great many men whom it would besafer to tell this to. If I haven't had such a sharp struggle as you, I've been wondering--yes, when I should have been happiest--about theuselessness of most of living. I'm not safe at all. "

"I don't want to be safe, " she whispered. 

With an involuntary and brutal movement he took her in his arms andkissed her with a flame-like and intolerable passion. She made noeffort to avoid him, but met his embrace with an intensity thatrivalled his own. When he released her she wavered and half fell on achair across the low back of which her arm hung supinely. Thelightning, he thought, had struck him. Winding in and through hissurging, tempestuous emotion was an objective realization of what washappening to him: this wasn't a comfortable, superficially sensualaffair such as he had had with Anette. He had seen, in steel mills, great shops with perspectives of tremendous irresistible machines, andnow he had the sensation of having been thrown, whirling, among them. 

Savina's head went so far back that her throat was strained in a whitebow. He kissed her again, with his hands crushing the cool metallicfilaments of the artificial flowers on her shoulders. She exclaimed, "Oh!" in a small startled unfamiliar voice. This would not do, he toldhimself deliberately, with a separate emphasis on each word. WilliamGrove might conceivably come in at any moment; and there was no hope, no possibility, of his wife quickly regaining her balance; she was asshattered, as limply weak, as though she were in a faint. "Savina, " hesaid, using for the first time that name, "you must get yourselftogether; I can't have you exposed like this to accident. "

She smiled wanly, in response, and then sat upright moving her body, her arms, with an air of insuperable weariness. Her expression wasdazed; but, instinctively, she rearranged her slightly disordered hair. 

"We must find out what has happened to us, " he went on, speaking withdifficulty out of the turmoil of his being. "We are not young, " herepeated stupidly; "and not foolish. We won't let ourselves be carriedaway beyond--beyond return. "

"You are so wise, " she assented, with an entire honesty of intention;but her phrase mocked him ferociously. 

The tide of his own emotion was gathering around him with the force ofa sea like that of which she had already, vividly, spoken. There wasdamned little of what could be recognized as admissible wisdom in him. Instead of that he was being inundated by a recklessness of desire thatreached Savina's desperate indifference to what, however threatening, might overtake her. He couldn't, he hadn't the inclination to, do less. Reaching up, she drew her fingers down his sleeves until they rested inhis gripping hands. Her palms clung to his, and then she broke awayfrom him:

"I want to be outraged!" Her low ringing cry seemed suppressed, deadened, as though the damask and florid gilt and rosewood, nowinexpressibly shocked, had combined to muffle the expression, theagony, of her body. Even Lee Randon was appalled before the nakednessleft by the tearing away of everything imposed upon her. She shouldhave said that, he realized, unutterably sad, long ago, to WilliamGrove. But, instead, she had told him; and, whatever the consequencesmight be, he must meet them. He had searched for this, for the potencyin which lay the meaning of Cytherea, and he had found it. He hadlooked for trouble, and it was his in the realization alone that hecould not, now, go home tomorrow morning. 

 * * * * *

In his room the tropical fruits and whiskey and cigarettes were by hisbed, the percolator ready for morning; and, stopping in hispreparations for the night, he mixed himself a drink and sat moodilyover it. What had happened downstairs seemed, more than anything else, astounding; Mrs. Grove, Savina, had bewildered him with the power, thebitterness, of her feeling. At the thought of her shaken withpassionate emotion his own nerves responded and the racing of his bloodwas audible in his head. What had happened he didn't regret; dwellingon it, the memory was almost as sharply pleasant as the reality; yet hewasn't concerned with the present, but of the future--tomorrow. 

He should, probably, get home late in the afternoon or in the evening;and what he told himself was that he wouldn't come back to the Groves, to Savina. The risk, the folly, was too great. Recalling hisconclusions about the attachments of men of his age, he had no illusionabout the possibly ideal character of an intimacy with William Grove'swife; she, as well, had illuminated that beyond any obscurity of motiveor ultimate result. Lee's mind shifted to a speculation about the causeof their--their accident. No conscious act, no desire, of his hadbrought it on them; and it was evident that no conscious wish of hershad materialized their unrestrainable kisses. Savina's life, beyondquestion, must have been largely spent in hiding, combatting, hersecret--the fact that her emotion was too great for life. 

However, Lee Randon didn't try to tell himself that no other man hadshared his discovery; indeed, Savina, too, had wisely avoided thatchallenge to his experience and wisdom. Like her he deliberately turnedaway from the past; and, in the natural chemistry of that act, theprovision for his masculine egotism, it was dissolved into nothingness. He was concentrated on the incident in the library: dancing with her, he had held her in a far greater, a prolonged, intimacy of contact;something in the moment, a surprising of her defences, a slightweariness in a struggle which must often seem to her unendurable, hadbetrayed her. Nothing, then, than what had occurred, could have beenfarther from his mind; he had never connected Mrs. Grove with such apossibility; she hadn't, the truth was, at first attracted him in thatway. Now he thought that he had been blind to have missed herresemblance to Cytherea. She was Cytherea! This, in a measure, accounted for him, since, with so much to consider, he badly needed anaccounting. It wasn't simply, here, that he had kissed a married woman;there was nothing revolutionary or specially threatening in that; itwas the sensation of danger, of lightning, the recognition of thatprofoundly disturbing countenance, which filled him with gravity and adetermined plan of restraint. 

He recalled the fact that both Peyton Morris and Mina had insisted thatthey had not been responsible for what had overtaken them; at the timehe had not credited this, he was certain that some significantpreliminaries had been indulged in; but positively Savina and he hadbeen swept off their feet. A sense of helplessness, of the extremedanger of existence, permeated and weakened his opposing determination--he had no choice, no freedom of will; nothing august, in him oroutside, had come to his assistance. In addition to this, he was--as inmaturity he had always been--without a convenient recognition of rightand wrong. What he principally felt about Savina was a helpless senseof tragedy, that and a hatred for the world, for the tepid society, which had no use for high passion. 

To have kissed her, under the circumstances, appeared to him not onlynatural, but inevitable; and he was suffering from no feeling of guilt;neither toward William Grove, in whose house he was a guest, nor toFanny--those widely heralded attitudes were largely a part of a publichypocrisy which had no place in the attempted honesty of his thoughts. Lee was merely mapping out a course in the direction of worldly wisdom. Then, inconsistently leaving that promise of security, he reviewedevery moment, every thrilling breath, with Savina Grove after theDavencotts had gone: he felt, in exact warm similitude, her bodypressed against his, her parted lips; he heard the little escaping"Ah!" of her fervor. 

He put his glass down abruptly and tramped from wall to wall, hisunbuttoned silk waistcoat swinging about his arms. Lee Randon nowcursed himself, he cursed Savina, but most of all he cursed WilliamGrove, sleeping in complacent ignorance beside his wife. Hisimagination, aroused and then defrauded, became violent, wilfullyobscene, and his profanity emerged from thought to rasping sound. Hisforehead, he discovered, was wet, and he dropped once more into thechair by the laden tray, took a deep drink from a fresh concoction. "This won't do, " he said; "it's crazy. " And he resumed the comfortingrelief that tomorrow would be different: he'd say good-bye to theGroves together and, in four hours, he'd be back in Eastlake. Thechildren, if he took a late train, would be in bed, and Fanny, with herfeet on the stool, engaged with her fancy work. 

Then his revolving thoughts took him back to the unanswered mystery ofwhat, actually, had happened to Savina and him. He lost her forCytherea, he lost Cytherea in her; the two, the immobile doll and thewoman torn with vitality, merged to confound him. In the considerationof Savina and himself, he discovered that they, too, were alike; yet, while he had looked for a beauty, a quality, without a name, asubstance, Savina wanted a reality every particle of which she hadexperienced and achingly knew. He, more or less, was troubled by avision, but her necessity was recognizable in flesh. There, it might beagain, she was more fortunate, stronger, superior. It didn't matter. 

No inclination to sleep drugged the activity of his mind or promisedhim the release, the medicine, of a temporary oblivion. He had arecurrence of the rebellious spirit, in which he wondered if Grove didsleep in the same room with Savina. And then increasingly he got whathe called a hold on himself. All that troubled him seemed to lift, tomelt into a state where the hopeless was irradiated with tendermemories. His mood changed to a pervasive melancholy in which herecalled the lost possibilities of his early ambitions, the ambitionsthat, without form or encouragement, had gone down before definitedevelopments. When he spoke of these, tentatively, to Fanny, she alwaysreplied serenely that she was thankful for him as he was, she would nothave liked him to be anything queer. 

But if he had met Savina first, and married her, his career would havebeen something else entirely; now, probably--so fiercely their combinedflame would have burned--it would be over. However, during its course--he drew in a long audible breath. It was no good thinking of that! Hecompleted his preparations for the night; but he still lingered, someof the drink remained. Lee was glad that he had grown quieter, reflective, middle-aged; it was absurd, undignified, for him to imitatethe transports of the young. It pleased him, though, to realize that hewasn't done, extinguished, yet; he might play court tennis--it wasn'tas violent as racquets or squash--and get back a little of his lapsedagility; better still, he'd ride more, take three days a week, he couldwell afford to, instead of only Saturday and holidays in the country. 

It was a mistake to disparage continually the life, the pleasures andfriends, he had--the friends he had gathered through long arduous yearsof effort. He must grow more familiar with Helena and Gregory, too; noone had handsomer or finer children. And there was Fanny--for onefriend of his she had ten; she was universally liked and admired. Leewas, at last, in bed; but sleep continued to evade him. He didn't fallasleep, but sank into a waking dose; his mind was clear, but notgoverned by his conscious will; it seemed to him that there was noSavina Grove, but only Cytherea; her smile, her fascination, everywherefollowed him. A damned funny business, life! At times its secret, themeaning of love, was almost clear, and then, about to be freed byknowledge, his thoughts would break, grow confused, and leave him stillbaffled. 

Lee Randon was startled to find the brightness of morning penetratinghis eyes; ready for his bath, with the percolator choking and bubblingin the next room, he rehearsed, reaffirmed, all that he had decided thenight before. No one was with him at the breakfast table elaborate withrepousse silver and embroidered linen and iced fruit; but, returningupstairs, he saw Savina in her biscuit-colored suit in the library. "William had to go to Washington, " she told him; "he left his regrets. "She was, Lee perceived, almost haggard, with restless hands; but shedidn't avoid his gaze. She stood by the table, one hand, gloved, slightly behind her on it. Bending forward he kissed her more intently, more passionately, more wholly, than ever before. 

 * * * * *

"I hadn't meant to do that, " he said; but his speech was onlymechanical, as though, when he had once made it up, it dischargeditself, in a condition where it was no longer valid, in spite of him. Savina replied with a silent smile. Her drawn appearance had gone; shewas animated, sparkling, with vitality; even her body seemed fuller. 

"We shall have a long unbroken day together, " she told him; "I have togo out for an hour, and then it will begin, here, I think, with lunch. "

"I ought to be back in Eastlake, " he confessed. 

"Don't think of that till it comes. Eastlake has had you a long time, compared with a day. But there are days and days. " They kissed eachother. "I'll go now. " She kissed Lee. "Lunch will be at two. " He kissedher. He didn't leave the library until a maid announced that lunch wasready and the fact of her return. At the table they spoke but little;Lee Randon was enveloped in a luxurious feeling--where Savina wasconcerned--of security; there was no need to hurry; the day lengthenedout into the night and an infinity of happy minutes and opportunities. They discussed, however, what to do with it. 

"I'd like to go out to dinner, " she decided; "and then a theatre, butnothing more serious than a spectacle: any one of the Follies. I amsick of Carnegie Hall and pianists and William's solemn box at theOpera; and afterwards we'll go back to that café and drink champagneand dance. "

That, he declared, with a small inner sinking at the thought of Fanny, would be splendid. "And this afternoon--?"

"We'll be together. "

They returned to the library--more secluded from servants and callersthan the rooms on the lower floor--where, at one end of the massivelounge, they smoked and Savina talked. "I hardly went to sleep at all, "she admitted; "I thought of you every second. Do you think your wifewould like me?" She asked the vain question which no woman in hersituation seemed able to avoid. 

"Of course, " he lied heroically. 

"I want her to, although I can't, somehow, connect you with her; Ican't see you married. No doubt because I don't want to; it makes mewretched. " She half turned in his arms, pressed hard against him, andplunged her gaze into his. 

"It often seems strange to me, " he admitted, caught in the three-folddifficulty of the truth, his feeling for her, and a complete nicenessin whatever touched Fanny. He attempted to explain. "Everything aboutmy home is perfect, but, at times, and I can't make out why, it doesn'tseem mine. It might, from the way I feel, belong to another man--thehouse and Fanny and the children. I stand in it all as though I hadsuddenly waked from a dream, as though what were around me had lastedsomehow from the dream into life. " He repeated to her the process ofhis thoughts, feelings, at once so familiar and inexplicable. 

She wasn't, he found, deeply interested in his explanation; she wascareless of anything but the immediate present. Savina never mentionedWilliam Grove. Animated by countless tender inventive expressions ofher passion, she gave the impression of listening to the inflections ofhis voice rather than attending, considering, its meanings. She wasmore fully surrendered to the situation than he. The disorganizedfragments of a hundred ideas and hints poured in rapid succession, backof his dominating emotion, through Lee's brain. He lost himself only inwaves--the similitude to the sea persisted--regular, obliterating, butseparate. Savina was far out in a tideless deep that swept the solidityof no land. 

She was plastically what he willed; blurred, drunk, with sensation, shesat clasping rigidly the edge of his coat. But his will, he discovered, was limited: the surges of physical desire, rising and inundating, saturating him, broke continually and left him with the partly-formedwhirling ideas. He named, to himself, the thing that hung over them; heconsidered it and put it away; he deferred the finality of theiremotion. In this he was inferior, he became even slightly ridiculous--they couldn't continue kissing each other with the same emphasis hourafter hour, and the emphasis could not be indefinitely multiplied;rather than meet the crescendo he drew into his region of centalobscurity. 

Lee had to do this, he reminded himself, in view of Savina's uttersurrender: he was responsible for whatever happened. Even here hisinfernal queerness--that the possession of the flesh wasn't whatprimarily moved him--was pursuing him: a peculiarity, he came to think, dangerously approaching the abnormal. In addition to that, however, hewas not ready, prepared, to involve his future; for that, with SavinaGrove, was most probable to follow. Fanny was by no means absent fromhis mind, his wife and certain practical realities. And, as he had toldhimself before, he was not a seducer. What adventures he had acceptedhad been the minor experiments of his restlessness, and they all endedin the manner that had finished him with Anette, in dissatisfaction anda sense of waste. 

Savina stirred and sighed. "I must ring for tea, " she said regretfully;and, while the servant arranged the pots and decanters and pitchers, the napkins and filled dishes, Lee paced up and down, smoking. Whenthey were again alone her fingers stole under his arm:

"I adore you for--for everything. " She had evaded the purpose of herspeech. He wondered, with the exasperation of his over-wrought physicalsuspense, if she did. His ravishment had suffered a sharp naturaldecline reflected in a mental gloom. For the moment he desired nothing, valued nothing. And, in this mood, he became talkative; he poured astorm of pessimistic observation over Savina; and she listened with arapt, transported, attention. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, in a silence coincident with dusk. The room slowly lost its sombrecolor and the sense of the confining walls; it became grey andapparently limitless; as monotonous, Lee Randon thought, as life. Hewas disturbed by a new feeling: that perversely, trivially, he hadspoiled what should have been a priceless afternoon. It would nevercome back; what a fool he had been to waste in aimless talk any of thefew hours which together they owned. 

He whispered this to Savina, in his arms; but she would permit nocriticism of him. It was time, she discovered, for them to dress fortheir party: "I don't want you to go. Why can't you be with me? Butthen, the servants! Lee, I am going to die when you leave. Tell me, howcan I live, what am I to do, without you?" Since no satisfactory replyto that was possible, he stopped her troubled voice with a kiss. It wasremarkable how many they had exchanged. 

He had the feeling, the hope, that, with nothing irrevocableconsummated, their parting would be easier; but he began to lose thatcomfortable assurance. Again in his room, in the heavy choking folds ofvelvet draperies, he was grave; the mere excitation of the night beforehad gone. What was this, he asked himself, that he had got into? Whathad Cytherea to do with it? Ungallantly the majority of his thoughtswere engaged with the possibility, the absolute necessity, of escape. By God, he must get out of it, or rather, get it out of him! But itwasn't too late; he could even finish the day, this delight, withsafety. Savina would recover--she had already thanked him for his self-control. 

It was fortunate that she was a woman of distinction, ofresponsibilities, with a delicate habit of mind; another might havebrought disaster, followed him to Eastlake. He recalled a story ofGeorge Sand tearing off her bodice before the house of a man she loved. Yet... Why hadn't he gone quietly away, early in the morning, beforeSavina was up? He was appalled at the depths to which he had fallen, the ignominious appearance that interrogated him from the pier-glass;Lee saw himself in the light of a coward--a cheap, safe sensation-maker. Nothing was more contemptible. Damn it to hell, what was he?Where was he? Either he ought to go home or not, and the not carriedthe fullest possible significance. But he didn't want to do one or theother--he wanted Cytherea, or Savina, on some absurd impracticableplane, and Fanny too. Why couldn't he go home when home was uppermostin his thoughts and do something else when it wasn't? Did the fact thatFanny might happen to want him annul all his liberty in living; or, inplace of that, were they, in spirit and body, one?

 * * * * *

It was inevitable to the vacillating state of his being that, findingSavina in an exceptionally engaging black dress with floating sleevesof sheer lace and a string of rare pearls, he should forget all hisdoubts in the pleasure of their intimacy. Even now, in response to hisgaze, her face lost its usual composure and became pinched, stricken, with feeling. Lee Randon was possessed by a recklessness that hardenedhim to everything but the present moment: such times were few inexistence, hours of vivid living which alone made the dull weight ofyears supportable. This belonged to Savina and him; they wereaccountable only to each other. It was a sensation like the fortunateand exhilarating effect of exactly the right amount of wine. Theemotion that flooded them had freed Lee from responsibility; sharpeningone set of perceptions, it had obliterated the others, creating aspirit of holiday from which nothing prosaic, utilitarian, shoulddetract. 

They hadn't yet decided where to go for dinner; and, drawing aside intoa small reception room to embrace and consider, they selected theLafayette, because its Continental air assisted the illusion of theirescape from all that was familiar and perfunctory. Their table, by arailing overlooking the sweep of the salle à manger, was preciselyplaced for their happiness. It was so narrow that the heels of Savina'sslippers were sharply pressed into his insteps; when her hand fellforward it rested on his. Lee ordered a great deal, of which verylittle was eaten; the hors d'oeuvre appeared and vanished, followed bythe soup and an entrée; a casserole spread the savory odor of itscontents between them; the salad was crisply, palely green, andignored; and, before it seemed humanly possible, he had his cigar andwas stirring the French coffee. 

"Shall we be late for the theatre?" he asked indifferently. 

"I haven't the least interest in it, " Savina assured him; "I can'timagine why we bought the seats. Why did we, Lee, when we have eachother?"

"Our own private Folly. " He smiled at her. 

"Not that" she reproved him; "I can't bear to think of it in a smallway. Why, it will be all I'll ever have--I shall never think of anyoneelse like this again; and you'll go back, you'll go away. But I hopeyou won't forget me, not at once--you must keep me in your heart for alittle. "

"I'll never be able to get you out, " he declared. 

"You want to, then, and I am--" She lost control of herself as thoughshe had passed into a hypnosis, uniquely frozen with passion, incapableof movement, of the accommodation of her sight; her breathing was slow, almost imperceptible in its shallowness. "I am a part of you, " Savinawent on when she had recovered. "It would kill me if I weren't. But itdoes mean something. " Her heel cut until he thought he was bleeding. 

"What?" he asked, through the thin azure smoke of the cigar. She shookher head contentedly:

"I don't care; I have--now, anyway--what I wish, what I've alwayswished for--you. I didn't know it was you right away, how could I? Noteven when we had tea, and talked about Mina and your young Morris, thatfirst afternoon. It was the next day before I understood. Why wasn't itlong long ago, when I was a girl, twelve years old? Yes, quite thatearly. Isn't it queer, Lee, how I have been troubled by love? Itbothers hardly anyone else, it scarcely touches the rest. There is alot of talk about it, but, all the while, people detest it. They arealways wearing dresses and pretentions they can't afford to havemussed. It--I am still talking of love, Lee darling--breaks up theirsilly society and morals ... Like a strong light thrown on somethingshabby. "

Once more he had the feeling that, before the actuality of Savina'stragic necessity, his own speculations were merely visionary, immaterial; yet he tried to put them into words, to explain, so far ashe was able, what it was in him that was hers. But he did thisomitting, perhaps, the foundation of all that he was trying to say--hedidn't speak of Cytherea. He avoided putting the doll into wordsbecause he could think of none that would make his meaning, hisattachment, clear. Lee couldn't, very well, across the remnants ofdinner, admit to Savina that a doll bought out of a confectioner'swindow on Fifth Avenue so deeply influenced him. He hadn't lostCytherea in Savina so much as, vitalized, he had found her. And, whilehe had surrendered completely to the woman and emotion, at the sametime the immaterial aspect of his search, if he could so concretelydefine it, persisted. The difference between Savina and himself wasthis: while she was immersed, obliterated, satisfied, in her passion, apart of him, however small, stayed aside. It didn't control him, butsimply went along, like a diminutive and wondering child he had by thehand. 

Cytherea, at this moment, would be softly illuminated by the shiftingglow of the fire and, remote in her magical perspective, would seem atthe point of moving, of beckoning for him with her lifted hand. 

"What were you seeing in the smoke?" Savina asked; and he replied withan adequate truth, "You. "

"Why not just look at me, then, instead of staring?"

"I see you everywhere. "

"Adorable, " she whispered. 

No such name, no terms of endearment, occurred to him for her; why, hedidn't know; but they had no place in his present situation. He had tothink of Savina as removed from whatever had described and touchedother special women. The words which had always been the indispensableproperty of such affairs were now distasteful to him. They seemed tohave a smoothly false, a brassy, ring; while he was fully, even gaily, committed, he had a necessity to make his relationship with SavinaGrove wholly honest. As he paid the account she asked him if he wererich. 

"Your husband wouldn't think so, " he replied; "yet I am doing wellenough; I can afford dinner and the theatre. "

"I wish you had a very great deal of money. "

"Why?" He gazed at her curiously. 

"It's so useful, " Savina told him generally; but that, he felt, was notcompletely what was in her mind. "What I have, " she went on, "is quiteseparate from William's. It is my mother's estate. "

"My brother, Daniel, has done very well in Cuba, " Lee commented. Savinawas interested:

"I have never been there; cooler climates are supposed to suit my heartbetter; but I know I should love it--the close burning days and intensenights. "

"Daniel tells me there's usually the trade wind at night. " His voicereflected his lack of concern. 

"I have a feeling, " she persisted, "that I am more of Havana than I am, for example, of Islesboro. Something in the tropics and the people, theSpanish! Those dancing girls in gorgeous shawls, they haven't anyclothes underneath; and that nakedness, the violence of their passions, the danger and the knives and the windows with iron bars, stir me. It'sall so different from New York. I want to burn up with a red flower inmy hair and not cool into stagnation. "

They were in her closed automobile, where it was faintly scented byroses yellow and not crimson. She sat upright, withdrawn from him, withher hands clenched in her lap. How she opposed every quality of MinaRaff's; what a contradiction the two women, equally vital, presented. And Fanny, perhaps no less forceful, was still another individual. LeeRandon was appalled at the power lying in the fragile persons of women. It controlled the changeless and fateful elements of life; while thestrength of men, it occurred to him further, was concerned with suchsecondary affairs as individual ambitions and a struggle eternallycondemned to failure. 

Savina relaxed, every instinct and nerve turned toward him, but theywere at the theatre. 

The performance had been on, an usher told them, for almost threequarters of an hour. Their seats were in the fifth row, the middle; andthere was an obscured resentful stirring as they took their places. Plunged into darkness, their hands and shoulders and knees met. Savina, scarcely above her breath, said "Ah!" uncontrollably; she was socharged with emotion that her body seemed to vibrate, a bewilderingwarmness stole through him from her; and once more, finally, he sankinto questionless depths. The brightness of the stage, at first, had nomore form nor meaning than the whirling pattern of a kaleidoscope, against which the people around him were unsubstantial silhouettes, blind to the ardor that merged Savina and him into one sentient formalone in a world of shadows. 

 * * * * *

The spectacle on the stage, Russian in motive, was set in harmonizedbarbaric color--violent movements under a diffused light: in thebackground immobile peasant-like figures held tall many-branchedcandlesticks; there were profane gold mitres, vivid stripes and moroccoleather; cambric chemises slipping from breasts and the revelation ofwhite thighs. It floated, like a vision of men's desire realized inbeautiful and morbid symbols, above the darkened audience; it tookwhat, in the throng, was imperfect, fragmentary, and spent, but stillstrong, brutal, formless, and converted it into a lovely and sterilepantomime. Yet there was no sterility in what had, primarily, animatedit; the change, it seemed, had been from use to ornament, from purposeto a delight with no issue beyond that. Over it there hung, for LeeRandon, the pale radiance of Cytherea. 

Other visions and spectacles followed, they melted one into the next, sensations roused by the flexible plaited thongs of desire. Lee, stupefied in the heavy air of his own sensuality, saw the pictoriallife on the stage as an accompaniment, the visualization, of hisobsession. It was over suddenly, with a massing of form and sound; Leeand Savina Grove were pitilessly drowned in light. Crushed together inthe crowded, slowly emptying aisle, her pliable body, under its wrap, followed his every movement. 

On the street, getting into the automobile, she directed Adamson todrive through the park. "I don't want to go to the Malmaison, " she toldLee. Her ungloved fingers worked a link from his cuff and her handcrept up his arm. The murmur of her voice was ceaseless, like a lowrunning and running over melodious keys. Then, in a tone no louder, butchanged, unexpected, she said:

"Lee, I love you. "

It startled him; its effect was profound--now that it had been said hewas completely delivered to his gathering sense of the inevitable. Itsecured, like a noose, all his intentions; he was neither glad norsorry; what was the use? His own feeling--if this were love and whatlove was--eluded him. Above every other recognition, though, was aconsciousness of impending event. What happened now, in the car rapidlyapproaching Central Park, was unimportant, without power to contain himin its moment. They turned in at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance:through the glass there was a shifting panorama of black branches, deserted walks and benches and secretive water. He saw vaguely theBelvedere, the Esplanade fountain, and the formal length of the Mall, together with--flung against the sky--the multitudinous lighted windowsof Central Park West, the high rippling shimmer of the monumentallifted electric signs on Broadway. Other cars passed, swift andsoundless, he saw their occupants and then they were gone: an aged manwhose grey countenance might have been moulded in sand with a frigidtrained nurse; a couple desperately embracing in a taxi-cab; a knot ofchattering women in dinner dresses and open furs; another alone, painted, at once hard and conciliatory, hurrying to an appointment. 

The tension, his suspense, increased until he thought it must burst outthe windows. Between the shudders and the kissing he kept wonderingwhen.... It was Savina, at the speaking-tube, who commanded theirreturn. They left the Park for Fifth Avenue, Sixty-sixth Street. Leegot out, but she didn't follow. He waited expectantly. The night hadgrown very much colder. Why, in the name of God, didn't she come?

"In a moment" he heard her say faintly. But when she moved it was withdecision; there was no hesitation in her manner of mounting the stonesteps. The maid came forward as they entered, first to help Savina, andthen to take Lee's hat and coat and stick. Savina turned to him, holding out her hand, speaking in a high steady voice:

"Thank you very much--wasn't it nice?--and good-night. " Without anotherword, giving him no opportunity to speak, to reply, she turned neitherhurried nor slow to the stairway. 

He was dumfounded, and showed it, he was sure, in the stupidity of hisfixed gesture of surprise. The emotion choked in his throat was bitterwith a sense of ill-treatment. To cover his confusion, he searchedobviously through his pockets for a cigarette case which he had left, he knew, in his overcoat. Then, when the servant had retired, he softlycursed. However, the bitterness, his anger, were soon lost inbewilderment; that, with the appearance of resolving itself into afurther mystery, carried him up to his room. With a mixed drink on adressing-case, he wandered aimlessly around, his brain occupied withone question, one possibility. 

Piece by piece, at long intervals, he removed his clothes, found hispajamas and dressing-gown, and washed. The drink he discovered lateruntouched and he consumed it almost at a gulp. Lee poured out another, and a third; but they had no effect on him. 

In spite of them he suffered a mild collapse of the nerves; his handswere without feeling, at once like marble and wet with sweat; his heartraced. A pervading weariness and discouragement followed this. He wasin a hellish mess, he told himself fiercely. The bravado of the wordstemporarily gave him more spirit; yet there was nothing he could do butgo to bed. Nothing else had been even hinted at; he turned off thelights and opened the windows. Flares of brightness continued to passbefore his eyes, and, disinclined to the possibilities of sleep, hepropped himself up with an extra pillow. Then, illogically, he wonderedif he had locked the door; at the instant of rising to find out, herestrained himself--if, subconsciously, he had, chance and not he hadworked; for or against him, what did it matter?

He looked at the illuminated dial of his watch; the hands, thenumerals, greenly phosphorescent, were sharp; it was midnight. Afterapparently an interminable wait he looked again--six minutes pasttwelve. The rumble of an elevated train approached, hung about theroom, and receded. Death could be no more dragging than this. Why, then, didn't he fall asleep? Lee went over and over every inflection ofSavina's final words to him; in them he tried, but vainly, to findencouragement, promise, any decision or invitation. What, in the shortpassage from the automobile to the house, could have so wholly changed, frozen, her? Had she, at that late opportunity, remembering thestruggle, the tragic unrelenting need, to keep herself aloof frompassion, once more successfully fled? Was she--he was almost dozing--Cytherea, the unobtainable?

He woke, stirred, convulsively: it was after one o'clock now. Thecraving for a cigarette finally moved him; and, in the dark, he feltaround for those, the Dimitrinos, on the tray. The cigarette at an end, he sank back on the pillows, deciding that he must take the earliesttrain possible toward Eastlake. He had missed a directors' meetingtoday, and there was another tomorrow that he must attend, at hisoffice. Then he grew quieter; the rasping of his nerves ceased; it wasas though, suddenly, they had all been loosened, the strung wiresunturned. What a remarkable adventure he had been through; not a detailof it would ever fade from his memory--a secret alleviation foradvancing old age, impotence. And this, the most romantic occurrence ofhis life, had happened when he was middle-aged, forty-seven and worse, to be exact. He looked again at his watch, but now only from alingering uncertain curiosity. It was five minutes of two. 

The present peace that settled over him seemed the most valuable thinglife had to offer; it was not like the end of effort, but resembled awelcome truce, a rest with his force unimpaired, from which he wouldwake to the tonic winter realities of tomorrow. An early train--

In the act of dropping, half asleep, into the position of slumber, hehalted sharply, propped up on an elbow. A sense invaded him ofsomething unusual, portentous, close by. There wasn't a sound, aflicker of audible movement, a break in the curtain of dark; yet he wasbreathless in a strained oppressive attention. It was impossible to saywhether his disturbance came from within or without, whether it was inhis pounding blood or in the room around him. Then he heard a softthick settling rustle, the sound a fur coat might make falling to thefloor; and, simultaneously, a vague slender whiteness appeared on thenight. A swift conviction fastened on him that here he had beenovertaken by fate; by what, for so long, he had invited. Out of theinsubstantiality a whispering voice spoke to him:

"Lee, where are you? It's so cold. "

IV

Twice, the following day, Lee telephoned to Fanny, but neither time wasshe in the house; and, kept at his office, he was obliged to take aninconvenient train that made a connection for Eastlake. When Leereached the countryside opening in the familiar hilly vistas he had, inplace of the usual calm recognitions through a run of hardly more thanan hour, a sense of having come a long way to a scene from which he hadbeen absent for years. It appeared to him remarkably tranquil and self-contained--safe was the word which came to him. He was glad to bethere, but at indeterminate stations rather than in Eastlake. Hedreaded, for no plainly comprehended reason, his return home. Thefeelings that, historically, he should have owned were all absent. Hadit been possible he would have cancelled the past forty-eight hours;but Lee was forced to admit to himself that he was not invaded by avery lively sense of guilt. He made a conventional effort to see hisact in the light of a grave fault--whatever was attached to the chargeof adultery--but it failed before the conviction that the whole thingwas sad. 

His sorrow was for Savina, for the suffering of her past, the ordeal ofthe present, and the future dreariness. There had been no suggestion ofwrong in her surrender, no perceptible consciousness of shame: it wasexactly as though, struggling to the limit of endurance against apowerful adverse current, she had turned and swept with it. The factwas that the entire situation was utterly different from the generalsocial and moral conception of it; and Lee began to wonder which werestronger--the individual truth or the imposed dogmatic weight of theworld. But the latter, he added, would know nothing of this. Concisely, there was to be no repetition of last night; there would be no affair. 

Lee Randon had completely and sharply focussed the most adversepossible attitude toward that: he saw it without a redeeming featureand bare of any chance of pleasure. His need for honesty, howeverspecial, was outraged on every facet by the thought of an intrigue. Leereconstructed it in every detail--he saw the moments, doubtful andhurried and surreptitious, snatched in William Grove's house; theservants, with their penetration of the tone of an establishment, knowing and insufferable; he lived over the increasing dissatisfactionwith quick embraces in the automobile, and the final indignities oflying names and rooms of pandering and filthy debasement. The almostinevitable exposure followed, the furies and hysterical reproaches. That, indeed, would have involved them fatally: in such circumstancesthe world would be invincible, crushing; holding solidly its frontagainst such dangerous assault, it would have poured over Savina andhim a conviction of sin in which they would unavoidably have perished. 

As it was, he had told her--with, in himself, the feeling of aconsiderable discovery--that they were to a marked degree superior: hecould find no more remorse at his heart than Savina showed. This, exactly, was his inner conviction--that, since he had given somethingnot in Fanny's possession, he had robbed her of nothing. It was a newidea to him and it required careful thought, a slow justification. Itanswered, perhaps, once and for all, his question about the essentialoneness of marriage. Yes, that was a misconception; marriage in anideal state he wasn't considering, but only his own individualposition. To love but one woman through this life and into a next wouldbe blissful ... If it were possible; there might be a great deal saved--but by someone else--in heroically supporting such an Elysian tenet;Lee Randon definitely hadn't the necessary utopianism. 

Love wasn't a sacred fluid held in a single vessel of alabaster;marriage didn't conveniently create shortsightedness. Lee couldn'tpretend to answer all this for women, or even in part for Savina. Herattitude, he knew, in that it never touched the abstract, was farsimpler than his; she didn't regard herself as scarlet, but thought ofthe rest of the world as unendurably drab. The last thing she had saidto him was that she was glad, glad, that it had happened. This, too, inSavina, had preserved them from the slightest suggestion ofinferiority: the night assumed no resemblance to a disgraceful footnoteon the page of righteousness. It was complete--and, by God, admirable!--within itself. No one, practically, would agree with him, and here, inthe fact that no one ever could know, his better wisdom was shown. 

About love, the thing itself, his perceptions remained dim: he hadloved Fanny enormously at the time of their wedding and he loved hernow, so many years after; but his feeling--as he had tried sounfortunately to tell her--wasn't the same, it had grown calm; it hadbecome peaceful, but an old tempestuous need had returned. Yet, untilhe had gone to the Groves', his restlessness had been trivial, hardlymore than academic, a half-smiling interest in a doll; but now, afterhe had left the realm of fancy for an overt act, a full realization ofhis implication was imperative. Without it he would be unable topreserve any satisfactory life with Fanny at all; his uneasiness mustmerely increase, become intolerable. Certainly there was a great, itshould be an inexhaustible, amount of happiness for him in his wife, his children and his home; he would grow old and negative with them, and there die. 

But a lot of mental re-adjustment, understanding, was necessary first. Suddenly the minor adventures and sensations of the past had become, even before the completeness of the affair with Savina, insuperablydistasteful to him; he simply couldn't look forward to a procession ofthem reaching to impotence. No, no, no! That was never Cytherea'simport. He didn't want to impoverish himself by the cheap flinging awayof small coin from his ultimate store. He didn't, equally, wish to keepon exasperating Fanny in small ways. That pettiness was wholly to blamefor what discomfort he had had. His wife's claim was still greater onhim than any other's; and what, now, he couldn't give her must be madeup in different ways. This conviction invested him with a fresh senseof dignity and an increasing regard for Fanny. 

What a shame it was that he could not go quietly to her with all this, tell her everything. A lie was rooted, concealed, beyond removal at thebase of the honesty he planned. There was, of course, this additionalphase of the difficulty--what had happened concerned Savina even morethan it did his wife and him. He had Savina Grove, so entirely in hishands, to guard. And the innate animosity of women toward women wasincalculable. That wasn't a new thought, but it recurred to him withspecial force. As much as he desired it, utter frankness, absolutesafety, was impossible. Fanny's standard of duty, or responsibility, was worlds apart from his. 

Bitterly and without premeditation he cursed the tyranny of sex; incountless forms it dominated, dictated, every aspect of life. Men'sconception of women was quite exclusively founded on it in its aspectsof chastity or license. In the latter they deprecated the former, andin the first they condemned all trace of the latter. The result of thiswas that women, the prostitutes and the mothers alike, as well, had noother validity of judgment. The present marriage was hardly more thanan exchange of the violation of innocence, or of acted innocence, foran adequate material consideration. If this were not true, why wasinnocence--a silly fact in itself--so insisted upon? Lee was forced toconclude however, that it was the fault of men: they turned, at anadvancing age when it was possible to gather a comfortable competence, to the young. By that time their emotions were apt to be almostdesperately variable. 

In his case it had been different--but life was different, easier, whenhe had married--and his wedding most appropriate to felicity. Yet that, against every apparent reason to the contrary, had vanished, and lefthim this calm determining of his fate. Through his thoughts a quirk ofmemory ran like a tongue of flame. He felt Savina's hand under hiscuff; he felt her sliding, with her arms locked about his neck, out ofher furs in the automobile; a white glimmer, a whisper, shematerialized in the coldness of the night. There was a long-drawnwailing blast from the locomotive--they were almost entering the train-shed at Eastlake. When Fanny expected him, and it was possible, she methim at the station; but tonight he would have to depend on one of therattling local motor hacks. Still, he looked for her and was faintlyand unreasonably disappointed at her absence. An uncontrollablenervousness, as he approached his house, invaded the preparation of awarm greeting. 

 * * * * *

Fanny was seated at dinner, and she interrupted her recognition of hisarrival to order his soup brought in. "It's really awfully hard to havethings nice when you come at any time, " she said in the voice ofrestraint which usually mildly irritated him. He was apt to replyshortly, unsympathetically; but, firm in the determination to improvethe tone of his relations with Fanny, he cheerfully met the evidence ofher sense of injury. "Of course, " she added, "we expected you yesterdayup to the very last minute. " When he asked her who exactly she meant bywe she answered, "The Rodmans and John and Alice Luce. It was allarranged for you. Borden Rodman sent us some ducks; I remembered howyou liked them, and I asked the others and cooked them myself. That'smixed, but you know what I mean. I had oysters and the thick tomatosoup with crusts and Brussels sprouts; and I sent to town for thealligator pears and meringue. I suppose it can't be helped, and it'sall over now, but you might have let me know. "

"I am sorry, Fanny, " he acknowledged; "at the last so much piled up todo. Mina Raff was very doubtful. I can't tell if I accomplishedanything with her or not. " Fanny seemed to have lost all interest inPeyton Morris's affair. "I had dinner with Mina and talked a longwhile. At bottom she is sensible enough; and very sensitive. I likesensitive women. "

"You mean that you like other women to be sensitive, " she correctedhim; "whenever I am, you get impatient and say I'm looking fortrouble. "

There was, he replied, a great deal in what she said; and it must beremedied. At this she gazed at him for a speculative second. "Where didyou take Mina Raff to dinner?" she asked; "and what did you doafterward?" He told her. "She was so tired that she went back to thePlaza before ten. No, I returned to the Groves'. It's no good being inNew York alone. We'll have our party together there before Christmas. "

"I imagined you'd see a lot of her. "

"Of Mina Raff? What nonsense! She is working all day and practicallynever goes out. People have such wrong ideas about actresses, or elsethey have changed and the opinions have stood still. They are asbusiness-like now as lawyers; you make an appointment with theirsecretaries. Besides that, Mina doesn't specially attract me. "

"At any rate you call her Mina. "

"Why so I do; I hadn't noticed; but she hasn't started to call me Lee;I must correct her. "

"They played bridge afterward, " Fanny said, referring, he gathered, tothe occasion he had missed. "That is, the Rodmans and the Luces did, and I sat around. People are too selfish for anything!" Her voice grewsharper. "They stayed until after twelve, just because Borden wasnineteen dollars back at one time. And they drank all that was left ofyour special Mount Vernon. It was last night that you were at the St. Regis?"

"No, " he corrected her, "the night before. Last evening I had dinnerwith the Groves. " This was so nearly true that he advanced it withsatisfaction. "Afterward we went to the Greenwich Follies. "

"I don't see how you had to wait, then, " she observed instantly. "Youwere in New York on account of Claire, you stayed three nights, andonly saw Mina Raff once. " He told her briefly that, unexpectedly, morehad turned up. "What did you do the first night?" she persisted. 

"I dragged a cash girl into an opium place on Pell Street. "

"That's not too funny to be borne, " she returned; "and it doesn'taltogether answer my question. "

"We went to Malmaison. "

"We?" she mimicked his earlier query. 

"Oh, the Groves. I like them very much, Fanny--" To her interruptionthat that was evident he paid no attention. "He is an extremely niceman, a little too conscious of his pedestal, but solid and cordial. Mrs. Grove is more unusual; I should say she was a difficult woman todescribe. She dresses beautifully, Paris and the rest of it; but sheisn't a particle good-looking. Not a bit! It's her color, I think. Shehasn't any. Women would fancy her more than men; no one could call herpleasant. "

"You haven't asked about the children. " She had apparently heardnothing of what had gone before. 

"Of course they are all right or you'd have told me. "

"Lee, you astonish me, you really do; at times I think you forget youhave a family. We'll all be dead before you know it. I'm sorry, but youwill have to get into the habit of staying home at least one night aweek. I attend to all I can manage about the place, but there are somethings you must settle. The trouble is I haven't demanded enough fromyou. "

"That's silly, " he responded, almost falling into his discardedirritation; "I practically never go out without you. Unless you arewith me I won't be in New York again for weeks. "

"I should have thought you'd be back at the Groves's tomorrow. It'smore amusing there, I don't doubt; but, after all, you are married tome. "

"Good heavens, Fanny, " he protested, "what is this about? You're reallycutting with the Groves--two excessively nice people who were decent tome. "

"You are such an idiot, " she declared, in a warmer voice. "Can't yousee how disappointed I was? First I had everything laid out on the bed, my best nightgowns and lace stockings, for the trip; then I couldn'tgo; and I arranged the party so carefully for you, Gregory had apractice piece ready for you to hear, and--and nothing. I wonder if anyother man is as selfish as you?'

"Maybe not, " he returned peaceably. "What happened was unavoidable. Itwas a social necessity, decided for me. I couldn't just run into thehouse and out again. But there is no need to explain further. " He leftthe table, for a cigar, and returned. "You have on a new dress!"

"I ought to be complimented, " she admitted, "but I am not; it's onlythe black velvet with the fulness taken out and a new ruffle. Clothesare so expensive that I wanted to save. It isn't French, either. Perhaps you'll remember that you said the new length didn't become me. No, you're not the idiot--I am: I must stop considering and trying toplease you at every turn. I should have gone in and ordered a newdress; any other woman you know would have done that; and, I have nodoubt, would have told you it was old when it wasn't. I wish I didn'tshow that I care so much and kept you guessing. You'd be much moreinterested if you weren't so sure of me. That seems to me queer--loyalty and affection, and racking your brain to make your husbandcomfortable and happy, don't bring you anything. They don't! You'llleave at once for a night in New York or a new face with an impudentbang at the dances. I have always tried to do what I thought was right, but I'm getting discouraged. "

"Don't lose patience with me, " he begged gravely. "If I am worth theeffort to you, Fanny, don't stop. I do the best I can. Coming out inthe train I made up my mind to stop petty quarreling. No, wait--if itis my fault that makes it easy, we're done with it. "

"From the way you talk, " she objected, "anyone would think we didnothing but fight. And that isn't true; we have never had a bit ofserious trouble. " She rose, coming around to him:

"That wasn't a very nice kiss we had when you came in. I was horrid. "

Lee Randon kissed her again. The cool familiarity of her lips wasblurred in the remembered clinging intensity of Savina's mouth. "Lee, dear, blow out the candles; the servants forget, and those bluehandmade ones cost twenty-five cents apiece. " They left the dining-roomwith her arm about him and his hand laid on her shoulder. Lee's feelingwas curious--he recognized Fanny's desirability, he loved her beyondall doubt, and yet physically she had now no perceptible influence onhim. He was even a little embarrassed, awkward, at her embrace; and itscalmly possessive pressure filled him with a restive wish to move away. He repressed this, forced himself to hold her still, repeated silentlyall that she had given him; and she turned a face brilliant with colorto his gaze. Fanny made him bring her stool--how sharply Savina's heelshad dug into him under the table at the Lafayette--and showed him herankles. "You see, I put them on tonight for you. " Her stockings, heassured her, were enchanting. A difficulty that, incredibly, he had notforeseen weighed upon him: the body, where Fanny was concerned, hadgiven place to the intellect; the warmth of his feeling had been putaside for the logic of determination; and he was sick with weariness. In his customary chair, he sank into a heavy brooding lethargy, asilence, in which his hands slowly and stiffly clenched. 

 * * * * *

On the following morning, Sunday, Lee rode with Claire Morris. Fanny, disinclined to activity, stayed by the open fire, with the illustratedsections of the newspapers and her ornamental sewing. Claire was on, atall bright bay always a little ahead of Lee, and he was constantlyurging his horse forward. "Peyton went to the Green Spring Valley for ahunt party last night, " she told him; "he said he'd be back. " Why, then, he almost exclaimed, he, Lee, had been successful with Mina Raff. Instead he said that she would undoubtedly be glad of that. "Oh, yes!But neither of us is very much excited about it just now; he is toomuch like a ball on a rubber string; and if I were a man I'd hate toresemble that. I won't try to hide from you that I've lost something;still, I have him and Mina hasn't. They shouldn't have hesitated, Lee;that was what spoiled it, in the end beat them. It wasn't strong enoughto carry them away and damn the consequences. There is always somethingto admire in that, even if you suffer from it. "

The night had been warm, and the road, the footing, was treacherouswith loosened stones and mud. The horses, mounting a hill, picked theirway carefully; and Lee Randon gazed over his shoulder into the valleybelow. He saw it through a screen of bare wet maple branches--adripping brown meadow lightly wreathed in blue mist, sedgy undergrowthalong water and the further ranges of hills merged in shifting clouds. A shaft of sunlight, pale and without warmth, illuminated with itsemphasis an undistinguished and barren spot. On the meadows sloping tothe south there were indefinite spaces of green. Claire was heedless oftheir surroundings. 

"What does surprise and disturb me, " she continued vigorously, "is thatI haven't any sympathy for him. That is gone too; I only have a feelingthat he bitched it. As you may observe, Lee, I am not at all admirablethis morning: a figure of inconsistency. And the reason will amaze you--I've rather come to envy what they might have had. I am afraid that ifthe positions of Mina and me had been reversed I wouldn't have seen youin New York. I found that out last night when I knew Peyton wasn'tgoing. What he said over and over was that everything could be just asit was. " She laughed, riding easily, subconsciously, on the snafflerein. "Peyton's simplicity is marvelous. In a year, or maybe less, hewill be quite the same as always. I had nothing to do with it; Peytonand Mina will go on as fresh as daisies; yet only I'll be damaged or, anyway, changed. What shall I do about it?" she demanded of Lee Randon, so sharply that her horse shied. 

"About what?" he returned. "My senses are so dulled by your ingratitudethat I can't gather what you mean. "

"Well, here I am--a girl with her head turned by a glimpse at a mostromantic play, by cakes and champagne cup, and then sent home to breadwithout jam. Since I've known of this it has taken most of the colorout of everyday things, they are like a tub-full of limp rags with thedye run from them. I want Peyton, yes, I love him; but what I thoughtwould satisfy me doesn't. I want more! I am very serious about theromantic play--it is exactly what I mean. I had read about greatemotions, seen them since I was a child at the opera, and there was theMadrid affair; but that was so far away, and I never thought of theothers as real; I never understood that people really had them, inEastlake as well as Spain, until I watched Peyton miss his. And then itcame over me in a flash what life could be. "

"We are all in the same fix, Claire, " he told her. 

"But not you, " she replied impatiently; "your existence with Fanny isthe most perfect for miles around. Fanny is marvelous to you, and youare as sensible as you are nice. "

"You think, then, that I haven't seen any of this romantic show you aretalking about?"

"If you had you wouldn't let it spoil your comfort. "

The pig again!

"Well, what is it here or there?" she cried. "I'll feel like this for alittle and then die alive. Did you ever notice an old woman, Lee? Sheis like a horrid joke. There is something unconquerably vain andfoolish about old men that manages to save them from entire ruin. But awoman shrivelled and blasted and twisted out of her purpose--theyeither look as though they had been steeped in vinegar or filled withtallow--is simply obscene. Before it is too harrowing, and in theirbest dresses and flowers, they ought to step into a ball-room ofchloroform. But this change in me, Lee, isn't in my own imagination. The people who know me best have complained that what patience I hadhas gone; even Ira, I'm certain, notices it. I have no success in whatused to do to get along with; my rattle of talk, my line, is gone. "

"Those relations of Mina Raff's, the Groves, " he said, shifting thetalk to the subject of his thoughts, "are very engaging. Mrs. Grovespecially. She has splendid qualities almost never found together inone person. She is, well, I suppose careful is the word, and, at thesame time, not at all dull. I wonder if she is altogether well? Herpaleness would spoil most women's looks and, it seems to me, shementioned her heart. "

"Good Lord, Lee, what are you rambling on about? I don't care for adescription of the woman like one of those anatomical zodiacs in theFarmers' Almanac. " She turned her horse, without warning, through abreak in the fence; and, putting him at a smart run, jumped a streamwith a high insecure bank beyond, and went with a pounding rush up asharp incline. He followed, but more conservatively; and, at the solidfence she next took, he shouted that she'd have to continue on thatgait alone. 

"Don't be so careful, " she answered mockingly, trotting back; "take achance; feel the wind streaming in your face; you'll reach Fannysafely. "

What, exasperated, he muttered was, "Damn Fanny!" He had jumped a fenceas high and wide as respectability; and he enormously preferredSavina's sort of courage to this mad galloping over the country. WhatClaire and Peyton and Mina Raff talked about, longed for, Savina took. He involuntarily shut his eyes, and, rocking to the motion of hishorse, heard, in the darkness, a soft settling fall, he saw anindefinite trace of whiteness which swelled into an incandescence thatconsumed him. They had turned toward home and, on an unavoidable reachof concrete road, were walking. The horses' hoofs made a rhythmichollow clatter. Claire, with the prospect of losing her love, hadhinted at the possibilities of an inherited recklessness; but here wasa new and unexpected cause of disturbance. 

Lee would never have supposed that such ideas were at the back ofClaire's head. He gazed at her, in spite of the fact that she hadruffled his temper, even with an increased interest. In her direct wayshe had put into words many of the vague pressures floating, like waterunder night, through his brain. He would act differently; Claire wasn'tpractical--all that she indicated couldn't be followed. It was spun ofnothing more substantial than the bright visions of youth; but theworld, he, Lee Randon, was the poorer for that. His was the wisecourse. It took a marked degree of strength; no weak determinationcould hope for success in the conduct he had planned for himself; andthat gave him material for satisfaction. 

He turned to the left, at the road leading past his driveway, andClaire went up the hill into Eastlake alone. She had thought he wasdescribing Savina for her benefit! The truth was that he had beenpossessed by a tyrannical necessity to talk about Savina Grove, to hearthe sound of her praise if it were only on his own voice. It assistedhis memory, created, like the faintly heard echo of a thrilling voice, a similitude not without its power to stir him. The secret realms ofthought, of fancy and remembrance, he felt, were his to linger in, toindulge, as he chose. Lee had a doubt of the advisability of this; buthis question was disposed of by the realization that he had nothing tosay; his mind turned back and back to Savina. 

He wondered when, or, rather, by what means, he should hear from heragain; perhaps--although it required no reply--in response to theletter he had written to the Groves acknowledging their kindness andthanking them for it. To Lee, William Loyd Grove was more immaterialthan a final shred of mist lifting from the sunken road across the golfcourse; even his appreciation of the other's good qualities hadvanished, leaving nothing at all. He was confused by the ease withwhich the real, the solid, became the nebulous and unreal, as thoughthe only standard of values, of weights and measures, lay absurdly inhis own inconsequential attitude. 

 * * * * *

The Randons had no formal meal on Sunday night; but there weresandwiches, a bowl of salad, coffee, and what else were referred togenerally as drinks; and a number of people never failed to appear. Itwas always an occasion of mingled conversations, bursts of popular songat the piano, and impromptu dancing through the length of the lowerfloor. The benches at either side of the fire-place were invariablycrowded; and, from her place on the over-mantel, Cytherea's gaze restedon the vivacious or subdued current of life. Lee Randon often gazed upat her, and tonight, sunk in a corner with scarcely room to move thehand which held a cigarette, this lifted interrogation was prolonged. 

Mrs. Craddock, whom he had not seen since the dinner-dance at the club, sat beside him in a vivid green dress with large black beads strungfrom her left shoulder. She looked very well, he reflected; that was abecoming dimple in her cheek. He had had the beginning of an interestin her--new to Eastlake, and her husband dead, she had taken a housethere for the winter--but that had vanished now. He was deep in thoughtwhen she said:

"Didn't I hear that you were infatuated with that doll?"

Who, he demanded, had told her such a strange story? "But she doesattract me, " he admitted; "or, rather, she raises a great manyquestions, natural in a person named Cytherea. The pair of castanets ona nail--Claire used them in an Andalusian dance--might almost be anoffering, like the crutches of Lourdes, left before her by a gratefulchild of the ballet. "

"I can't see what you do, of course; but she reminds me of quantitiesof women--fascinating on the outside and nothing within. Men are alwaysbeing fooled by that: they see a face or hear a voice that startssomething or other going in them, and they supply a completepersonality just as they prefer it, like the filling of a paté case. That is what you have done with this doll--imagined a lot of thingsthat don't exist. "

"If they do in me, that's enough, isn't it?" he demanded. "You'repartly wrong, at any rate--Cytherea is the originator and I'm the paté. But where, certainly, you are right is that she is only arepresentation; and it is what she may represent which holds me. Cytherea, if she would, could answer the most important question of mylife. "

"How tragic that she can't speak. "

"Yet that isn't necessary; she might be a guide, like a pointingfinger-post. I met a woman lately, as charming as possible, whoresembled her; and I'm sure that if I had them together--" he left theend of his sentence in air. Then he began again, "But that could not bemanaged; not much can, with advantage, in this world. " From beyond thehall, to the accompaniment of the piano, came the words, "She mighthave been a mother if she hadn't looped the loop. " Lee made adisdainful gesture. "That is the tone of the present--anything isacceptable if it is trivial; you may kiss wherever you like if you meannothing by it. But if it's important, say like--like sympathy, it'smade impossible for you. "

"If you were someone else, " Mrs. Craddock observed, "I'd think you werein love. You have a great many of the symptoms--the wandering eye andwild speech. "

"I am, with Fanny, " he declaimed, struggling out of the bench corner. No one should discover the memory he carried everywhere with him. Thelights had been switched off in the living-room, but the pianocontinued, and glowing cigarettes, like red and erratically wavingsignals, were visible. Returning, going into the dining-room, he sawthat the whiskey had been plentifully spilled over the table. In themorning the varnish would be marred by white stains. The stairs wereoccupied, the angle in the hall behind which a door gave to the cellarsteps, was filled; a sound, not culinary, came from the kitchen pantry. Even Fanny, with her hair in disorder, was dancing an eccentric stepwith Borden Rodman. All this vibrating emotion created in him, suddenand piercing, a desire for Savina. 

He wanted her, the touch of her magnetic hands, her clinging body, herpassionate abandon, with every sense. It was unbearable that she, too, wasn't here, waiting for him in the convenient darkness. He had to haveher, he muttered. At the same time he was appalled by the force of hisfeeling: it shook him like a chill and gripped his heart with an acutepain. His entire being was saturated with a longing that was at once amental and physical disturbance. Nothing in his life, no throe ofpassion or gratification, had been like this. Lee hastily poured out adrink and swallowed it. He was burning up, he thought; it felt asthough a furnace were open at his back; and he went out to the silence, the coldness, of the terrace flagging on the lawn. The lower windowshades had been pulled down, but, except in the dining-room, theyshowed no blur of brightness. Through the walls the chords of the pianowere just audible, and the volume of voices was reduced to a formlesshumming. 

It had cleared, the sky was glittering with constellations of stars;against them Lee could trace the course of his telephone wire. But forthat his house, taking an added dignity of mass from the night, mighthave been the reality of which it was no more than an admirablereplica. There was little here, outside, to suggest or recall thepassage of a century and over. In the lapse of that time, Lee thought, more had been lost than gained; the simplicity had vanished, but wisdomhad not been the price of its going. 

Of all the people at present in his dwelling, Fanny was the best in thesense of old solid things; he could see her, with no change, at theboard of an early household. Compared to her the others seemed likefigures in a fever; yet he was, unhappily, with them rather than withFanny. God knew there was fever enough in his brain! But the winternight was cooling it--a minor image of the final office of death; thechoking hunger for Savina was dwindling. He hoped that it wouldn't berepeated. He couldn't answer for himself through many such attacks. Yes, his first love, though just as imperative, had been more ecstatic;the reaching for an ideal rather than the body of a woman. 

His allegiance to Cytherea, though, was in part to the former, toyouth; now it seemed to him he had preserved that through all his life. But the latter, at least in its devastating power, was new. Leerecognized it as passion, but passion to a degree beyond all formerexperience and comprehension. Why had it been quiescent so long tooverwhelm him now? Or what had he done to open himself to such aninvasion? A numbing poison couldn't have been very different. Then, contrarily, he was exhilarated by the knowledge of the vitality of hisemotion; Lee reconsidered it with an amazement which resembled pride. 

The penny kisses here--he was letting himself into the house--were likethe candies Fanny had in a crystal dish on the sideboard, flavors ofcinnamon and rose and sugary chocolate. They were hardly more than thefumes of alcohol. But the party showed no signs of ending, the pianocontinued to be played without a break; one sentimental song had beenrepeated, without the omission of a line, a held note, ten times, Leewas sure. Fanny paused breathlessly, with a hand on his arm:

"They are all having such a good time; it is absolutely successful. Isn't Borden sweet to bother teaching me that heel tap. Go in and talkto Mrs. Craddock again; I thought you liked her. "

In the hall the victrola had been started in opposition to the pianobeyond, and the result was a pandemonium of mechanical sound andhysterical laughter. Cytherea was unmoved, enigmatic, fascinating; thegilt of her headdress shone in minute sparkles--Lee had turned on thelights by the mantel. "You always come back to her, " Mrs. Craddocksaid. When he replied that this time he had returned to her, she shookher head sceptically. "But I suppose you have to say it. " He droppedback into a corner of one of the benches; they were a jumble of skirtsand reclining heads and elevated pumps. The victrola, at the end of arecord and unattended, ran on with a shrill scratch. Cytherea had theappearance of floating in the restrained light; her smile was not nowso mocking as it was satirical; from her detached attention she mighthave been regarding an extraordinary and unpredictable spectacle whichshe had indifferently brought about. It was evident that among whatvirtues she might possess charity was not present. 

 * * * * *

After the last automobile leaving--shifted through the diminishingclamor of its gears--had carried its illumination into the fartherobscurity of the road, Fanny, uncomfortable in the presence ofdisorder, quickly obliterated the remaining traces of their party: sheemptied the widely scattered ash trays into a brass bowl, gathered thetall whiskey glasses and the glasses with fragile stems and brilliantlyenamelled belligerent roosters, the empty charged water bottles, on thedresser in the pantry, and returned chairs and flowers to theirrecognized places, while Lee locked up the decanters of whiskey. Fannywas tired but enthusiastic, and, as she went deftly about, rearrangingher house with an unfailing surety of touch, she hummed fragments ofthe evening's songs. 

Lee Randon was weary without any qualification; the past day, tomorrow--but it was already today--offered him no more than a burden, so manyheavy hours, to be supported. The last particle of interest hadsilently gone from his existence. His condition was entirely differentfrom the mental disquiet of a month ago; no philosophicalconsiderations nor abstract ideas absorbed him now--it was a wearinessnot of the mind but of the spirit, a complete sterility of imaginationand incentive, as though an announced and coveted prize had beenarbitrarily withdrawn during the struggle it was to have rewarded. There was no reason Lee could think of for keeping up his diverseefforts. He sat laxly in his customary corner of the living room--Fanny, he felt, had disposed of him there as she had the othersurrounding objects--his legs thrust out before him, too negative tosmoke. 

His wife leaned over and kissed him; she was, she had suddenlydiscovered, dead with fatigue. The kiss was no more than the contact ofher lips on his. The clear realization of this startled him; now not anemotion, not even tenderness, responded to her gestures of love. Hisindifference had been absolute! There had been periods of shortduration when, exasperated with Fanny, he had lost the consciousness ofhis affection for her; but then he had been filled with other stirredemotions; and now he was coldly empty of feeling. It was this vacancythat specially disturbed him: it had an appearance, new to all hisprocesses, of permanence. 

Outside his will the fact was pronounced for him that--for a long orshort period--he had ceased to love his wife. There was something sointimately and conventionally discourteous in his realization that heavoided it even in his thoughts. But it would not be ignored; it wastoo robust a truth to be suppressed by weakened instincts. He didn'tlove Fanny and Fanny did love him ... A condition, he felt indignantly, which should be automatically provided against; none of the ethics ofdecency or conduct provided for that. It wasn't for a second, withoutthe single, the familiar and ancient, cause, allowed. Fanny, least ofany imaginable woman, had given him a pretext for complaint. Yet, witheveryone acknowledging her to be the perfect wife, and he at the foreof such praise, he had incontestably stopped caring for her. It was adetestable situation. 

In the whole body of preconceived thought and action there wasn't aword, a possible movement, left for him. He was, simply, a hyena; thatdescription, not innocent of humor, was still strikingly close to whathe would generally hear if the state of his mind were known. It wasparalyzing, but absolutely no provision had been made for men, decentenough, who had stopped loving decent wives. Lee was not, here, considering the part of his life involved with Savina Grove: Savina hadnothing to do with his attitude toward Fanny. This didn't hang on theaffection he might have for one at the superficial expense of theother: Savina--while it was undeniable that she had done exactly thisin the vulgar physical sense--hadn't essentially taken him away fromFanny. He had gone self-directed, or, rather, in the blind manner of anobject obeying the law of gravity. He couldn't argue that he had beenswept away. 

It wasn't, either, that he overwhelmingly wanted to go to Savina Grove, he overwhelmingly didn't; and the strangling emotion, the desire, thathad possessed him earlier in the evening had been sufficientlyunwelcome. His only reaction to that was the vigorous hope that itwouldn't come back. No, he had, mentally, settled the affair withSavina in the best possible manner; now he was strictly concerned withthe bond between his wife and himself. The most reliable advice, self-administered or obtained from without, he could hope for would demandthat he devote the rest of his life, delicately considerate, to Fanny. She must never know the truth. This was the crown of a presentconception of necessity and unassailable conduct, of nobility. But, against this, Lee Randon was obliged to admit that he was not aparticle noble; he wasn't certain that he wanted to be; he suspectedit. Putting aside, for the moment, the doubtfulness of his being ableto maintain successfully, through years, such an imposition, there wassomething dark, equally dubious, in its performance. He might manage itpublicly, even superficially in private, and as a father; but marriagewasn't primarily a superficial relationship. It was very much thereverse. Its fundamental condition was the profoundest instinct thatcontrolled living; there no merely admirable conduct could manage to bemore than a false and degrading, a temporary, lie. How could he with apandering smugness meet Fanny's purity of feeling? Yet, it seemed, exactly this was being done by countless other applauded men. But, probably, the difference between them and himself was that they had noobjective consciousness of their course; happily they never stopped tothink. It was thought, he began to see, and not feeling that creatednearly all his difficulties. 

In a flash of perception he grasped that formal thought, in its aspectof right conduct, was utterly opposed to feeling. While the formercondemned the surrender of Savina and himself to passion, the latter, making it imperative, had brushed aside the barriers of recognizedmorals. It had been a tragic, it might well be a fatal, error to opposereligion--as it affected both this world and the impossible next--tonature. 

Yet men could no longer exist as animals; he saw that plainly. They hadsurrendered the natural in favor of an artificial purity. In a landwhere sea shells were the standard of value, rubies and soft gold wereworthless. Lee was opposed to his entire world; he had nothing but hisquestioning, his infinitesimal entity, for his assistance. Literallythere wasn't a man to whom he could turn whose answer and adviceweren't as predictable as useless. There was nothing for him but toaccept his position and, discharging it where he was able, fail wherehe must. 

There was, however, no need for that failure to be absolute; and theunderlying responsibility he had fully considered, subject to its ownattained code, would have to do service as best it could. Here hepaused to realize that the improved manners he had determined on wereno more than the expression of his growing, his grown, indifference. Itshould be easy to be restrained in a situation that had small meaningor importance. What struck him again was the fact that his connectionwith Fanny was of far greater moment than that with Helena and Gregory. His responsibility to them was a minor affair compared to the weightincreasingly laid upon their elders. Somehow, they didn't seem to needhim as sharply as Fanny did. Materially they were all three more thansufficiently provided for, and spiritually, as he had so oftenreflected, he had little or no part in his children's well-being. Perhaps this, he had told himself, could be changed; certainly he wassolely to blame if he had stood aside from their education. 

He would see more of them--four days a week were now plenty for theconducting of his successful enterprises in the city--and give themwhat benefits his affection and experience held. In this he mustn'tcontradict the influence of their mother; that, so late, would only befollowed by chaos; he'd merely be more with them. Helena was old enoughfor a small tractable horse and Gregory must have a pony. All four, Fanny and he and the children, would jog out in the spring together. From that mental picture he got a measure of reassurance; a conditionresembling peace of mind again returned. As much as possible, againstthe elements of danger, was in his favor. He might have had a wife who, on the prevalent tide of gin and orange juice, of inordinateluxuriousness, degraded him with small betrayals. Or he might have beenany one of a hundred unfortunate things. He took life too seriously, that was evident; a larger degree of mental irresponsibility would befollowed by a more responsible accomplishment of the realities whichbore no more heavily on him than on other men; and in this thecocktails had their office. 

 * * * * *

Lee agreed readily, therefore, when, on Friday afternoon, Fanny askedhim to bring Helena and Gregory from dancing-school. This was held inthe Armory; and, past five o'clock, mounting the wide stone steps inthe early gloom and going through the bare echoing hall, he joined thecomplacent mothers ranged in chairs pushed against the wall in a spiritof interested attention. The Armory, following the general literalinterpretation of the sternness of military usage, was gaunt, with awide yellow floor and walls of unconcealed brick. In a far corner, on atemporary and unpainted platform, the pianist sat with her handsraised, her wrists rigid, preparatory to the next demand upon herstrongly accentuated playing. Lee was surprised at the large number ofchildren ranged in an irregular ring about the erect brittle presenceand insistent voice of the instructor. 

What scant hair he possessed, carefully disposed to cover itsmeagreness, was grey, and its color permeated, suggested, the tone ofhis thin face. Surrounded by the cruel exuberance of the children, heseemed incalculably worn, permanently weary, although he wassurprisingly sharp-eyed and adequate. It was, Lee thoughtunsympathetically, a curiously negative occupation for a man; the smallgraces of the dancing teacher, the bows gravely exchanged with childishbows, the bent dancing with diminutive slips, the occasional fretfultone of his voice, further alienated Lee Randon. But the children werea source of entertainment and speculation. 

He saw Gregory at once, short and sturdy-legged, in a belted jacket andwhite breeches; his son was standing peaceably, attentive, clasping thehand of a girl smaller than himself with obstinate bobbed hair. This, the high pointed voice in the center of the floor continued, was anIrish folk dance; they would try it again; and the reiterated detailswere followed by the sounding of a whistle and music. Lee had no ideaof the exact number of children engaged, but he was certain that therewere just as many totally different executions of the steps beforethem. Not one had grasped an essential of the carefully illustratedinstruction; he could see nowhere an evidence of grace or rhythm. But, with a few notable exceptions, all boys, there was an entire solemnityof effort; the swinging of bare short legs, the rapid awkward bobs, were undertaken with a deep sense of their importance. 

The Irish folk dance was attempted for a third time, and thenrelinquished in favor of a waltz. Miniature couples circled andstaggered, the girls again prim, the boys stolid or with workingmouths, or as smooth and vacuous as chestnuts, little sailors andapparitions in white, obviously enjoying their employment. During thisnot a word was exchanged; except for the shuffling feet, the piano, anoccasional phrase of encouragement from the instructor, himself glidingwith a dab of fat in exaggerated ribbons, there wasn't a sound. To Leeit had the appearance of the negation of pleasure; it was, in its way, as bad as the determined dancing of adults; it had the look of atravesty of that. Helena conducted a restive partner, trying vainly tocreate the impression that he was leading, wherever she considered itadvantageous for him to go. The thick flood of her gold hair shimmeredabout her uncompromising shoulders, her embroidered skirt flutteredover the firmness of her body. 

She was as personable a little girl as any present; and, while shehadn't Gregory's earnestness in what he attempted, she got on smoothlyenough. Seeing Lee, she smiled and waved a hand almost negligently; butGregory, at his presence, grew visibly embarrassed; he almost stopped. Lee Randon nodded for him to go ahead. There were various minorcataclysms--Helena flatly refused to dance with a boy who pursued herwith an urging hand. At this conspicuous reverse he sat on a chairuntil the teacher brought him forcibly out and precipitated him intothe willing arms of a girl larger and, if possible, more inelastic thanthe others. The ring was again assembled, and the complicated processof alternating a boy with a girl was accomplished. 

"Never mind what he does, " the instructor directed sharply; "always besure you are right. " A shift was made further around in the line, andthe elder wisdom was vindicated. "Now, the chain. " The whistle blew. "Left and right, left and right. " In spite of this there was an equalengagement of rights with lefts. The assumption of gravity acutelybothered Lee Randon: they had no business, he thought, to be alreadysuch social animals. Their training in set forms, mechanical gesturesand ideas, was too soon hardening their mobility and instinctiveindependence. Yes, they were a caricature of what they were to become. He hadn't more sympathy with what he had resolved to encourage, applaud, but less. The task of making any headway against thatschooling was beyond him. 

The dancing reached a pause, and, with it, the silence: a confusion ofclear undiversified voices rose: the face of an infant with long belledtrousers and solidified hair took on a gleam of impish humor; older andmore robust boys scuffled together with half-subdued hails and largepretentions; groups of girls settled their skirts and brushed, withinstinctive pats, their braids into order; and there was a murmur ofexchanged approbation from the supporting, white-gloved mothers. Gregory appeared at Lee's side; his cheeks were crimson with health, his serious eyes glowed:

"Well, do you like it?"

"Yes, " Gregory answered shyly. He lingered while Lee Randon tried tothink of something else appropriate to say, and then he ran abruptlyoff. His children were affectionate enough, but they took himabsolutely for granted; they regarded him very much as they did theircat; except for the conventional obeisance they made him, not sovoluntary as it was trained into them, they were far more involved withMartha, their black nurse. Everywhere, Lee felt, they repelled him. Washe, then, lacking in the qualities, the warmth, of paternity? Again, ashe was helpless where Fanny lately was concerned, he was unable to beother. 

It was increasingly evident that he had not been absorbed, obliterated, in marriage; an institution which, from the beginning, had tried--likereligion--to hold within its narrow walls the unconfinable instincts ofcreation. It hadn't, among other things, considered the fascination ofCytherea; a name, a tag, as intelligible as any for all his dissent. But cases like his were growing more prevalent; however, usually, inwomen. Men were the last stronghold of sentimentality. His thoughtswere interrupted by a dramatic rift in the discipline of the class: aboy, stubbornly seated, swollen, crimson, with wrath and heroicallywithheld tears, was being vainly argued with by the dancing master. Hewouldn't stir, he wouldn't dance. The man, grasping a shoulder, shookhim in a short violence, and then issued a final uncompromising order. 

The boy rose and, marching with an increasing rapidity toward theentrance, he struck aside a placid and justifiably injured child, dragged open the door, and slammed it after him with a prodigious andlong echoing report. His contempt, holding its proportion in thereduced propriety of the occasion, was like a clap of communisticthunder in an ultra-conservative assembly. For a moment, together withall the others, Lee Randon was outraged; then, with a suppression ofhis unorderly amusement, he had a far different conception--he sawhimself, for no easily established reason, in the person of the rebelwho had left behind him the loud announcement of his angry dissent. Helena sought Lee immediately. 

"That's his mother, " she said in a penetrating whisper, indicating awoman with a resolutely abstracted expression and constrained hands. The children were gathered finally and formed into a line which, to thedrumming piano, moved and halted, divided and subdivided. Led by theinstructor it was involved in an apparently issueless tangle and thenstraightened smoothly out. The dancing class at an end, Helena andGregory, wedged into the seat with Lee in the car, swept into an eagerchatter, a rush of questions, that he was unable to follow. A Sara Lanewas announced by Helena to be the object of Gregory's affection, andGregory smugly admitted this to be true. He was going to marry her, hedeclared further. 

"Perhaps, " Lee suggested, "you'll change your mind. "

"Why, Gregory has four girls, " Helena instructed him. 

"Well, " Gregory retorted, "I can marry them all. "

But what, under this reflected chatter, was his son like? What would hebe? And Helena! They eluded him like bright and featureless bits ofglass. His effort to draw closer to them was proving a failure; whatcould he give them safer than their attachment to the imponderable bodyof public opinion and approval? He had nothing but doubts, unanswerablequestions; and a mental, a moral, isolation. It was easier to remain inthe dancing class than to be sent out in an agony of revolt andstrangling shame. 

 * * * * *

Often, during his conversations with Fanny, she returned to the subjectof his late New York trip and stay with the Groves. She asked smallinterested questions, commented on the lavish running of the Grovehouse; she couldn't, she explained, get nectarines and Belgian grapesin Eastlake; but when she was in the city again she'd bring some out. "Mina Raff's limousine sounds luxurious, " she acknowledged. But Fannywasn't curious about Mina; after the first queries she accepted herplacidly; now that she had withdrawn from the Morrises' lives, Fannyregarded her in the light of a past episode that cast them all togetheron a romantic screen. What mostly she asked touched upon Savina Grove. "Did they seem happy?" she inquired about the Groves. He replied:

"Very. William Grove was quite affectionate when he left forWashington. "

A momentary and ominous suspense followed a sudden stopping of hisvoice. 

"You didn't say anything about that before, " she observed carefully. "When did he go, how long was he away?" She put aside what she wasdoing, waiting. 

"He left unexpectedly; just when I forget; but during the last day Iwas there. "

"Lee, why didn't you say that Mr. Grove had gone to Washington? Itseems very peculiar. "

"I told you it had slipped my mind, " he retorted, striving, in a leveltone, to hide his chagrin and an increasing irritation at herpersistence. 

"When did he come back?"

"I don't know. " Suddenly he gave way to a complete frankness. "He maynot be back yet. "

"Then you had dinner at the restaurant and went to the theatre alonewith her. "

"If it's possible to be alone with anyone, you are correct. What, inthe name of heaven, are you getting at?"

"Only this--that, for some reason I can't gather, you lied to me. Ihave had the most uncomfortable impression about her all along. Why?"Her demand had a quality of unsteady emotion. "I have been so close toyou, Lee, we have had each other so completely, that I have feelings Ican't account for. I always know when--when you've been a little silly;there is something in your eyes; but I have never felt like thisbefore. Lee, " she leaned suddenly forward, her hands clasping the sidesof her chair, "you must be absolutely truthful with me, it's the onlyway I can live. I love you so much; you're all I have; I don't care foranyone else now. You have taken me away from my family; you are myfamily. Ours isn't an ordinary marriage, like the Lucians', but worldsdeeper. "

Yet, he told himself, in spite of her assurances the truth would ruinthem; besides, as he had recognized, it didn't belong exclusively tohim; it was, as well, Savina's truth. At any cost he had to protecther. Lee replied by saying that it was useless to tell her facts in herpresent unreasonable humor. "Why didn't you tell me he had gone toWashington?" she repeated; her tone had a sharper edge. "Was thereanything you needed to hide?" Just what, he demanded, did she suspect?Fanny didn't know. 

"Only I have had this worrying feeling. Did you go straight back fromthe theatre or take a drive?" He was amazed at her searching prescientquestions; but his manner was admirable. 

"New Yorkers are not very apt to drive around their Park at night. Theyare rather familiar with it. There's the afternoon for that, and themorning for the bridle paths. I won't go on, though, in such asenseless and positively insulting conversation. "

"You are not yourself since you returned, " she observed acutely. "Sunday night you were too queer for words. You couldn't talk to Mrs. Craddock for more than a minute at a time. Did you call her Savina?"Mrs. Craddock's name, he responded in a nicely interrogating manner, hehad thought to be Laura. She paid no attention to his avoidance of herdemand. "Did you?"

"No. " His self-restraint was fast vanishing. 

"I can't believe a word you say. "

"Hell, don't ask me then. "

"You must not curse where the servants can hear you, and I won't listento such talk, I'll leave the table. I wish you'd look in the mirror andsee how red and confused you are. It is too bad that I cannot depend onyou after so long, and with the children. You were sitting close tothat woman, and--and your arms; you were kissing. "

"I have her garter on my bureau. "

"Stop. " Her anger now raised her above petty sallies. "I have stood agreat deal from you, but there is more I simply won't. Do youunderstand? I've always done my duty and I'll make you do yours. Inever have looked at another man, nor been kissed, except that horridone last July at the Golf Club. " While she paused, breathless, he putin that it might do her good. "Oh, I see, " she spoke slowly: "you thinkthat would give you an excuse. If I did it I couldn't complain aboutyour nasty affairs. How cheap and easy I must seem. You ought to beashamed to try to trick me. "

"If you are going to fly at conclusions you can sit in the tree alone, "he protested. "It's amazing where you have arrived from nothing. Let metell you that I won't be ragged like this; if you think so much of ourlife why do you make it hideous with these degrading quarrels? Youwould never learn that way if there was the slightest, the slightest, cause for your bitterness. You have all you want, haven't you? Thehouse and grounds are planted with your flowers, you are bringing upthe children to be like yourself. I don't specially care for this, " hemade a comprehensive gesture; "building an elaborate place to die indoesn't appeal to me. What is so valuable, so necessary, to you, Inever think of. You are so full of your life that you don't considermine, except where it is tied up with your interests. "

"Lee Randon, " she cried, "I've given you everything, it's all plannedfor you, here. Nothing comes on the table that you dislike--we haven'thad beefsteak for months; when you are busy with your papers I keep itlike a grave; and if the house seems cold, and I can't findChristopher, I don't bother you, but slip down to the furnace myself. "

"Make me uncomfortable, then, " he retorted; "I think that's what I'msick of--your eternal gabbling about comfort and dinner. Let the Goddamn furnace go out! Or burn up. "

"That's all I have, Lee, " she said helplessly; "it is my life. I tried, the last month, to be different, after watching you with gayer women;but it only made me miserable; I kept wondering if Gregory was coveredup and if the car would start when you wanted to go home. But I won'tbe sorry for it. " Her head was up, her cheeks blazing. "I know, and soought you, what being good is. And if you forget it you will have adreadful misfortune. God is like that: He'll punish you. "

"You don't need help, " he commented brutally. 

Detached tears rolled over her cheeks. "I won't cry, " she contradictedthe visible act; "I won't. You take such a cowardly advantage of me. "

The advantage, he reflected, was entirely on her side. Within, he washard, he had no feeling of sympathy for her; the division between themwas absolute. With an angry movement she brushed the tears from hercheeks. "I hate her, " she said viciously; "she is a rotten detestablewoman. "

"On the contrary, " he replied, "Mrs. Grove, if you happen to mean her, is singularly attractive. There is no smallness about her. "

"Hell, " she mocked him, "it is really too touching. When shall you seeher again?"

"Never. " At once he saw that he had made a second mistake. 

"How sad--never; I can't bear it. You both must have been wretched atthat long hopeless parting. And she agreed to let you go--back to yourwife and children. " Fanny's voice was a triumph of contempt. "I oughtto thank her; or be magnanimous and send you back. "

"This is all built on a ridiculous assumption, " Lee reminded her; "Ieven forget how we started. Suppose we talk about something else; Mrs. Grove, as a topic, is pretty well exhausted. " Fanny, narrow-eyed, relapsed into an intent silence. She faded from his mind, her placetaken by Savina. Immediately he was conscious of a quickening of hisblood, the disturbed throb of his heart; the memory of delirious hoursenveloped him in a feverish mist more real than his wife sitting beforehim with a drawn brow. 

 * * * * *

Usually after such scenes Fanny had flowered in a tender remorse fortheir bitter remarks, the wasted opportunity of happiness; but againshe left him coldly, unmelted. He was glad--a show of affection wouldhave been unsupportable. But his marriage was becoming precarious; Leeseemed to be without power to execute his firm intentions; a convictionof insecurity settled over him. The sense of a familiar difficultyreturned; there was nothing for him to do but order his life on acommon pattern and face an unrelieved futility of years. He remembered, with a grim amusement, the excellent advice he had given Peyton Morris, Peyton at the verge of falling from the approved heights into theunpredictable. If he had come to him now in that quandary, what wouldhe, Lee, have said? Yet all that he had told Peyton he still believed--the variety of life lay on the circular moving horizon, there was noneat hand. But now he comprehended the unmeasurable longing that had, forthe time, banished every other consideration from the younger man. Ithad upset his heredity, his violent prejudices, and his not negligiblereligion. 

Peyton, too, had fallen under the charm of Cytherea; but chance--was itfortunate?--had restrained him. Lee had seen Morris the evening before, at a dinner with Claire, and he had been silent, abstracted. He hadscarcely acknowledged Lee Randon's presence. The Morrises had avoidedhim. Still, that was inevitable, since, for them, he was charged withunpleasant memories. 

He collected in thought all the married people who, he knew, wereunhappy or dissatisfied: eleven of the eighteen Lee called to mind. "What is the matter with it?" he demanded savagely, aloud, in his room. He considered marriage--isolated for that purpose--as a socialcontract, the best possible solving of a number of interrelated needsand instincts; and, practical and grey, it recommended itself to hisreason; it successfully disposed of the difficulties of property, thebirth and education of children, and of society. It was a sane, dignified, way to live with a woman; and it secured so much. Undoubtedly, on that count, marriage couldn't be bettered. As it was, it satisfied the vast majority of men and women: against the bulk ofhuman life Fanny and he, with their friends, were inconsiderable. Butthe number of men who struggled above the common level was hardlygreater; and he and his opinions were of that preferable minority. Thefreedom of money, the opportunities of leisure, always led directlyaway from what were called the indispensable virtues. 

Men--he returned to the Eastlake streets on Saturday night--exceptthose lost in the monomania of a dream, didn't want to work, theydidn't even wish to be virtuous. They turned continually to the bypathsof pleasure, that self-delusion and forgetfulness of drink. Yes, released from the tyrannies of poverty, they flung themselves into aswift spending. The poor were more securely married than the rich, thedull than the imaginative--married, he meant, in the sense of a forgedbond, a stockade. This latter condition had been the result of allowingthe church to interfere unwarrantedly in what was not its affair. Religion had calmly usurped this, the most potent of the motives ofhumanity; or, rather, it had fastened to it the ludicrous train ofritual. That laughable idea that God had a separate scrutinizing eye, like the eye of a parrot, on every human atom!

Lee changed his position, physically and mentally--he was lying in bed--and regarded religion in itself. It was, in the hunger for a perpetualidentity, almost as strong a force as the other passion. But were theyconspicuously other? They had many resemblances. He didn't, byreligion, refer to Christianity which, he thought, was but a segregatedand weakened form of worship. It was, for example, against theChristian influence that he was struggling. He meant the sense ofprofound mystery, the revolt against utter causelessness, which hadtormented to no clearness so many generations of minds. He accepted thefact that a formless longing was all that he could ever experience; forhim, uncritically, that seemed enough; he had willingly relinquishedany hope of an eternity like a white frosted cake set with twinklingcandles. But viewed as a tangible force operating here and now, identical--to return to his main preoccupation--with love, it demandedsome settled intelligence of comprehension. 

What he wanted, he was drawn bolt upright as if by an inner shout, wasan assurance that could be depended on, that wouldn't break and breakand leave him nothing but a feeling of inscrutable mockery. He wantedto understand himself, and, in that, Fanny and the children ... AndSavina. Obviously they were all bound together in one destiny, by asingle cause. Why had he stopped loving Fanny and had no regret--but asharp gladness--in his adultery with Savina? He discarded thequalifying word as soon as it had occurred to him: there was noadultery, adulteration, in his act with Savina; it had filled him withan energy, a mental and nervous vigor, long denied to the sanctifiedbed of marriage. He wanted not even to be justified, but only anexplanation of what he was; and he waited, his hands pressed into thesoftness of the mattress on either side of him, as if the salvation ofsome reply might come into his aching brain. Nothing, of course, brokethe deep reasonable stillness of the night. He slipped back on hispillow weary and baffled. 

There, to defraud his misery, he deliberately summoned the memory ofSavina, and of delirious hours. She came swiftly, with convulsiveshoulders, fingers drawn down over his body; he heard her little cry, "Ah!" How changed her voice had been when she said, "I love you. " Ithad had no apparent connection with the moment, their actual passion. It had disturbed him with the suggestion of a false, a forced, note. Ina situation of the utmost accomplishable reality it had been vague, meaningless. I love you. It was a strange phrase, at once empty andburdened with illimitable possibilities. He had said it times withoutnumber to Fanny, but first--how seductively virginal she had been--on averanda at night. Then, though not quite for the first time, he hadkissed her. And suddenly her reserve, her protecting chastity, had goneout of her forever. 

When had the other, all that eventually led to Savina, begun; when hadhe lost his love? A long process of turning from precisely the orderlydetails which, he had decided, should make marriage safe. He was backwhere he had started--the realization of how men deserted utility forvisions, at the enigmatic smile of Cytherea. A sterile circle. Some mencalled it heaven, others found hell. His mental searching, surrounded, met, by nullity, he regarded as his supreme effort in the direction ofsheer duty. If whoever had it in command chose to run the worldblindly, unintelligibly, in a manner that would soon wreck thestrongest concern, he wasn't going to keep on annoying himself withdoubts and the dictates of a senseless conscience. What, as soon aspossible, he'd do was fall asleep. 

The crowing of a rooster pierced the thinning night, a second answeredthe first, and they maintained a long self-glorifying, separated duet. The wind which had been flowing in at the north window changed to thesouth-west. 

The difficulties of his living with Fanny increased the next morning:it was one of the week-days when he didn't go into town afterbreakfast. He was dressed for riding, his horse was at the door, when, without previous announcement and unprepared, she decided to go withhim. He could hear her hurrying upstairs--it upset her unreasonably torush--and suddenly, with the audible fall of a boot on the floor, therewas the unmistakable sound of sobbing. 

Lee went up, half impatient and half comprehending, and found herseated on a bed, leaning her head in an arm on the foot-board. "Don'twait for me, " she cried in a smothered voice; "it makes you so nervous. Just go; it doesn't matter what I do. You've--you've shown me that. Oh, dear, I am so miserable. Everything was right and so happy, and nowit's all wrong. "

"Nonsense, " he replied tonically; "it will take Christopher a fewminutes to get your saddle on. I'll be outside. " Mounted and waitingfor her, his horse stepping contrarily over the grass beyond the drive, he didn't care whether she came or stayed. When she appeared her eyes, prominent now rather than striking, were reddened, and the hastilyapplied paint and powder were unbecomingly streaked with some lateirrepressible tears. 

 * * * * *

When they had returned, and through lunch and after, a not unfamiliarstubborn silence settled over Fanny. When she spoke it was with anarmor-like sarcasm protecting and covering her feelings. He wascontinually surprised at the correctness of her attitude toward Savina;his wife could know nothing; she was even without the legitimatefoundation of a suspicion; but her bearing had a perceptible frostinessof despair. What, he wondered moodily, would next, immediately, develop? Something, certainly--Fanny's accumulations of emotion werealways sharply discharged; they grew in silence but they were expendedin edged words. 

In a way he was glad that he had made the error of speaking aboutWilliam Grove's absence in Washington: it was a step toward a finalresolution, a tranquilization, of the pressure at home. He didn't knowwhat would bring it up, possibly a storm surpassing in violence allthat had preceded it; and then ... The open prospect of old age. Fannyshould not actually learn of the occurrence in New York, there must beno mistake about that; she would act on the supposition that he hadbeen merely indulging in a more or less advanced dallying; but herpatience in that, he judged, was at an end. Well, he could ultimately, in all sincerity, agree with her there. Not too soon, of course, forshe was at present deeply suspicious of such protestations; he wouldmaintain for a short while longer an appearance of annoyance, his oldsuccessful indignations at her minor charges, and then let her see thatshe had nothing left to combat from that quarter. 

But how, in the other implications of such a scene, would he act? Untilnow his part in the inevitable frictions of matrimony had beenconditioned by a tenderness toward Fanny and a measurable supportingbelief that he was generally to blame. She had reduced him to thecompounding of excuses; after her attack, drawing away, she had managedto make him follow her. Not cheaply, with the vulgarity of a gift, aprice outheld, but with the repeated assertions of his endless love. Nothing less satisfied her. In this she was superior. But, even if hesurrendered his life to the effort, could he keep up that pretence of apassion unimpaired? And had he, Lee asked himself over and over, thewish, the patience, for that heavy undertaking?

It was still fairly evident that he hadn't. All that he could hope for, which they both could summon, was luck and the deadening hands of time. He told himself, here, that it was more than probable that he wasexaggerating the proportions of the whole situation--Fanny had beenangry before; her resentment faded the sooner for its swift explosivecharacter. But this assurance was unconvincing; his presentiment, whichdidn't rest on reason, was not amenable to a reasonable conclusion. Ofthis he was certain, that Fanny never had harbored the suspicion ofwhat, for her, would be the very worst. Did she know? If she did, hedecided, it was only in the form of an unanalyzed, unidentified, feeling. She wasn't a coward. His determination to keep smooth, by merepoliteness, the further course of their marriage seemed frivolous. Thatmight do, it was even indispensable, when the present corner wasturned; but for the moment--

What, in the name of God, had got into her? He grew increasinglyirritated at her arbitrary manner. Lee had kept forgetting that, whereFanny was concerned, it was causeless, or no better than a wildsurmise, a chance thrust at random. He made up his mind that hewouldn't submit to a great deal of her bad humor. And, in this spirit, he ignored a query put to him bitingly:

"Where is the paper cutter?"

His gaze remained level on the page before him. 

"Didn't you hear me, Lee? I want the paper cutter. If it's on yournight table, get it. "

"Let Amanda go up. "

"She's out. I let both the girls go tonight. But I needn't explain. "She sat expectantly upright. Obliterating his cigarette, he returned, without moving, to the magazine. Then he raised his head:

"You can't hope for much from that tone of voice. "

"I'll always insist on your showing me some courtesy. I can't imaginewhat you think I am. You lie to me as though I were a school-girl andyou haven't even common good manners. That trip to New York--I'll hearthe truth about it. Anyone could tell it was serious by the effect ithad on you. Put down your magazine, you might as well; you can't keepon behind it forever. Why did you try to hide that Mrs. Grove and youwere alone?"

"To stop all this!" He dropped the magazine upon the floor. "To save mynerves and the noise of your eternal questions. I knew, if you foundout, what would follow; this isn't the first time. "

"You can't be completely trusted, " she replied. "I have always had toworry and hold you up. If it hadn't been for me--but there is no use ingoing into that. You must tell me about the Grove woman. "

"At one time it was Mrs. Grove, " he observed; "now it is 'the Grovewoman. ' What will you call her next?"

"You will have to tell me that, " Fanny said. "Lee Randon, what must Icall her?"

"Perhaps, if you knew her, you'd try Savina. "

"Not if it was to save me from dying. But I have no doubt of which youpreferred. Did you?"

"Did I what?" He was aware that his speech was growing far louder thannecessary. 

"Call her Savina. "

"Yes!" He sat glaring at her in an anger which he felt swelling hisneck. 

Fanny's expression was obscure. At his admission she had shivered, asthough it had reached her in the form of an actually threatenedviolence, and then she was rigid. "I knew that, all the while. " Hervoice was low, with a pause between the words. "Savina"; she repeatedthe name experimentally. "Very pretty. Prettier to say than Fanny; yes, and newer. And, having called her that, you couldn't very well not kissher, could you?"

However, his caution had again asserted itself over the dangers of alost temper. "You have made so much of this up that you had betterfinish it yourself. Put what end you prefer on it; you don't needhelp. "

"The end, " she echoed, in a strange and smothered voice. "Is this it?But not yet. "

Lee's gaze rested on the magazine lying spread half on the Easternsymbolism of a rug and half on the bare polished flooring. "Your storyis far more interesting than any in that, " he commented, with agesture. "It's a pity you haven't turned your imagination to a betteruse. " This, he recognized, could not go on indefinitely. Fanny added:

"But I was wrong--you'd kiss her before you said Savina. That, Ibelieve, is the way it works. It is really screaming when you thinkwhat you went to New York for--to protect Claire, to keep Peyton Morrisout of Mina Raff's hands. And, apparently, you succeeded but got inbadly yourself. What a pair of hypocrites you were: all the while worsethan the others, who were at least excused by their youngness, evercould dream of being. What was the good of your contradicting me atfirst? I knew all along. I felt it. "

"What was it, exactly, that you felt?" he asked with an assumption ofcalmness. 

"I don't understand, " she acknowledged, for the moment at a loss. "Itwas inside me, like lead. But, whatever happened, it will come out; italways does; and you'll be sorry. "

Did the truth, he wondered, always appear, and triumph over the false;was that precept of morality secure for those who depended on it? And, as Fanny threatened, would he be sorry? But most assuredly he would, for three reasons--Savina, Fanny, and himself; there might, even, betwo more, Helena and Gregory; yes, and William Loyd Grove. What astinking mess it was all turning out to be. Why wasn't life, whyweren't women, reasonable? But he could not convince himself thatanything final--a separation--threatened them. Fanny couldn't force anadmission from him, nor speak of this, investigate it, anywhere else. Savina was well able to take care of herself. There was nothing to dobut wait. In the process of that he once more picked up the magazine. Fanny said unexpectedly:

"I ordered your Christmas present. It took all the money I had in theDime Savings Bank. " He muttered a phrase to the effect that Christmaswas a season for children. This recalled his own--they wouldn't beasleep yet--and, to escape temporarily from an impossible situation, tosecure the paper knife, he went up to see them. 

 * * * * *

They greeted him vociferously: before he could turn on the light theywere partly out of the covers, and the old argument about whose bed heshould sit on in full progress. Helena's was by the door, so, returningher to the warmth of her blankets, he stopped beside her. The room, with the windows fully open, was cold, but he welcomed the white frozenpurity of its barrenness. More than ever he was impressed by theremoteness of the children's bed-room from the passionate disturbancesof living; but they, in the sense Fanny and he knew, weren't alive yet. They imitated the accents and concerns, caught at the gestures, ofmaturity; but, even in the grip of beginning instincts, they werehardly more sentient than the figures of a puppet show. Or, perhaps, their world was so far from his that they couldn't be said to span fromone to the other. Gregory, in mind, was no more like him than a slipwas like a tree bearing fruit--no matter how bitter. Helena more nearlyresembled her mother; that had never occurred to him before. 

It was undoubtedly true--her posturing recalled the feminine attitudein extreme miniature. In that he felt outside her sympathy, shebelonged with her mother; to Gregory he was far more nearly allied. Gregory, anyhow, had the potentialities of his own dilemma; he might, in years to come, be drawn out of a present reality by the enigma, thefascination, of Cytherea. Lee Randon hoped not; he wanted to advisehim, at once, resolutely to close his eyes to all visions beyond thehorizon of wise practicability. Marry, have children, be faithful, die, he said; but, alas, to himself. Gregory, smiling in eager anticipationof what might ensue, was necessarily ignorant of so much. Somethingagain lay back of that, Lee realized--his occupation in life. There he, Lee, had made his first, perhaps most serious, mistake. While themajority of men turned, indifferent, from their labor, there were arare few--hadn't he phrased this before?--lost in an edifice of themind, scientific or aesthetic or commercial, who were happilyunconscious of the lapsing fretful years. 

That was the way to cheat the sardonic gathered fates: to be deaf andblind to whatever, falsely, they seemed to offer; to get into bed heavywith weariness and rise hurried and absorbed. Over men so preoccupied, spent, Cytherea had no power. It was strange how her name had becomelinked with all his deepest speculations; she was involved in concernsremote from her apparent sphere and influence. 

"Gracious, you're thinking a lot, " Helena said. 

"What are you thinking about?" Gregory added. 

"A doll, " he replied, turning to his daughter. 

"For me, " she declared. 

"No, me, " Gregory insisted. 

Lee Randon shook his head. "Not you, in the least. "

"Of course not, " Helena supported him. "I should think it would makeyou sick, father, hearing Gregory talk like that. It does me. Whydoesn't he ask for something that boys play with?"

"I don't want them, that's why, " Gregory specified. "Perhaps I'd liketo have a typewriter. "

"You're not very modest. " It was Helena again. 

"It's father, isn't it? It isn't you. "

"Listen, " Lee broke in, "I came up here to be with two good children;but where are they?"

"I'm one. " Helena, freeing herself definitely, closed her arms in asweet warmth about his neck. "I'm one, too, " Gregory called urgently. "No, " his father pressed him back; "you must stay in bed. They are bothhere, I can see. "

He wondered if, everything else forgotten, his children couldconstitute a sufficient engagement; but the sentimental picture, castacross his thoughts, of himself being led by a child holding each ofhis hands defeated it. He was turned in another direction. 

Yet, tonight, they were remarkably engaging.... He had lost a greatdeal. For what? He couldn't--as usual--answer; but the memory ofSavina, stronger than Fanny, metaphorically took Helena's arms awayfrom his neck and blurred the image of Gregory. "Have you said yourprayer?" he asked absent-mindedly making conversation. Oh, yes, he wasinformed, they did that with Martha. "I'll say mine again, " Gregoryvolunteered. Again--a picture of a child, in a halo of innocence, praying at a paternal knee to a fresco of saccharine angels!

"Once is enough, " he answered hurriedly. "I am sure you do it verynicely. "

"Well, anyhow, better than Helena, " Gregory admitted. "She hurries so. "Lee instructed him to confine his observations to his own performance. Now was the time for him to deliver a small sermon on prayer to Helena. He recognized this, but he was merely incensed by it. What could hereply if they questioned him about his own devotions? Should heacknowledge that he thought prayer was no more than a pleasant form ofadministering to a sense of self-importance? Or, at most, a variety ofself-help? Luckily they didn't ask. How outraged Fanny would be--hewould be driven from the community--if he confessed the slightest ofhis doubts to his children. If, say at the table, when they were alltogether, he should drop his negative silence, his policy ofnonintervention, what a horrified breathlessness would follow. Hischildren, Lee thought, his wife, the servants in the kitchen, none knewhim; he was a stranger to his own house. 

If he had still, quite desperately, instinctively, looked to Helena andGregory for assistance, he had met a final failure. Brushed withsleepiness they were slipping away from him. He was reluctant to havethem go, leave him; the distance between them and himself appeared towiden immeasurably as he stood watching them settle for the night. Hewanted to call them back, "Helena and Gregory, Gregory!" But heremained quiet, his head a little bent, his heart heavy. The tide ofsleep, silent, mystical, recompensing! It wasn't that, exactly, he wasfacing. 

Switching off the light he went into their playroom, scattered withbright toys, with alphabet blocks and an engine, a train of cars andsome lengths of track, and a wooden steamboat on wheels gaily painted. Already these things had a look of indifferent treatment, of havingbeen half cast aside. Gregory had wanted a typewriter; his jacket, atdancing-school, had been belted like his, Lee Randon's. They each had, in the lower hall, a bicycle on which they rode to and from school andto play. "Will he need me later?" Lee asked himself; "or will it be thesame till the end?" But he had already decided that the latter wasinfinitely better. 

He lingered on the second floor, putting off from minute to minute theunavoidable taking up of Fanny's demands. She was, he knew, waiting forhis appearance to begin again energetically. In their room it struckhim forcibly that he must make some mental diagram of his course, hislast unshakable position. Certainly in admitting that he had calledSavina Grove by her first name he had justified Fanny's contention thathe had kissed her. Fanny should have asked him how many times that hadoccurred. "A hundred, " he heard himself, in fancy, replying. By God, hewould like to say just that, and have it all over, done with. Insteadhe must lie cunningly, imperturbably, and in a monumental patience. Why? He hadn't, pointedly, asked that before. Things here, his life, the future, must be held together. 

After he had descended, he lingered in the hall: in the room where hiswife was sitting not a sound was audible, there wasn't an indication ofher presence. Lee turned away to the mantel-piece dominated byCytherea. Here, he addressed himself silently to the doll, you'reresponsible for this. Get me out of it. I'll put it all in your hands, that hand you have raised and hold half open and empty. But his, headded, in an embittered lightness, was an affair of matrimony; it was amoral knot; and it had nothing to do with Cytherea, with the shape, thesea, the island, of Venus. She was merely disdainful. 

Fanny was seated in the chair, the exact position, in which he had lefther. And when he returned to the place he had deserted, she took nonotice of him. 

Her eyes were fixed in thought, her lips pinched. Was it only now, orhad he never noticed it before, that her hands resembled her face, bonywith a dry fine skin? Perhaps, heroically, she was thrusting the wholesubject of Savina Grove from her mind; he couldn't tell; her exteriorshowed Lee Randon nothing, He waited, undecided if he'd smoke. Leedidn't, he found, want to. She shook her head, a startled look passedthrough her eyes, and Fanny sighed deeply. She seemed to come back froma far place. It was, of course, the past, her early aspirations;herself, young; but what, out of her remembrance, had she brought withher?

 * * * * *

Nothing. 

Her first words instantly dispelled what had many aspects of his lasthope for peace. "It is surprising to me that you could go up to thechildren; but I suppose we must all be glad to have you pay attentionto them at any time. " This minor development he succeeded in avoiding. "I have been thinking hard, " she continued, "and I have made up my mindabout you; it is this--you just simply have to be different. I won'tlet you, us, stay like this. It is hideous. "

"You are quite right, " he admitted; "and I have already agreed that thechange must principally be in me. If you'd explain it to me, what youhave decided on, we'll find out, if possible, how to go about it. "

"At least you needn't be sarcastic, " she replied; "I am not asimpossible as you make out. You will have to be different at home--"

"I thought it was outside home you objected to. "

"It's one and the same, " she went on; "and I won't have them, it, aminute longer. Not a minute! You have got to behave yourself. "

"You haven't been very definite yet. "

"Mrs. Grove--Savina, " she flung back at him. 

"That is a name and not a fact. "

"It's a fact that you kissed her. " Fanny leaned forward, flushed andtense, knocking over her stool. "And that you put your arms around her, and said--oh, I don't know what you did say. Did she mention me?"

"Only indirectly, " he replied with a gleam of malice; "neither of usdid. "

"I am glad of that anyhow. " But her vindictive tone betrayed the words. "Although I can easily guess why you didn't--you were ashamed. You didkiss her; why won't you admit it?"

"What's the good? You've done that for me. You have convinced yourselfso positively that nothing I could say would be of any use. "

"Did she call you Lee?"

"Hell, Fanny, what a God-forsaken lot of young nonsense!" His anger wasmounting. "You can understand here as well as later that I am not goingto answer any of it; and I'll not listen to a great deal more. Sometimes, lately, you have been insulting, but now you are downrightpathetic, you are so ridiculous. "

"You will stay exactly where you are until I get done. " Her tone wasperceptibly shriller. "And don't you dare call me pathetic; if you onlyknew--disgracing yourself in New York, with a family at home. It is toocommon and low and vulgar for words: like a travelling salesman. ButI'll make you behave if I have to lock you up. "

Lee Randon laughed at her; and, at the contempt in his mirth, she rose, no longer flushed, but white with wrath. "I won't have it!" Her voicewas almost a scream, and she brought her hands down so violently on thetable that, as she momentarily broke the circuit of the electric lamp, there was a flash of greenish light. It was exactly as though her fury, a generated incandescence of rage, had burned into a perceptible flare. This, he realized, was worse than he had anticipated; he saw no safeissue; it was entirely serious. Lee was aware of a vague sorrow, a wishto protect Fanny, from herself as much as anything; but he waspowerless. At the same time, with the support of no affection, withoutinterest, his patience was rapidly vanishing. He was conscious of Fannynot as his wife, nor as a being lost in infinite suffering, but as awoman with her features strangely, grotesquely, twisted and drawn. 

His principal recognition was that she meant nothing to him; she wasn'teven familiar; he couldn't credit the fact that they had long livedtogether in an entire intimacy. Dissolved by his indifference, the pastvanished like a white powder in a glass of water. She might have been awoman overtaken by a mental paroxysm in the cold impersonality of arailway station. "Stop it, " he commanded sharply; "you are hysterical, all kinds of a fool. "

"Only one kind, " she corrected him, in a voice so rasped that it mighthave come from a rusted throat; "and I'm not going to be it muchlonger. You have cured me, you and that Savina. But what--what makes melaugh is how you thought you could explain and lie and bully me. Anything would do to tell me, I'd swallow it like one of those biggrapes. " She was speaking in gusts, between the labored heavings of herbreast; her eyes were staring and dark; and her hands opened and shut, shut and opened, continuously. Fanny's cheeks were now mottled, therewere fluctuating spots of red, blue shadows, on the pallor of her skin. 

"In a minute more you'll be sick, " he warned her. 

"Oh, God, " she whispered, "that's all he knows, all he feels! In aminute, a minute, I'll be sick. Don't you see, you damned fool, " hervoice rose until it seemed impossible that she could hold the pitch, "can't you understand I am dying?"

"No. " His terseness was calculated: that, he thought, would bestcontrol her wildness. "No one could be more alive. If I were you, though, I'd go up to bed; we've had enough of this, or I have; I can'tspeak for you. But, however that may be, and as I've said before, ithas got to stop, now, at once. "

If it didn't, he continued silently, he wouldn't be eternallyresponsible for himself; never a patient man, what might follow the endof his endurance was unpredictable. His feeling toward the woman beforehim was shifting, as well; the indifference was becoming bitterness;the bitterness glittered, like mica, with points of hatred. He feltthis, like an actual substance, a jelly-like poison, in his blood, affecting his body and mind. It bred in him a refined brutality, aningenious cruelty. "A mirror would shut you up quicker than anythingelse, " he informed her; "you look like a woman of sixty--go somewhereand fix your face. "

"It doesn't surprise me you are insulting, " she replied, "but I didn'texpect it quite so soon. I thought you might hide what you really werea little longer; it seemed to me you might try to keep something. But Iguess it's better to have it all done with at once, and to meet theworst. "

"You talk as though there were no one but you in this, " he saidconcisely; "and that I didn't matter. You'll find that I have a littleto say. Here it is: I am tired of your suspicions and questions andinsinuations. You haven't any idea of marriage except as a bed-roomfarce. You're so pure that you imagine more indecencies in a day than Icould get through with in five years. If there were one I hadn'tthought of, you'd have me at it in no time. It was pleasant at theGroves' because there was none of this infernal racket. Mrs. Grove, no--Savina, is a wise woman. I was glad to be with her, to get away--"

"Go back, then!" Fanny cried. "Don't bother about me and your home andthe children. You brought me here, and made me have them, all the bloodand tearing; but that doesn't matter. Not to you! I won't let you touchme again. "

"That needn't trouble you, " he assured her. 

"Not ... When you have her ... To touch. " She could scarcelyarticulate, each word was pronounced as though it had cost a separateand strangling effort. "You vile, rotten coward!"

The flood of her hysteria burst so suddenly that, unprepared, he wasoverwhelmed with its storm of tears and passionate charges. "You oughtto be beaten till you fell down. You wouldn't say these things to me, treat me like this, if I weren't helpless, if I could do anything. ButI can't, and you are safe. I am only your wife and not some filthywoman in New York. " As she moved her head the streaming tears swung outfrom her face. "God damn you. " Her hand went out to the table and, rising, it held the heavy dull yellow paper cutter. Before he coulddraw back she struck him; the copper point ripped down his jaw and hithis shoulder a jarring blow. 

In an instant of passion Lee Randon caught Fanny by the shoulders andshook her until her head rolled as though her neck were broken. Even inhis transport of rage, with his fingers dug into her flesh, he stoppedto see if this were true. 

It wasn't. She swayed uncertainly, dazed and gasping, while her hair, shaken loose from its knot, slowly cascaded over one shoulder. Thenstumbling, groping, with a hand on a chair, against the frame of thedoor, she went out of the room. 

 * * * * *

Lee's jaw bled thickly and persistently; the blood soaked, filled, hishandkerchief; and, going to the drawer in the dining-room where thelinen was kept, he secured and held against a ragged wound a napkin, Hewas nauseated and faint. His rage, killed, as it were, at its height, left him with a sensation of emptiness and degradation. The silence--after the last audible dragging footfall of Fanny slowly mounting thestairs--was appalling: it was as though all the noise of all the world, concentrated in his head, had been stopped at once and forever. Heremoved the sop from the cut, and the bleeding promptly took up itsspreading over his throat and under his collar. That blow had killed agreat deal: the Lee Randon married to Fanny was already dead; Fanny, too, had told him that she was dying, killed from within. It was ashame. 

He was walking when it occurred to him that he had better keep quiet;if the blood didn't soon stop he should require help; he was noticeablyweak. His feeling with regard to Fanny was confined to curiosity, butmainly his thoughts, his illimitable disgust, were directed at himself. His anger, returning like the night wind from a different direction, cut at himself, at the collapse of his integrity. He was, in reality, frightened at what had been no better than a relapse into a state ofmania; he was shocked at the presence, however temporary, of a frenzyof madness. 

Nothing had altered his attitude toward the woman who was his wife; allhis active emotions for her had gone. Then his attention was drawn fromhis personality to his life, his surroundings; they were suffocating. Not to be borne! Nowhere could he discover a detail, an episode, thathad the importance of reality. He had a sensation of being wrapped in afeather bed, the need to make a violent gesture--sending the whitefluff whirling through space--and so be free to breathe. This house, the symmetrical copied walls, the harmonious rugs, symbols of publicsuccess and good opinion, the standard of a public approbation, exasperated him beyond endurance. He wanted to push the walls out, tearthe rugs into rags, and scatter them contemptuously before thescandalized inertness of Eastlake. Lee had what was regarded as anadmirable existence, an admirable family--the world imposed thisjudgment on him; and the desire, the determination, swept over him tosmash to irremediable atoms what was so well applauded. 

The thought fascinated him: to break his life wide open. He'd let itgo, it was worthless to him, the companies and bonds and the woman andchildren, the jog-trotting on fenced roads, the vain pretentions of thecountry club, the petty grasping at the petticoats--where they wereworn--of variety. Lee wished that he could do this in the presence ofeveryone he knew; he wanted to see their outraged faces, hear theshocked expressions, as he insulted, demolished, all that theyworshipped. The blood, he found, had stopped; his hurt was relativelyunimportant. The fever of rebellion, of destruction, increased in himuntil it was as violent, as blinding, as his earlier fury; and he wentat once in search of Fanny. 

She had undressed, and, in a nightgown effectively drawn with blueribbons, she lay face down across the bottom of her bed. One shoulder, immaculately white except for the leaden bruises of his fingers, wasbare, and an arm, from which her jewelled wrist watch had not beenremoved, was outstretched. He stood above her, but, breathing faintly, she made no sign of a consciousness of his presence. 

"Fanny, " he began, speaking with an effort of calmness out of hislaboring being, "this is all over for me. As I told you so many times, I've had too much of it. It's yours, anyhow, and the children areyours, and you may do what you like with the whole affair. I'm done. "Still she didn't move, reply. "I am going, " he said more impatiently, "tonight. I want you to understand that this is final. You were toogood a wife; I couldn't keep even with you; and I can't say, now, thatI want to. Everyone will tell you that I am no good--you see, I haven'tthe shadow of a cause for leaving--and the best thing you can do isbelieve them. If I had what was recognized as a reason for going, I'dstay, if that has any sense; you may put your own interpretation onit. "

She turned and half rose, regarding him from the edge of the bed. Herface, no longer brightly mottled, was sunken, and dull with despair. "Ican't talk, " she said; "the words are all hard like stones down in myheart. You'll have to go; I can't stop you; I knew you had goneyesterday, or was it last week? I saw it was a hopeless fight but Itried, I had to; I thought your memory would help. "

"It wasn't Savina who did this, " he informed her; "I want you torealize that fully. Whatever happens, she is not to blame. All, all thefault is mine; it would take too long to explain, you wouldn't believeme--you couldn't--and so I am deserting you. That is the word for it, the one you will use. " Fanny gazed at him in a clouding perplexity. 

"I can't think it's true. " Her voice was dazed. "A thing like thiscouldn't be happening to us, to me. It's only for a little, we are bothcross--"

He cut her short with the assurance that what he said he meant. Sentimental indulgence, he felt, was dangerously out of place. Sheslipped back, supine, on the bed; and, with short sobs, she cried, "Go!Go! Go!"

In his room he methodically and thoughtfully assembled the necessitiesfor his bag; he was arranging mentally the details of his act. Where, primarily, it affected Fanny and the children, his lawyers could handleit best; it was the present consequences to himself, the stepimmediately before him, that demanded consideration. But hisdeliberation was lost in the knowledge that he would go to New Yorkwhere, inevitably, he should see Savina. No one could predict whatwould determine that; it would unfold, his affair with Savina mustconclude, as it had begun--in obedience to pressures beyond theircontrol. An increasing excitement flowed over him at the thought ofbeing with her, possessing her, again. There was no doubt of that inhis mind; he knew that Savina would come to him. She was far moreruthless in brushing aside artificial barriers, prejudices, than, untilnow, he. The figure of William Grove occupied him for a little, but heseemed insubstantial, not so much a being as a convention to be smashedin his own house. 

Lee Randon decided not to speak again, to say good-bye, to Fanny. Itwould only multiply the difficulties of his leaving; she might haveanother attack of rage, or--worse--of affection. He was amazed at hislack of feeling, a little disturbed: perhaps there was somethingfatally wrong, lacking, about him, and he was embarked on the firstviolent stage of physical and mental degradation. It couldn't behelped, he told himself, once more down stairs, in the hall. Beyond, the stool lay where Fanny had kicked it; and he bent over to pick upthe copper paper cutter from the floor. Putting it on the table, hereflected that Fanny would, in all probability, destroy it. Hishandkerchief, stiff, black with dried blood, was in the crystal ashholder with a mahogany stand; and that, as unnecessarily unpleasant, hehid in a pocket. 

The electric globe in the floor lamp was yellow; it was nearly burnedout and would have to be replaced. This had been his special corner, the most comfortable in the pen. But the pig, he remembered, had beenslaughtered last week; and he wondered if the parallel he hadestablished would hold true to the end. In the main aspect, heconcluded, yes. But the pig had died without experiencing what was, undoubtedly, both the fundamental duty and recompense of living. Thepig, happily or unhappily, had remained in ignorance of Cytherea andthe delights of love; but, perhaps, if only for the moment, he hadbetter call that passion; it was a word of clearer, more exact, definition. 

He left the house walking, carrying his bag up the hill into Eastlake:a train left for the city at eleven-fifty-eight. Lee turned, beyond hisproperty, and saw the light burning in what had been his and Fanny'sroom; the rest of the house, except for the glimmer below, was dark. The winter night was encrusted with stars. A piercing regret seizedhim--that he was past the middle of forty and not in the earlytwenties. To be young and to know Savina! To be young and free. To beyoung ... The increasing rapidity with which he went forward had theaspect of an endeavor to waste no more precious time. 

V

The brief level voice of Savina Grove arranging over the telephone anhour, very late in the afternoon, for him to call, gave Lee acomparatively long time in which to examine his feelings, particularlyin connection with Savina. His state of mind, his intentions, herealized, should be clear for the moment when he saw her. In generalthey were; but the particulars, the details of any probable immediateaction, evaded him. He should have to consult her about them. What hemost firmly grasped of all was that he couldn't--what, in reality, hebreathed to himself was they--remain in New York. The comparativelyorderly and delayed legal arrangement projected by the Morrises andMina Raff seemed to have no application to the impetuosity of thesituation before him. However, he was advancing at a speed, to aposition, for which there was no warrant. None at all. Perhaps Savina, satisfied by the one occasion which--he had been so careful to insist--must be the last, would regard him as merely importunate. 

Strictly held to discretion by the fact of Fanny, Savina might havefound him then--more available than when free--only the acceptablemodel of an indiscreet man. Yet, he reminded himself, he hadn't leftEastlake, broken wide open his home, on account of Savina. This, heagain insisted, would have happened independently of her; his life inEastlake had broken up of its own accord; its elements had been tootenuous for the withstanding any longer of the stress of existence. But, he was forced to add, the collapse had been hastened by hisknowledge of Savina. And this brought him to the examination of what, at bottom, she meant to him. What was her significance, her bulk, inhis life?

That could be approached only through an understanding of his feelingfor her, what it was now and what it might become; not conspicuouslyeasy of comprehension. Lee tried the old, the long inaccurately used, word, love. He asked himself the question squarely--did he love Savina?Damned if he knew! He might reply to that, he thought ruefully, if hegrasped what love was, what the blasted phrase meant. As it was, itseemed to Lee, a dictionary of synonyms would be helpless to make allits varied significances distinct. He tried a simpler approach--did hewant to be with Savina more than with anyone else? At last he had put aquestion to himself that he could answer: he most assuredly preferredbeing with Savina to anyone else he knew. But that alone would not havetaken him to her. 

A simple desire on his part, naive like a daisy, could not haveoverthrown the structure of his being. Yet the connection between thetwo, the woman and the event, was undeniable, his impulse to go to hernow irresistible. That last word, as fully as any, expressed whatlately had happened to him. He was considering the occurrenceslogically while the fact was that logic hadn't been touched on, summoned, once. He had moved emotionally and not intellectually; hehadn't known, from hour to hour, in what direction he would proceed. Certainly nothing could be said in his defense on the score of commonsense; that, though, didn't disturb him; at a time when he might havebeen said to rely on it, common sense had failed him utterly. He hadthrown that over his shoulder. Nor was he searching for an exteriorjustification of his present anomalous position, for, briefly, anexcuse; excuses were the furthest of all things from his mind. Thetruth was that he was decidedly exhilarated, as though he had left thehard narrow road for a gallop over the green. He was merely dwellingon, analyzing, the present as it was becoming the newly promising, theopening, future. 

But he did need to understand--for an attitude, a choice of speech, ifnothing else--his feeling for Savina. It consisted principally in thetyrannical desire to be with her, to sink in the immeasurable depths ofher passion, and there lose all consciousness of the trivial mundaneworld. That, Lee felt, given the rest, the fact that he was here as hewas, was sufficient; but--again still--he had had no voice in it. Thepassion had inundated him in the manner of an incoming tide and a low-water rock. Abruptly, after a certain misleading appearance ofhesitation on the part of the waves, he had gone under. Well, it wasvery pleasant. In his case the celebrated maxims were wrong. 

He left this, for the moment, and returned to what, actually, lay aheadof him. Would Savina go away with him, leave the correct William, thesafety of their New York house in the style of eighteen-eighty? Leeconsidered in her two impulses, not alike--her overwhelming passion, herself generally; and her admission, no, cry, that she loved him, orthe special part he had in her. It rather looked as though he'd besuccessful. It did for a fact. He had not been idle through all theday, but had drawn from the Harriman Bank twenty thousand dollars. Somuch had not been necessary; it was very bad business to segregate inidleness such a sum of money now; but he enjoyed the extravagance ofit. Prudence, frugality, was no longer a factor in his affairs. 

His present personal liberty, more complete than it had ever beenbefore--than, he added lightly, it might ever be again--wasastonishingly soothing. Sitting comfortably in a room in his customaryhotel, there wasn't a pressure that could be brought to bear on him. Itwas now twenty minutes past four, he was to go to Savina at a quarterto six, and until then there was nothing, nothing, to force him thisway or that: no directors' meetings, gabbling East-lake figures, responsibility, housewife or children. He hadn't realized the extent towhich he had been surrounded and confined, the imponderable mass ofwhat he had not only been indifferent to but actually disliked. Hecould lie down--he had been up the entire past night--and be called inan hour; he could sit as he was, in an unbuttoned waistcoat with hislegs comfortably spread out; he could motor or walk on Fifth Avenue;smoke; drink--all in an inviolable security of being. 

Or, going back to that moment when he had, so mistakenly, turned asidefrom visionary promptings to a solid comfortable career, he might--whatwas it?--write. Perhaps his sharp regret at the loss of his youth waspremature, youth itself comparatively unimportant. But no, that wouldinvolve him in fresh distasteful efforts, imperceptibly it would buildup a whole new world of responsibilities: writing would be arduous, editors captious, and articles, stories, books, tie him back again toall that from which he had so miraculously escaped. Savina would beenough. What a beautiful body, so unexpectedly full, she had; howastounding, intoxicating, was the difference between what she seemed tobe and what she was. Lee Randon thought with amused pity of the filesof men who must have passed by her, with the most considerate bows, inignorance of the inner truth. 

 That discovery, while, naturally, it had not been entirely reservedfor him, had accumulated in a supreme delight, been kept back, like thebest of all presents, for the last. He was glad that it wasn't too latefor him to enjoy it. Here, suddenly, intervening in the midst of aprosaic drudgery, a tepid and meaningless period, was a magnificentrelief. By God, would he take advantage of it! Would he! There was aknock at the door, and the hotel valet hung a freshly pressed suit inthe closet; the shoes into which he intended to change were in aperfection of readiness; laid out were a heavy blue silk shirt and adull yellow tie. Lee got these various carefully selected articles ofdress slowly, exactly, on. His pearl pin Fanny had given him! Well, itwas a good pearl, selected personally by a celebrated dealer; and Leewas obliged to her, nothing more. He lighted a cigarette, collected hishat and gloves, his overcoat and stick, and descended in the elevatorin a mood of unrestrained enjoyment. 

The door attendant, who knew him, whistled for a taxi-cab, commentinglightly on the visible accident to his jaw. But, in spite of it, Leehad an appearance, as he phrased it, of good luck. The world, he said, was evidently in favor of Mr. Randon. The latter agreed that it hadsuch a look. He was positively jovial. He dismissed the cab before thefamiliar entrance on East Sixty-sixth Street, and was admittedimmediately: the servant caught his coat, and he went into the drawing-room. There had been, he saw, a tea; the confusion lingering from acrowd was evident; the cups, on all the available surfaces, had notbeen removed; in a corner were the skeleton-like iron music racks of asmall orchestra; ash trays were overflowing; and a sealskin muff, witha bunch of violets pinned to it, had been left. 

Savina had gone upstairs, but she would be down at once. Lee was turnedaway from the door when she entered; she was wearing a cloth dress ofdull red--hadn't he heard it called Cuba color?--with a heavy girdle ofgrotesque intertwined silver figures. With a single glance behind hershe swept forward into Lee's arms, her mouth held up to his. 

 * * * * *

Listening closely to all that he had to say, she sat with her handsquietly folded on crossed knees. Perhaps twice she nodded, comprehendingly. "And so, " he ended, "that is what has occurred. We arenot to blame ourselves too much, as I've explained; the thing happenedwithin itself, died of its own accord. But the past doesn't need ourattention now. The future is the thing. What is it going to be? What, "he hesitated, "can we make it? Maybe everything, or nothing. "

"Are you leaving that for me to decide?" she asked. 

"To a great extent I have to; I don't want to appear to take so muchfor granted. And then, only you can measure what I have to offer. Ibelieve what I have done is considered serious, if not ruinous; butthat I can't help thinking is exaggerated. I haven't been struck downyet. I don't, candidly, now, expect to be. You ought to come to thisthrough your head, and not the heart, which I'd naturally prefer you touse. What, in fact, I am asking you is to go away with me, to live withme. I shall not, and you couldn't, very well, return. It's quite final, in other words. I must find out, too, if the irregularity upsets you. That need only be temporary. Grove and Fanny, I am sure, wouldn'tpersist in being disagreeable. But, if they did, we'd have to face thatas well, the consequences of my--my impatience. 

"No, don't answer so quickly. Do you know me, are you sure you'd behappy, satisfied, with me? I have some money, not a great deal formyself now; I should say fifteen thousand dollars a year. Fanny, veryrightfully--for herself and the children--will get most of what I have. And then, are you wedded, if not to your individual life here, to NewYork? We should have to go away to some place rather vague--"

"Cuba, " she broke in. 

The irony of that suggestion carried him back to the many vainlyprojected trips there with Fanny. His brother was in Cuba, it was true;but that might turn out excellently: Daniel would be able to help themin the difficult readjustments to follow. He was intelligent, unprejudiced and calm and, Lee added, remote from the values, theponderous authority, of a northern hypocritical society. Then he forgotthat in the realization that Savina was going away with him, that shewas to be his, not for a solitary stolen night, but for years ... Openly, completely. He lost his self control and kissed her, heedlessof the open doors. Now she was cooler than Lee, and pushed him away. "William will be in at any minute, " she explained:

"When shall we leave?"

"We might take a train tonight for Washington, since we'll needpassports and I have to have an income tax receipt, and we can manageall that best there. Then Key West, Havana, anywhere. We will hope toget off without trouble; but, if Grove interferes, accept theconsequences as they come. "

"Very well. " Savina grew still quieter as the march of events becameheadlong. "I can live without a maid for a while. Tonight I won't dressfor dinner, this will do very nicely for the train; and come as soonafter as I can pack a bag. There will be literally nothing in it; mysummer things are all out of reach. Washington will be convenient forme, too. Unless you want to see William again--" She rose. 

"Not particularly, " he acknowledged; "though I wouldn't drive aroundthe city to avoid him. Somehow--I may be blind--I can't think that I amdoing him an infamous wrong: that he lost you proves that. Why, underthe circumstances, should you, anyone, stay? I don't feel a particleimmoral, or even devilish. It's all so sensible and balanced andsuperior. No, no, let William watch out for himself; his club, he's sodevoted to, won't fail him. Fanny and he will have their whole worldsto sympathize with their injury. We don't need sympathy. "

Lee walked back to the hotel, the pig-skin wrapped walking stickswinging from an arm, his bearing confident and relaxed. He stopped atthe desk for a conference with the porter--a basket of fruit from therestaurant, and, if procurable regularly or irregularly, a drawing-roomon the Washington train. Then he went up and closed his bag: he hadtime for dinner and several cigars afterwards; he wasn't hungry, butthe ceremony would kill the intervening two hours and more. 

The porter found him later and delivered his tickets, including thecheck for a drawing-room, secured as irregularly as possible from thePullman conductor. There were, it began to seem, to be no minorannoyances. At a few minutes before ten he was standing, as he hadarranged with Savina, with his bag before the hotel; and, just past thehour, the cab which held her turned in to the sidewalk. She had twobags, but one was very small--her toilet things, she explained--and shewas carrying a jewel case. There wasn't a tremor in her voice orbearing, the slightest indication that they were going farther than atheatre in the vicinity of Forty-fourth Street. Internally, Lee wasexcited, filled with the long strange sense of holiday. 

"William went to the club, " Savina told him with a smile edged withmalice; "everything was as usual when he left, but when he gets back itwill be changed. I'm sorry to miss his expression when he reads theletter I wrote; he won't show it to anyone. "

"That sounds as though you really disliked him, " Lee observed. Then heremembered the hatred he had felt for Fanny. Matrimony had a brutalhand for superficial relationships and conventions. He had spokenlightly but, watching her, he saw the grimness of her passion strikethe animation from her face. The jewel case slid over the softness ofher wrap to the floor, her hand crept under his cuff, clinging to hisarm. 

Going immediately to their train, they found the fruit in the drawing-room; the porter stopped to knock at the door and discover if they werein need of his attendance. They heard dimly the train's muffled boringunder the river and were conscious of the swimming lights of the Jerseyplain, the confused illuminated darkness of cities, the tranquility ofopen country, the ringing echo of bridges and the sustained wail oftheir locomotive. They were, again, reaching Washington, close in ataxi-cab; Savina's jewel case again fell unheeded; and again, after theshortest halt possible, they were whirling south in a drawing-roomwhere night and day were indistinguishable one from the other. 

On the rear platform of the orange-painted train moving deliberatelyalong the Florida coast Lee was first aware of the still, saturatingheat; that, in itself, was enough to release him from the winter-likegrip of Eastlake. He lost all sense of time, of hurry, of the necessityof occupation as opposed to idleness, of idleness contrasted withsleep. The promise of satiation, of inevitability, steeped his being ina pleasant lethargy. It was the same to him if they moved or stopped, whether they arrived at the next destination or remained forever in asandy monotony of tomato fields or by a slow pass of water cutting theharshness of palmettos. On the viaducts he gazed with half-closed eyesacross the sapphire and emerald green and purple water; or, directlyunder him, he looked down incuriously into a tide so clear that itseemed no more than a breath ruffling the sand beneath. 

Savina, who had discarded cloth for dull white linen--she wished, sheexplained, to make the transition as sharply as possible--was morealertly interested in their constantly shifting surroundings; they weresignificant to her as the milestones of her incredible escape. On thesteamer for Havana, marking their effects deposited in a cabin with adouble iron bed and unpleasantly ubiquitous basins, she explained toLee that she never got seasick; but he might have gathered that, shepointed out, by her willingness to undertake Cuba. Admitting that hehad missed this feminine subtlety, he arranged two deck chairs in anadvantageous angle, and they sat enveloped in a mildness which, heavywith the odor of water-soaked wood, was untroubled by any wind. Whenthe steamer left its pier Savina put a hand inside one of his. Theharbor lights dropped, pair by pair, back into the night; the vibrationof the propeller became a sub-conscious murmur; over the placid waterastern a rippling phosphorescence was stirred and subsided. A motion, increasing by imperceptible degrees, affected the deck; there was arise and fall, regular and sleep-impelling: the uneasiness of the GulfStream. Havana floated into their waking vision, a city of white marbleset in lustrous green, profound indigo, against the rosy veil of amorning sun. 

 * * * * *

The fortunate chance that took them to the Inglaterra Hotel--thedisdain of its runner was more persuasive than the clamor of all theothers who had boarded the steamer--found them a room, they soondiscovered, in what was at once the most desirable and the mostunlikely place. They might have the chamber until Tuesday, Lee wastold, in an English inflected with the tonal gravity of Spain. It washardly past eight in the morning, an awkward hour to arrive newly at acity, he thought, as they were carried up in the elevator. The detailsof the floor, the hall, they crossed, engaged his interest; not alonefor the height of the ceiling, which was excessive, but because of thepalms, the pointed Moorish arches filled with green painted woodlattices; the totality of an effect different from anything else he hadseen. 

Their room, with the lift of the ceiling emphasized by the confinedspace, was more engaging still: tall slatted doors opened on an ironrailed balcony, the bath-room was like a tunnel on end, and the flooran expanse of polished mosaic in a pattern of yellow and grey. Leewalked out on the balcony; directly below and across a narrow pavedstreet was a floridly impressive building obviously for the purpose ofvaried assemblages, and on his left a park was laid in concrete walks, royal palms on towering smooth dull trunks, unfamiliar trees with agraceful dense foliage, and innumerable stacked iron chairs about themarble statue of a man with a pointing hand. These details, however, were slowly gathered from an effect the whole of which wasbewilderingly white, a whiteness intolerably luminous in the dazzlingbath of the sun. 

It was a scene, a city, Lee recognized, more foreign to his own thanany he knew in western Europe; a difference that existed mainly in thetropical heat, visible in languorous waves rising from blanched wallsand streets already--so early--fervent. Savina was filled with delight;a positive color glowed in place of the customary uniform pallor of hercheeks; she opened her bags with an irresistible youthful energy. "Think what we have been missing, " she called above the sound of thewater running into the tub; "and what we accepted so long for living. Isuppose the wonderful thing is that we escaped. Lee, do you realizethat almost no one does? They never never get away, but go from onegrave, from one winter, to another. Isn't it strange, when what we didis so very easy. 

"I'd like to tell a hundred people in New York that they could get awaytoo, unfreeze themselves. When we drove horses I used to be surprisedthat they went along so quietly in blinders; they never seemed to learnthat one kick would break into splinters the thing dragging on them. People are like that, I was and you were, too--in blinders. We've tornours off, Lee. Tell me that you are glad. " He was, without reserve. Tranquilly finding his razors, he was aware of a permeating contentmentin what they had done. It was exactly as Savina had said--the forceswhich had held them in a rigorous northern servitude had proved, uponassault, to be no more than a defense of painted prejudices, the canvasembrasures of hypocrisy. 

"It is astonishing, what so many people put up with, " he agreed; "butthen, " Lee added, in a further understanding, "it isn't so much whatyou knock down as what you carry away, take everywhere, inside you. When an arrangement like ours fails, that, mostly, I suspect, is thecause. It needs a special sort of fitness. Take the hundred people youspoke of--I'd be willing to bet not five of them could get away fromthe past, or put out of their minds what they are brought up on. Privately they would think they were wicked, damned, or some suchtruck; and, sure enough, that alone would finish them. "

"I haven't a speck of that, " Savina admitted serenely; "I am happy. AndI don't even have to ignore the thought of your wife and children;they'll get along just as well, maybe better, without you. Williamdoesn't need me; he hasn't for a number of years. But we had to haveeach other. "

Lee Randon considered this in relation to his feeling that he had notleft Eastlake, Fanny, because of Savina. He was still convinced thathis life had fallen apart of itself; but he began to see that Savinahad been more deeply involved in his act of liberty than he hadsuspected. Without her it was probable that he would have continued tothe end in the negative existence of Eastlake; yet no amount of mereassurance that that was the only admirable, the only permissible, course was valid with him unless he had a corroborating belief. And allthat he might once have possessed had left him at the final blow dealtby the passion of Savina and himself. 

She had been stronger than the assembled forces of heredity and preceptand experience; her strength was superhuman; it was incredible that herslender body could hold such an impulse, a fury really, of vitality. Women must have been like that in earlier ages of humanity; but theywere no longer; their passion had been wasted, spent, or turned asideinto exhausting by-paths of sensation. He had finished shaving and, when they were dressed, they went down to breakfast in a dining-roomwith a marble floor and walls lustrous with bronze tiling. They hadtall glasses of iced orange juice; and, with the last fragrant draughtof coffee, Lee lighted a long bland cigar. 

"If you like, " he proceeded comfortably, "you may rush around and seeas much of the city as possible. There is a big omnibus at the door. Personally, I am going to do nothing of the kind. I intend to sit andsmoke, and then--smoke and sit. I am done with the proper and expectedthing in every one of its forms. I have always hated churches; and thespots where soldiers fell or martyrs were burned, monuments, just annoyme; and picture galleries give me colds in the head. Above all else Idon't want to be improved; if I hear a fact of any sort I am going tobed for the rest of the day. "

"I don't care about those, either, " Savina assented; "but the stores, yes. I have to have a mantilla and a high comb right away, now; and--Iwarn you--if it's only in our room I'm going to wear them. If I couldget you into it I'd bring back a shell jacket covered with green braidand a wide scarlet sash, or whatever an espada wears. "

"A guitar and a carnation ought to do, " he responded. "Count on me fornothing until the evening, when, if you care to, we'll drive along thesea, one way and then the other, and have dinner where we happen to be. I hope you will wear the most extravagant and holiday clothes--white, and very ruffled and thin, would be nice, with emeralds. "

"It's a good thing I have a lot of money, " she observed; "you havesome, of course, but it wouldn't begin to support your ambitions. "

"I don't even care which of us has it, " he admitted; "so it's there. Ayear ago I should have looked pained and insisted that I couldn'taccept, nor allow you to use, your own money. I don't exactly have toask you for a taxi-cab fare, though, luckily; but if you did bring theemeralds I saw you wearing in New York don't throw them away on myaccount. "

"They are here, " she assured him. "William gave them to me when we weremarried. "

"Splendid, together with Fanny's pearl, " he replied placidly; "I wasafraid they had been a legacy from your mother. I much prefer them tohave been William's--it will give them such a Utopian sparkle. "

When Savina had gone, in a long brightly-painted car summoned from theline backed at the plaza's edge, Lee Randon returned to their room. Theheat of the day, approaching noon, the ceaseless noise of Havana rosediffused to the balcony where he sat until the circling sunlight forcedhim to move inside. What amazing comfort! A curiously impersonaladmiration for Savina grew with the understanding of her exceptionallyperceptive being. She was what, above all else, he would have chosenfor a companion: her extraordinary feeling was sheathed, tempered, inthe satin of a faultless aesthetic sense; the delicacy of her body wasresembled by the fineness of her feminine mind; she was entirely, deliciously, decorative. The black brocade mules by her bed werecharacteristic of her--useless charming objects that had cost twenty, thirty, dollars. Their sliding tap on the glazed floor was anappreciable part of his happiness; Savina's bottles on a dressing-tablewere engraved crystal with gold stoppers: it was all as it should be. 

 * * * * *

When she returned she redressed her hair, drawing it back across herears, put in at a provocative angle a fan-like carved shell comb, andtwisted a shawl of flame-colored silk--it was a manton, she instructedhim--about her shoulders. The guise of Andalusia was very becoming toher. For a dinner, Savina wore the filmy white and emeralds; they wentto a restaurant like a pavilion on a roof, their table, by a lowmasonry wall, overlooking the harbor entrance. The heat of the day, cloaked in night, was cooled by the trade wind moving softly across thesea; the water of the harbor was black, like jet shining with thereflections of the lights strung along the shore; the lighthouse atMorro Castle marked the rocky thrust of the land. The restaurant wascrowded: beyond Lee were four officers of the Spanish navy in snowylinen and corded gilt; in the subdued light the faces of women, underwide flowery hats, were illusive and fascinating; everywhere the deepcrimson of Castilian wines was set against the amber radiance ofchampagne. 

Directly below, shadowy trees hid the stone margin of the bay, and anenormous tripod, such as might be used for removing the cargoes ofships, raised its primitive simplicity. "Look, Lee!" Savina laid a handon his wrist. A steamer, incredibly large and near, was moving slowlyout through the narrow channel to the sea. Rows of golden lights shoneon its decks and from the port-holes, and a drift of music reached him. "Some day soon, " she went on, "we'll take a boat like that, and go--where? It doesn't matter: to a far strange land. Hills scented with teaflowers. Streets with lacquered houses. Villages with silver bells hungalong the eaves. Valleys of primroses under mountains of ice. We'll seethem all from little windows, and then it will be night. But, principally, we will never go back--never! never! never! We will betogether for years. Let's go to the hotel now; Lee. I am rather tired;it's the heat, don't you think? I am worn, and, because I am so happy, a trifle dizzy. Not much. Nothing to worry about. But I only want you, Lee; in my heart I don't care for the valleys and bells and scents. "

Yet, before they reached the hotel they stopped, Savina insisted, forcocktails of Bacardi rum, fragrant with fresh limes and sweet with acrust of sugar that remained at the bottoms of the glasses. In thenight--their beds were separated by the width of the balcony doors--shecalled for him, acute with fright. "What is it?" she cried. "Hark, Lee, that horrible sound. " The air was filled with a drumming wail, adislocated savage music, that affected him like a nightmare grownaudible. 

"It's coming from across the street, from the Opera House, " he toldher; "some kind of a dance, I'm certain. " Patently it was an orchestra, but the instruments that composed it, the measures woven of franticscreaming notes and dull stale iterations, he had no means ofidentifying. "Bedlam in the jungle, " he said soothingly. She wished itwould stop. Soon he agreed with her; without pause, without variation, with an insistence which became cruel, and then unbearable, it went on. Lee Randon, after an uneasiness which culminated in an exasperatedwrath, found a degree of exactness in his description: it was, undoubtedly, the jungle, Africa, debased into a peculiarly harrowingtravesty of later civilized emotions. Finally he lost the impression ofa meaninglessness; it assumed a potency, a naked reality, more profoundthan anything in his previous knowledge. It was the voice of a crazedand debased passion. To Lee, it seemed to strip him of his whiteness, his continence, his integrity, to flay him of every particle ofrestraint and decency, and set him, bestial and exposed, in a ball roomwith glass-hung chandeliers. 

Incomprehensibly the fluctuating clamor--he could distinguish lowpitched drums--brought him the vision, pale and remote and mysteriouslysmiling, of Cytherea. He thought of that torrential discord risingaround her belled purple skirt, the cool yellow of her waist crossedwith fragile lace, beating past her lifted slender hand, the nailsstained with vermilion, to the pointed oval of her face against theblack hair and streaming gold of the headdress. Nothing, it appeared, could be farther apart than the muffled furious strains escaping inbursts through the opened windows beyond and the still apparition fromthe tranquility of his Eastlake house. He would have said, unhesitatingly, that the formal melody of the eighteenth century, ofScarlatti and harpsichords, was the music that best accompaniedCytherea. But she dominated, haunted with her grace, the infernaldinning sound of unspeakable defilements. Savina was racked beyondendurance:

"I can't stand it any longer, " she told Lee hysterically, risen withher palms pressed to her ears. "I can hear it with every nerve. It willnever go out of my brain. You must stop it. Can't you understand thatit is driving me mad!" Her voice grew so shrill, she trembled soviolently, that he had to hold her forcibly in his arms. When, towarddawn, it ceased, Savina was exhausted; she lay limp and white on herbed; and, across the room, he could hear the shallowness of herirregular breathing. As a grey light diluted the darkness, the tradewind, the night wind, dropped, and the heat palpably increased. Instantaneously the sun-flooded morning was born, a morning that lostits freshness, its pearly iridescence, immediately. He closed the slatsof the balcony doors: Savina at last was sleeping, with hercountenance, utterly spent, turned to him. The sharp cries of thenewsboys, the street vendors, were drowned in the full sweep of atraffic moving to the blasts of multitudinous horns. When she woke, past ten, drinking the small cup of black coffee which locallyaccompanied dressing, she was still shaken. "That's the most cursedracket anyone ever had to endure!" A growing irritation made harsh hisvoice. "You couldn't torment a worse sound out of a thousand cats. " Shesmiled wanly. "If we were like that in the past, " he added, "I'm gladwe changed, even if we are worse in other ways. "

"I could hear myself screaming and screaming, " Savina said. In theheated room she had an uncontrollable chill. "Lee, I can't bring myselfto tell you: something black and dreadful ... Had me. There was no oneelse. It was like a woods. The hands ripping at me--" With her faceburied in her embroidered pillow, half clothed in web-like garmentsthreaded with black ribbons, she cowered in an abject and pitifulagony. 

Later, he discovered that, within the scope of his possible knowledge, his conjecture had been right: a danzon, a native Cuban ball--not, thedirector of the Inglaterra gave him to understand, entirelyrespectable--had been held in the Opera House. "But there won't beanother until after we leave, " Lee reassured Savina; "they are ratherrare except at carnival. " She shuddered. It was evident that thedistressing effect on her of the music lingered through the day; herenergy gave way to a passive contentment hardly removed fromlistlessness. 

They drove, at the end of afternoon, on the Malecon, following thecurving sea wall from La Punta to the scattered villas of Vedado. Thesea and sky were grey; or was it blue? At the horizon they met withouta perceptible change; the water became the air, the air water, with atransition as gradual as the edge of dusk. The tropical evening wasaccomplished rapidly, as dramatically as the uprush of the sun: theywere gazing into the distance over a tide like a smooth undulating mist... And there were lights crowning the Cabanas fortress; the passingcars made the familiar geometrical patterns with the cold bars of theirlamps; they were wrapped in darkness; night had come. 

Savina didn't want to go back to the hotel, their room; and, afterdinner at the Paris, they went to Carmelo, where they alternatednorthern dances with the stridor of a northern cabaret and drinks. Savina's spirits revived slowly. To Lee she seemed to have changed inappearance since she left New York--here, losing her air of a constantreserve, she looked younger, daring. Her sharp grace, exposed in thefilms of summer dress, had an aspect of belonging, rather than to thecharacter she had deserted, to a woman at once conscious of its effectand not unwilling to have it measured by the appraising gaze of themasculine public. In a way, without losing her distinction, she hadbecome evident; another woman, one less admirably balanced, would havebeen conspicuous. Havana was like a, stage on which Savina--with aconsidered bravado they had kept the Randon--tried with intoxicatingsuccess a part she had long and secretly desired. 

 * * * * *

What, Lee found, he most enjoyed was the personal liberty he had firstexperienced in New York, waiting to see Savina after he had definitelyleft Eastlake. All the aspects of his circumferential existence, island-like in the dividing indigo of a magic sea, pleased him equally. Of course, without Savina Cuba would have been an impossibility; shewas the center, the motive, of the design of his emotions; but it wassurprising how contented he was strolling in the outskirts, in theminor parks and glorietas and paseos, of the world of his passionateadventure. He sat placidly in the Cortina de Valdez, looking across thenarrow water to the long pink wall of the Cabanas, while Savina droveand shopped and rested. Carefully avoiding the Americans at theInglaterra, on the streets, he had no burden of empty mutualassurances, the forced stupidities of conversations, to support. Hisdays all had the look of a period of rest after a strain of longduration. 

The strain, he realized, unknown to him at the time, had existednegatively through years before he had grown openly rebellious. Aquality within him, in spite of him, had risen and swept him, under theeyes of Cytherea, beyond every circumstance of his former life. Theresemblance between her and Savina he caught in fleet glances whichdefied his efforts to summon them; and, where that similitude wasconcerned, he was aware of a disconcerting, almost humiliating, shifting of balance. At first, recognizing aspects of Cytherea inSavina, now in Cytherea he merely found certain qualities of the woman. The doll, it seemed, had not been absorbed in Savina; the distantinanimate object was more real than the actual straining arms about hisneck, the insatiable murmur at his ear. Yet his happiness with Savinawas absolute, secure; and still totally different from her attitudetoward him. She often repeated, in a voice no longer varying from herother impassioned speech, that she loved him; and, while this was aphrase, a reassurance, no man in his situation could escape, hereturned it in a manner not wholly ringing with conviction. 

It was the old difficulty--he wasn't sure, he couldn't satisfy himself, about its meaning. He was not, for example, lost beyond knowledge orperception in his feeling for Savina; carried along in the tempestuousflood of her emotion, he yet had time to linger over and enjoy theoccurrences by the way. He liked each day for itself, and she regardedit only as an insignificant detail of their unity. All her planning, her dress and ardor and moods, were directed to one never-lost-sight-ofend; but he disposed his attention in a hundred channels. Lee began tobe aware of the tremendous single economy of women, the constantbending back of their instincts to a single preeminent purpose. 

Yet everywhere, now, women had concentrated in a denial of that: themen he knew hadn't a monopoly of restlessness. Even Fanny, in theparading of all her rings, had not been oblivious of it. But it wasn'tso much that women denied their fundamental urgency as it was that theywanted it exercised under other, more rapturous, conditions. Inexplicably, and a great many at once, women had grown aware of theappalling difference between what they might demand and what they hadbeen receiving. In consequence of this the world of masculinecomplacency was being dealt some rude blows. But Lee Randon couldn'thope to go into this; the problem was sufficiently complicated from hisside of the fence. There were, immediately, the practical developmentsof his undertaking to be met. He served nothing by putting them off. Hemust write, but through his lawyers, to William Grove and find out whataction he proposed to take, what arrangements for divorce could befacilitated. A letter--there could be no saving impersonality here--toFanny was more difficult. 

From Havana, his approval of Fanny was very complete; he understoodher, made allowances, now better than at any time during theirmarriage; given what, together, they were, her conduct had beenadmirable. A remarkably attractive and faithful woman, he told himself;it was a pity that, in her estimation, her good qualities had come toso little. The thing for him to do was to see his brother, and movepart of the burden of his decisions over to Daniel's heavy frame. 

The sugar estate of which he was Administrador was in the Province ofCamagüey, at Cobra; an overnight trip from Havana, Lee had learned. Itwas Sunday evening now, and they would have to give up their room atthe Inglaterra Tuesday. Obviously there wasn't time to write Daniel andhave a reply by then. The other desirable hotels were as full as theInglaterra. He must wire, but the composition of his telegram presentedan unexpected difficulty:

Lee didn't know how to explain the presence with him of Savina; hecouldn't determine how much or how little to say; and it was probablethat Daniel had had a cable from Eastlake. The mere putting down of thenecessary words of his message, under the concerned gaze of a clerk, with a limited comprehension of English, was hazardous. The clerk, hehad discovered, would read in a loud voice of misplaced linguisticconfidence whatever Lee wrote, and there was a small assemblage ofAmericans at the counter of a steamship company across the office. What, it began to appear, they'd have to do would be to take the trainfor Cobra on Tuesday. Yet they couldn't quite come down on Daniel sounexpectedly; he lived, Lee recalled, on a batey, the centraldominating point of a sugar estate; and--unmarried--what accommodationshe might offer were problematic. Lee, from the heading of a letter, could not build the proportions of a Casa Vivienda. Well, there wouldbe a hotel at Cobra! That answered his doubts--Savina and he would goto Cobra and there communicate with Daniel. It would be easy to talkprivately with him. Lee didn't want his approval, but only his carefulopinions and reasonable assistance. 

He, Lee, would not produce Savina with the triumphant indication thather resistless charm explained everything. He was no such fatuous fool!But, studying her, he got a solid assurance from the superiority of herperson. Daniel would see at once that this wasn't the usual flightsouth of an indulgence headed for paresis. Savina, his entire affair, demanded a dignified reception. They were seated in the patio of thehotel, by a pool and the heroic bronze statue of a dancing girl in amanton; on the table between them was, at that hour, the inevitablesmall pitcher of Daiquiri cocktails. He told Savina what had been inhis thoughts, and she nodded her approval:

"I agree that we ought to see your brother, and, through him, communicate with New York. At present things are much too uncertain. IfWilliam, or your wife, were different they could have us held on a veryunpleasant-sounding charge. I know you detest conventions, but I mustsay I am glad other people live by them; it makes it so comfortable forus. Imagine, if William were a vulgar man, the fuss! But, " sheadmitted, "at bottom I shouldn't have cared. You are not half asdisreputable as I am, Lee. You have a proper look at this minute. "

"Really, " he protested, "there is no reason for you to be insulting, when I deliberately led you astray. "

"You do flatter yourself, " Savina replied; "when it was I all the time:I broke up your home. "

"You needn't boast so loudly and pain everyone about us, " he protestedcheerfully. She gazed contemptuously at the surrounding tables:

"The scheming presidents of concessions and their fat wives. Have younoticed the men hurrying away apologetically in the evening, Lee? Theplaces on Sol and Gloria Streets! And, just as you meant, if they knewwho, what, we were, they'd want to have us arrested. You see, I aminfringing on the privileges sacred to men. It's all right for them todo this, to go out to an appointment after ten o'clock and come back attwo satisfied--"

"Savina, " he interrupted her, "I know all that you were going to say, Icould repeat it to you in your own words. You were about to assault thedouble standard. Consider it done. You are right. Everyone with senseis right there. But if I hear it again I'll think I am at Aeolian Halllistening to an English author lecture. I'll put you in your car onForty-second Street and send you home. "

"You can't send me home, " she reminded him; "you are too proper andhave too many scruples. You'll have to stay with me now for life. I amruined. " They laughed happily. 

"You are, " he echoed her. 

"Isn't it nice?"

"Nothing better could be invented. "

She investigated the pitcher. "The last drop. "

Lee Randon signalled for the waiter, but she stopped him; the strainedintensity of her face, the shining darkness of her eyes, set his heartpounding. 

 * * * * *

They left for Cobra without even the formality of a telegraphedannouncement to Daniel Randon. Their compartment, in the middle of thecar, with the more casual open accommodations at either end, resolutein its bare varnished coolness, indicated what degree of heat theymight expect in the interior. The progress of the train through thelength of the island was slow and irregular: Lee had a sense ofinsecure tracks, of an insufficient attention to details oftransportation that required an endless, untiring oversight. Naturallythey slept badly; and the morning showed them a wide plain scatteredwith royal palms which thickened in the distance. Such vast groves, Leethought, robbed them of the stateliness so impressive in parks andcities. The landscape, tangled with lianas or open about massive andisolated ceiba trees, was without the luxuriance of color he hadexpected. It was evident that there had been no rain for a long period;and the crowded growths, grey rather than green, were monotonous, oppressive. Other than Apollinaris and the conventional black coffee ofthe train, and oranges bought by Lee at a junction, no breakfast waspossible; and they watched uninterruptedly the leisurely passing land. Marks of sugar planting multiplied, the cane, often higher than Lee'shead, was cut into sections by wide lanes; and announced by a sicklyodor of fermentation, he saw, with a feeling of disappointment, thehigh corrugated iron sides of a grinding mill. It was without anysaving picturesque quality; and the noise of its machinery, a heavycrushing rumble, was perceptible on the train. 

However, Savina was attracted by the high carts, on two solid wheels, and drawn by four or six oxen, hauling the cut cane. But the villagesthey passed, single streets of unrelieved squalor in a dusty waste, they decided were immeasurably depressing. No one who could avoid itwalked; lank men in broad straw hats and coat-like shirts rode meagrehorses with the sheaths of long formidable blades slapping theirmiserable hides. Groups of fantastically saddled horses drooped theirheads tied in the vicinity of a hands-breadth of shade by generalstores. "I could burst into tears, " Savina declared. But he showed herpastures of rich tufted grass with herds of well-conditioned cattle. "Iwish we were there, " she said. But, when the train stopped at Cobra, Savina, hesitating on the step, proposed that they go on into Camagüey, hardly more than an hour distant. 

Their bags, put off, the rapid incomprehensible speech of the guard, left them, with the train moving doubtfully on, at Cobra. It was, onexamination, more dismal than, from the detachment of the compartment, they had realized. The usual baked ground, the dusty underbrush, theblank façades of the low buildings that faced them from either side ofthe tracks, had--in addition to a supreme ugliness--an indefinablythreatening air. The rawness, the machetes hanging about the bootedheels of soiled idlers, the presence everywhere of negroes with anunrestrained curiosity in Lee and his companion, filled him with aninstinctive antagonism. "Do you think that can be the hotel?" he asked, indicating a long plaster building with a shallow upper porch supportedon iron-footed wooden columns. Above its closely-shuttered windows, inletters faded and blistered by the sun, reached the description, "Hotelde Cobra. "

"We can't stay there, " he continued decidedly; "I'll send for Daniel atonce. "

Without available help he carried their bags to the entrance of thehotel, and went into a darkened room with a cement floor which had thethick dampness of an interior saturated with spilled acid wine. Therehe found a man, not different from those outside, who, incapable ofunderstanding English, managed to grasp the fact that Lee wished to seeDaniel Randon immediately. The proprietor assented, and urged them up astair. "I won't have you wait out here, " Lee told Savina; "it will beonly for an hour or so. " The room into which they were ushered had, atleast, the advantage of bareness: there was a wardrobe of mahoganyleaning precariously forward, a double bed deeply sagged with a grey-white covering, a wash stand and tin basin and pitcher, and some shortsturdy rush-bottomed chairs. 

Its principal feature, however, was the blue paint that covered thewalls, a blue of a particularly insistent shade which, in the solidityof its expanse, seemed to make all the enclosed space and objectslivid. The tall shutters on one side, Lee discovered, opened on theupper porch and a prospect of the tracks beyond. "If I stayed here anight I'd be raving, " Savina declared. "Lee, such a color! And theplace, the people--did you notice that carriageful of black women thatwent by us along the street? There were only three, but they were soloosely fat that they filled every inch. Their faces were drenched withpowder and you could see their revolting breasts through their muslindresses; terrible creatures reeking with unspeakable cologne. Theylaughed at me, cursed us, I am sure. "

"We'll have to put up with it till Daniel comes, " he observedphilosophically; and, on the low straight chairs, they gazed around sodisgustedly that they both laughed. "I suppose he is out somewhere inthe cane. " Savina asked what they would do if he were away. He might bein Santiago. The company had other estates. "Not now, " Lee decided;"what they call the grinding season has just begun, and every hour isimportant. The least thing gone wrong might cost thousands of dollars. "The correctness of his assumption was upheld by an announcementunintelligible except for the comforting fact that Daniel was below. 

"Perhaps I had better see him first, " Lee suggested diplomatically, andSavina assented. 

Daniel Randon was both tall and fat, a slow impressive bulk in whitelinen with a smooth impassive face and considering brown eyes. "This, "he said unremarkably, "is a surprise. But I am, of course, glad;particularly since Venalez reported that Fanny was with you. "

"She isn't, " Lee replied tersely; there had been no cable fromEastlake, he saw, and he must plunge boldly into what he had to say. "Iam sorry to tell you that she is at home. But I'm here, and not bymyself. " A slight expression of annoyance twitched at his brother'scontained mouth. "No, you are making a mistake. I have left Fanny, Daniel. I thought perhaps you would have heard. "

"Our telegraph system is undependable, " was all that the other, theyounger, Randon answered. 

"You don't know, then. A Mrs. Grove is with me; but she is that onlyuntil the divorces can be arranged; and I counted on you--"

"Divorces?" The single word was accompanied by a faint lifting ofDaniel's eyebrows. 

"She was married, too, " Lee explained. "You will understand better whenyou talk to Savina. We are not young feather-heads, Daniel; this isserious, final. Really, we came to Cuba on your account, to see you. When I tried to compose a telegram from Havana, telling you somethingof the situation, I couldn't--all the idiotic tourists hanging about!Well, here we are, or here I am, and Savina is upstairs, most anxiousto meet you. "

"Certainly, " Daniel Randon agreed. He was silent for a moment in theconsideration of what he had been told. Then, "I can't have you on thebatey, " he pronounced. He lifted a silencing hand against an angerforming in instant unmeasured speech. "Not for myself, " heparticularized. "You could have seven mistresses, of all colors, if theplace were mine. Please remember that it isn't. It's the company's. That is quite different. " Daniel was making, Lee realized, what for himwas a tremendous conversational effort. "Even if I were alone, exceptfor Cubans, it would be possible; but there is Mr. Stribling, with hiswife and, at present, grown daughter, from Utica; he is the AssistantAdministrador. Then we have George Vincent and Katharine--the ChiefEngineer with a very new bride from, I believe, Ohio. They are veryparticular in Ohio. And others. You must remember that I have aphotograph of Fanny with the children: it is much admired, well known. I couldn't explain your Mrs. --Mrs. Grove. Who could? We haven't asister. Altogether I am sorry. " He stopped uncompromisingly; yet, Leerecognized, in all that Daniel had said there was no word of criticismor gratuitous advice. He had voiced the facts only as they related tohim; to everything else he gave the effect of a massive blankness. 

 * * * * *

Argument, Lee saw, was useless. Extended to the heart of a tropicalisland, the virtuous indignations of a hard propriety still bound theirmovements. "All that I can suggest, " Daniel went on, "is that youreturn to Havana tomorrow evening; the company has offices there, andit will be easier for me to see you. Camagüey is nearer, but gossipthere would have you in the same bed no matter how far apart your roomswere. Decidedly not Camagüey. "

There was no train for Havana, it developed, before tomorrow. "And, inthe meanwhile, " Lee inquired, "must we stay here? Savina will bemiserable. "

"Why not?" Daniel gazed about casually. "I lived with Venalez a month. It is good enough if you are not too strict about a travelling beautyor two who may be stopping as well. " His apologies to Savina, in theroom above, were faultless. There was, simply, at the Cobra sugarestancia, no satisfactory arrangement for guests; except for anoccasional party of directors, or a special mission, there were noguests. At his, Daniel's central, in Santa Clara on the sea, he hopedsome day to offer them the hospitality of his own house. 

When he left, Lee made no revelation of what had been said downstairs;Savina accepted the situation as it had been exposed to her. "I can'tallow myself to think of a night here, " she told him; "it will be ahorror. " She opened the slats of the long window shutters, and glowingbars of white heat fell in a ladder-like order across a blue wall; thesegments of sunlight were as sharp and solid as incandescent metal. Inthe cobalt shadow Savina was robbed of her vitality; she seemed unreal;as she passed through the vivid projected rays of midday it appeared asthough they must shine uninterruptedly through her body. Lee consideredthe advisability of taking her for a walk--there were, he had seen fromthe train, no roads here for driving--but, recalling the insolentstaring and remarks she had met, he was forced to drop thatpossibility. 

Weary from the prolonged wakefulness of the night, Savina made aneffort to sleep; and, waiting until she was measurably quiet, Lee wentout. The heat was blinding, it walled him in, pressed upon him with afeeling of suffocation, as though--between him and the freshness, thesalvation, of any air--there were miles of it packed around him likegrey cotton. To the left of the hotel, the bare plaza, half hidden inscrubby bushes, there was an extended shed with a number of doors andfragments of fence, heaped rusted tins and uncovered garbage; and, lounging in the openings, the door-frames often empty, the windowswithout sashes, were women, scantily covered, sounding every note in ascale from black to white. Yet, Lee observed, the whitest were, essentially, black. What amazed, disturbed, him was their indolentblinking indifference, their indecent imperviousness, in the full blazeof day. 

They were, to Lee, significant, because from them he drew a knowledgeof Cobra. He could not, without such assistance, have arrived at theinstinctive understanding that interpreted the street into which heturned. It was the street of a delirium, running, perhaps, for half amile; an irregular deeply rutted way formed by its double row of smallunsubstantial buildings of raw or gaudily painted boards and galvanizedsheet iron. They were all completely open at the front, with theirremarkable contents, pandemoniums of merchandise, exposed upon aprecarious sidewalk of uneven parallel boards elevated two or threefeet above the road. Mostly cafés, restaurants, there was still anincredible number of banks--mere shells with flat tarred roofs and highcounters built from wall to wall. The receivers, the paying tellers, were many, with the mingled bloods, the heterogeneous characteristics, of China and Colonial Spain and Africa; and, back of their activity--there was a constant rush of deposited money and semi-confidentialdiscussion--were safes so ponderous and ancient that they might havecontained the treasure of a plate fleet of Peru. 

Crowding in on them, challenging each other from opposite sides, therestaurants were longer and shallow, with their groups of tables rangedagainst walls decorated in appallingly primitive and savage designs:palms like crawling spiders of verdigris set on columns of chocolaterose from shores, from seas, of liquid bright muds in which grotesquecaricatures of men, barbarously clad or, swollen headed, in travestiesof civilized garb, faced women with exaggerated and obscene anatomies. They, like the banks, were crowded; companies of negroes sat overdishes of mucous consistency and drank, with thick lips, liquors ofvicious dyes. The prodigious women, often paler than the men, drinkingwith them, gabbled in a loud and corrupt Spanish and, without hats ontheir sere crinkled masses of hair, were unrestrained in displays ofcalculated or emotionally demented excitement. 

A flat wagon passed, holding, on precarious chairs, a band furiouslyplaying an infernal jumbled music which, as it swelled, filled all theoccupants of the cafés with a twitching hysteria. Subdued masculineshouts were pierced by shameless feminine cries; lust and rage andnameless intoxications quivered like the perceptible films of hot duston the air. Negroes, Haitians with the flattened skulls, the oily skin, of the Gold Coast, and Jamaicans glowing with a subcutaneous redness, thronged the sidewalks; and sharp-jawed men, with a burnedindeterminate superiority of race, riding emaciated horses, added tothe steel of their machetes revolvers strapped on their long thighs. 

What, mainly, occupied Lee Randon was the nakedness of the passioneverywhere surcharging the surface of life. There was, in the sensefamiliar to him, no restraint, no cover beyond the casual screens atthe backs of the restaurants; no accident to which the uncertainmaterial of life was subject was improbable; murder rasped, like thefinger of death on wire strings, at the exasperated sensibilities oforganisms exposed, without preparation, to an incomprehensible state oflife a million years beyond their grasp. It fascinated and disturbedLee: it had a definite interest, a meaning, for him. Was it to thisthat Savina had turned? Had the world only in the adherence to the dutytypified by Fanny left such a morass as he saw about him? Was he, LeeRandon, instead of advancing, falling back into a past more remote thancoherent speech? Nothing, he asserted, could be further from hisintention and hope. Yet, without doubt, he was surrounded by the denialof order, of disciplined feeling; and, flatly, it terrified him. 

Lee insisted, hastily, that what he wanted--no, demanded--was not thisdestruction of responsibility, a chaos, mentally and sensually, but theremoval of it as a rigid mob imposition on the higher discretion of hisindividuality. The thing which, with Savina, he had assaulted was, inits way, as unfortunate as the single reeking street of Cobra. Again, the scene around him wasn't hypocritical, its intention was as thicklyevident as the rice powder on the black sweating faces of theprostitutes. Hypocrisy was peculiarly the vice of civilization. Hisnecessity was an escape from either fate--the defilement of a panderingto the flesh and the waste of a negation with neither courage norrapture. Damn it, couldn't he be freed from one without falling intothe other? Lee told himself that it must be possible to leavepermanently the fenced roads of Eastlake for the high hills; it wasn'tnecessary to go down into the bottoms, the mire. 

He regarded himself curiously as, to a large extent, the result of allthe ages that had multiplied since the heated tropics held the earlyfecundity of human life. A Haitian lunged by with out-turned palmshanging at his knees, a loose jaw dropped on a livid gullet fleckedwith white, and a sultry inner consciousness no more than a germinalsuperstition visible in fixed blood--suffused eyes. He had an odor, Leefantastically thought, of stale mud. Well--there he was and there wasLee Randon, and the difference between them was the sum of almostcountless centuries of religions and states and sacrifice and slaughterHe had a feeling that the accomplishment was ludicrously out ofproportion to all that had gone into it. For the only thing of value, the security of a little knowledge, was still denied him. What, sotragically long ago, Africa begged from the mystery of night, fromidols painted indifferently with ochre or blood, he was demanding froma power which had lost even the advantage of visibility. Hissuperiority was negligible. It was confined relatively to unimportantthings--such as an abstract conception of a universe partly solid andpartly composed of ignited gases revolving in an infinity of time andspace. He was aware of sensations, flavors, champagnes, more delicatethan the brutality of a rape conceived in strangling gulps of sugarcane rum. On the outside he had been bleached, deodorized, madeconformable with chairs rather than allowed to retain the proportions, powers, designed for the comfortable holding to branches. But in hisheart, in what he thought of as his spirit, what had he gained, where--further than being temporarily with Savina in the beastly hotel ofCobra--was he?

 * * * * *

His thoughts had become so inappropriate to his purpose, his presence, here that he banished them and returned to Savina. She was notably morecheerful than when he had left her, and was engaged with an omelet, rough bread, Scotch preserved strawberries, and a bottle of Marquis deRiscal; most of which, she told him, had been sent, together with otherpleasant things, by Daniel Randon. She was unusually seductive inappearance, with, over the sheer embroidered beauty of herunderclothes, her graceful silken knees, a floating unsubstantial wraplike crushed handfuls of lilacs. "This room kills anything I might puton, " she replied to the expression of his pleasure. "After all, weshall soon be gone. I got Daniel's servant to telegraph the Inglaterrawe were coming back. They'll have to watch out for us. After we seeyour brother there, and make a beginning of our rearrangements, we willgo on, I think. Do you mind? South, Guadeloupe, perhaps, because it'sso difficult to get to, and then Brazil. I have an idea we won't staythere long, either, but travel on toward the East. I do like islands, and there are quantities, quarts, to see in the Pacific. " She put herarms, from which the wide sleeves fell back, around his neck, drew himclose to her. "It doesn't matter where I am, if it is with you. I loveyou, Lee, and I am happy because I know we'll always have each other. We are not so very young, you see, and there isn't a great deal of timeleft, not enough to grow tired, to change in. 

"I wake up at night, sometimes, with that tiresome pain at my heart, asthough it were too full of you, and, for a little, I'm confused--it isall so strange. I think, for a moment, that I am still with William, and I can't imagine what has happened to the room. It frightens medreadfully, and then I remember: it isn't William and the house onSixty-sixth Street, but you, Lee, and Cuba. We're together with nothingin the world to spoil our joy. And, when we are old, we shall sit sideby side at Etretat, I am sure, and watch the sea, and the young peoplein love under the gay marquees, and remember. Then we'll be married andmore respectable than the weather-vanes. I want that on your account; Idon't care; but you would worry, I am afraid. You are serious and aconscientious man, Lee. 

"But, before that, I want to spend all my feeling, I don't want athrill left, lost; I want to empty and exhaust myself. " Her emotion wasso strong that it drew her away from him, erect, with her bare armsreaching to their fullest quivering length. In the blue gloom of theroom shuttered against the white day, with her wrap, the color oflilacs, lightly clasping her shoulders, she seemed to be a vision insubdued paint. Lee was held motionless, outside, by the fervor of anappeal to fate rather than to him. She was, the thought recurred tohim, too slender, fragile, to contain such a passion. Then, in atransition so sudden that it bewildered him, her mouth was against his, her hands straining him to her. She was ugly then, her face wasunrecognizable in an expression of paralysed fury. 

The heat, Lee protested, grew worse with evening; not a stir of airbrought out the dry scraping rustle of the palms, a sound like thefriction of thin metal plates. The balcony, if possible, was worse thantheir room. In his irritation Lee cursed the scruples of his brother;Savina, prostrate on the bed, said nothing. At intervals her handmoved, waving a paper fan with a printed idyl from Boucher, given herin a café at Havana. She had none of the constrained modesty, the senseof discomfort at her own person, so dominating in Fanny. Lee finallylighted a lamp: the hours, until the precipitant onrush of night, seemed stationary; gigantic moths fluttered audibly about theillumination and along the dim ceiling. When, later, he was on the bed, it was wet under his sweating body. In a passing sleep Savina gave oneof the cries of her waking emotion. In a state of unconsciousness herfingers reached toward him. From the balcony beyond them drifted awoman's challenging laughter--one of the travelling beauties Daniel hadmentioned--and he could hear the bursts of discordant sound on thestreet of Cobra, the combined efforts of rival bands hideous singly andtogether beyond description. What a hell of a night, what a night inhell!

The moths, defrauded in their hunger for light, blundered softly aroundthe walls; when Lee rose to light a cigarette they would, he felt, gather at the match and beat it out with their desirous wings. Then heheard a shot, and uplifted clamoring voices; all as unreal, aswithdrawn, as a simulated murder on a distant stage. He pictured theflaring restaurants, the banks with corrugated iron locked across theirfronts; the faces of the negroes brought black and lurid out of thesurrounding blackness. Savina, awake, demanded a drink, and he held aclay water monkey awkwardly to her lips. The faint double blast of asteam signal rose at the back of the hotel, beyond the town; he hadheard it before and now connected it with Daniel's sugar mill. 

His brother hadn't perceptibly changed in fifteen years. During thattime Lee had seen him scarcely at all. Suddenly he was sorry for this:Daniel was what was generally known as a strong man. Men deep in thenational finances of their country spoke to Lee admiringly of him; itwas conceded that he was a force. Lee wasn't interested in that--in hisbrother's ability, it might be, to grip an industry by the throat. Heenvied, speculated about, the younger man's calmness, the Chinesequality of his silence, the revelations of his carefully few words. Daniel, in past years, had been often drunk, various women had beenseriously or lightly associated with his name; but he appeared to havecast them, the Bacardi and the blandishments, entirely aside. He seemedas superior to the dragging and wearing of life as a figure carved instone, a Buddha, any Eastern presentment of the aloof contempt of aserene wisdom at the mountain of its own flesh. Lee, beside hisbrother, resembled a whirlpool of dust temporarily formed by the windin a road. 

Daniel had never married, he had been too cunning for that fragranttrap, as well. What were his vices? But were habits, self-indulgences, held in the background, ruthlessly subordinated to primary activity, vices? Lee wished now that Daniel had seen Cytherea; he was certainthat the other would have said something valuable about her. Throughhis long contact with the naked tropics Daniel understood many thingshidden from him. He must know, for instance, about the Brujeria, thenegro magic brought through Haiti from the depths of Africa. Everyonein Cuba caught rumors, hints, of ceremonials of abject horror. But ofthat Daniel could never be brought to speak. Lee could even visualizehim taking part, in a cold perverse curiosity, in the dances aboutsmothered fires. 

He thought there was a glimmer of day at the windows, but it was only aflash across his staring eyeballs. From the plaza below came a lowsibilant conversation. It went on and on, until Lee, in anirrepressible indignation, went out on the balcony and, in a voice likethe clapping of a broken iron bell, cursed the talkers into silence. 

Christ, it was hot!

Savina was sitting up. "Isn't it tomorrow night, or the one afterthat?" she asked. "This room is like a vault that I have been in athousand thousand years. I can't tell you how it affects me; it seemsas though I must stay here forever, that if I tried to get away I'd beforced back. And I dreamed that everything I owned had been turnedblue--my nightgowns and nail files and travelling clock and theoranges. You wouldn't believe how depressing a blue orange could be. Wewill forget it as soon as possible, Lee. Do you remember how nice theroom was at the Inglaterra? I wish you'd feel my head: isn't it hotterthan usual?"

"Why shouldn't it be?" he asked impolitely. 

"It wouldn't be possible, would it, Lee, to have the night go onforever, to have something happen to the scheme of things? Or perhapsI'm blind. " Her voice was plainly terrified. "Light a match, please. Oh, thank you. What an idiot I am. Hold me closer; then I can forget, then nothing else matters. I can never get close enough; I wish I couldpour myself into you. "

"You'll be able to, if this keeps up, " he observed, with a note ofbrutality. "They will find us, in the morning, in a bowl and twopitchers. "

But there was no corresponding lightness in his spirit; periods likethis extended into an infinity of torment beyond time. A thinning ofthe dark expanded through the room. A cerulean unnatural dawn creptabout him: there was the muffled clatter of horses' hoofs in the dustoutside; a locomotive whistled in a far universal key. Savina slowlybecame visible; asleep, her personality, her vividness, were gone; shewas as featureless, as pallid, as a nameless marble of remote Greece. There were marks across her feet where the mules chafed her; the mulesthemselves were lying on the bare floor. He saw his clothes, thefamiliar habit of the day, with a sharp surprise. 

 * * * * *

It had been a night without rest, without the coolness and assuagementof a release from the fever of the day; and, Lee thought, he felt ashaggard as Savina looked. A wind that was hardly more than an erraticstirring of super-heated dust agitated a loose slat in a shutter anddeposited a fine dun film across the floor. Savina put as much aspossible, so early, into her bags. Standing before a narrow mirrornailed to a wall, with her comb, she turned. "My hair is soaked, " shewailed; "just putting my arms up is more than I can manage. Haven't youbeen thinking about all the cold things in the world?" She slipped intoa chair, spent and dejected, with her hair clouding one shoulder. Itwould, he repeated, be over soon, and he gazed at her with a veiledinspection. Savina was so entirely unprepared for this, the leasthardship so new, that he was uncertain about the temper of herresistance. 

Aware of his gaze, she smiled slowly at him, and, seated, again took upher task with the comb. "I couldn't have you see me very often likethis, " she proceeded: "it would be fatal. I don't mean that when I'mfinished I'm irresistible, but the process simply must go on inprivate. I don't want to be a wife, Lee--one of those creatures in adressing sacque with hair pins in her mouth. I can't bear the thoughtof you and a flannel petticoat together. That is where married womenmake a serious mistake: they let their husbands see them while the maidis doing their hair, or when they're smeared with creams, or, maybe, with tonsilitis. " She rose. "I won't be a wife, " she chanted, "I won'tbe--"

Her voice broke suddenly. Lee thought she had tripped, he lungedforward, but she fell crumpling on the floor. "It's this hellish heat, "he asserted, lifting her to the bed. Her lips were open and dry, andher eyes, without vision, stared at the ceiling. Lee wet ahandkerchief, dabbling it over her face; he had never before, herealized, seen a woman faint. It was terrifying but not grave; they didit, he had heard, very often. No wonder, after such a night. She hadbeen gone over a minute now; there must be someone in the place whowould know what to do. He put off moving, however, both because of hisreluctance to leave Savina alone and because of the difficulty of anyexplanation. He took her hand; it was cold and damp, and her foreheadwas glistening with minute globes of sweat. All the blood seemed tohave been withdrawn from her body. 

"I'll have to go for help, " he said aloud, in a commonplace mannerwhich yet struck curiously on his hearing. There was a faint quiver ofher features, a scarcely perceptible sigh, and her fingers weaklyclosed on his grasp. "How foolish, " Savina murmured. She made an effortto raise herself up from the pillow, but he restrained her; Leecommanded her to be absolutely still. "The spirits of ammonia is in thedressing-case, " she whispered. He held the clouding aromatic liquid toher mouth and she took it laboriously. "Don't call anyone, Lee, " shecontinued; "I'll be all right in a little. So much at once! You see, Ihaven't been used to happiness. No wonder I was dizzy. But I fainted, Lee, didn't I? That's unusual for me. "

He sat beside her, at once moved and detached from her weakness, gentlyholding her supine hand. She mustn't worry, he told her at shortintervals. "Don't worry, this is nothing. "

"You'll give me time to dress for the train, " she insisted. "As soon aswe get away from here I shall be better. We will, won't we?"

"Get away? What nonsense! Of course. You will be up by noon, but thereis no good in your stirring before you have to. If Daniel comes, youcan see him here, in your bed. Or you needn't see him at all. It's justas you feel. "

Even as she lay, prostrate, on the bed, he could see her collapse; thestrength, animation, interest, drained away from her; it seemed to Leethat momentarily she was again in a coma. He leaned over and placed ahand on her brow. Savina's eye-lids fluttered. Under her breast herheart was scarcely discernible. Suddenly he didn't like it; abruptly anapprehension, from which he was obliged to bar a breath of panic, possessed him. Lee covered her lightly with a sheet, and went out, softly closing the door. Before the hotel he caught the proprietor by ashoulder and pointed up to his room. "Sick, sick, " he repeated the termwith increasing emphasis, not successful in banishing his vagueness ofdismay. The proprietor smiled uncertainly, edging from under the weightof Lee's hand. Then, "Get my brother, Mr. Daniel Randon, at once, " hecommanded; "soon. Mr. Randon; the sugar--" Lee waved in the directionof the mill. 

This the other again comprehended, and Lee saw a youth swing a bare legover a convenient horse and vanish behind the Cobra Hotel. He went backto the room: Savina hadn't moved while he had been gone. She seemedeven weaker--a thing he would have declared impossible--than before. Hebathed her face and throat in water, and there was a murmur ofgratitude, of love, so low that, with his ear against her lips, theindividual words were lost. His disturbance increased and, when theheavy firm steps of Daniel Randon had approached on the cement of thecorridor without, and he had knocked and entered, Lee pointed to thebed with an unconcealed anxiety. 

Daniel bent over Savina with a comprehensive unmoved regard; he toucheda cheek, with a surprising delicacy, and then turned and faced Lee. Thelatter said sharply, "She has fainted, but it's only the heat. She'llbe all right after a rest. " As he spoke, more to himself than toDaniel, in an effort of private encouragement, what confidence he haddissolved before his brother's impassive negation. 

"It is more serious than that, " Daniel Randon told him. "There is nodoctor here we can trust, but I'll send a gas rail car into Camagüeyfor Fancett. It will take three hours or worse. " He left promptly, closing the door soundlessly; and Lee heard his voice from the plaza, not raised but intolerantly domineering, issuing orders in a Spanish atonce fluent and curt. 

In the long-dragging succeeding period there was no visible change inSavina; at intervals she spoke faintly, there was the dim trace, theeffort, of a smile; her hand, whenever he released it, slipped away. The heat in the room thickened; the barred sunlight cut like whiteknives at the opposite wall; a pungent odor of cooking peppers came inunder the door. Savina's bags, nearly packed, stood open on chairs; thelinen suit in which she travelled, the small hat and swathing brownveil, were ready by her low darkly polished tan shoes; gloves, still intheir printed tissue paper, the comb, a small gold bag with an attachedchased powder box, a handkerchief with a monogram in mauve, weregathered on the chest of drawers. 

Lee had heard the rail car leave for Camagüey: there had been a seriesof short explosions, first scattered and then blending in a regularpulsation soon lost over the vanishing tracks. The interminable clip-clip of horses, dreary staccato voices, rose and fell, advanced andretreated, outside. But, through all his attentiveness to Savina, hiscrowding thoughts, he listened for the return of the car with thedoctor. What was his name? Foster, Faucett--no, it was Fancett. AnAmerican, evidently. "The doctor is coming, " he told Savina gently. "Daniel felt that he had better see you. From Camagüey. A good man. Iwant to get you out of here at once, and he will give us something. "Waves of rebellion passed over him, an anger at his impotence, at thearbitrary removal of Savina from the sphere of his help. His coat wasoff, his collar unbuttoned, and he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, wet with sweat and the bathing of her head. 

To Lee, Savina appeared sunken; her cheeks, certainly, were hollower;there was a shadow, like the dust over the floor, in each one; she hadceased to open her eyes but they had retreated. A dreadful twenty-four, thirty, hours; how brutally hard it had been on her. She hadn'tcomplained; he had been more upset, impatient, than Savina. What asplendid companion! But that, he irritably felt, was a cold word ofdescription for her. What a force! She was that, magnificently, aboveeverything else. Beside her, other people--the rest of life--were flat, tepid. 

There was a thin far vibration which grew into a flowing throb; Leeidentified it as the rail car. Perhaps the doctor had been absent. However, Daniel would know what to do. The footfalls approaching thedoor were multiplied: it was his brother and an elderly wasted man witha vermilion sprig of geranium in the lapel of a white coat. He noddedto Lee, pressed his hand, and went quickly to the bed. In the stillnesswhile Dr. Fancett took Savina's pulse Lee again caught the shallowrapidity of her breathing. Daniel Randon stood with a broad planter'shat held with the lightness of touch characteristic of him. The man atthe bed turned a speculative gaze upon Lee. 

"Your wife has an acute dilatation of the heart, " he pronounced. Thesignificance of his unguarded tone shocked Lee immeasurably. 

 * * * * *

"But I don't understand that, " Lee protested; "she has never had anyserious trouble with her heart before. " He was halted by Daniel's briefpeculiar scrutiny. The doctor replied that this was not organic. "Itmay be the result of unaccustomed and excessive heat; an accumulationof the excessive, " he added concisely. "Excesses. " The single wordfollowed after a hesitation in which Fancett was plainly at a loss. Hisfrowning gaze was still bent upon Lee. "I know so little of Mrs. Randon's history, " he finally said. Daniel naturally had inferred, orperhaps the doctor deduced, that Savina and he were married. They wouldbe, in a very short while, Lee told himself stubbornly. "You have iceon the batey? Yes, at once, please. And a nurse can come from my officeon the Havana train this evening. " Daniel nodded once, inacknowledgment. He moved closer to Lee:

"This is serious. You can't, of course, think of going on. I will seethat she is as comfortable here as she would be with me; everythingshall be done. "

Lee answered that he was certain of that. A feeling of helplessnessfastened on him, together with the incongruous speculation about thepropriety of a cable to William Grove. The absurd idea occurred to himthat Savina had two husbands; each with the right, if he desired, to beat a side of her bed, each holding one of her limp hands. He dismissedthe elaborated thought in a rage at the triviality of his mind. Fancettand Daniel had gone temporarily: Lee had heard the former makingarrangements to stay over night at the sugar estate. Savina's fastsuperficial breathing now dominated the room. He was again seatedbeside her, leaden-hearted and blank. 

It was so useless--this illness and suffering, now! The doctor hadseemed to insinuate that it might be traced to him, Lee Randon. Whatthe devil did he mean by that? It was the fault of Daniel, theimmobile, as much as anyone. In an airy room, under comfortableconditions, probably it wouldn't have happened. Savina's suit, hershoes, the bags, hadn't been disturbed. There was a faint tightening ofher grasp, and he bent close, but he distinguished only random words. 

"--not sorry. Willing ... With you. Don't be unhappy. "

It required an enormous effort, the sound was at once all butimperceptible and burdened with an agony of labor. As he watched her hesaw what, he thought, was an illusion--the blueness of the room, of thewalls, seemed to settle on her countenance. It increased, her face wasin tone with the color that had so disturbed her, a vitreous blue toointense for realization. He was startled: like a sponge, sopping up theatmosphere, she darkened. It was so brutal, so hideous, that he spokeinvoluntarily:

"No one can live blue like that. "

Then, with a glance instinct with dread, he saw that he was right--Savina had died. 

A calm of desperation swept over him. He must tell Daniel and thedoctor. But they would still need the ice. The revolting details! Andwhat had Fancett meant? It must all come out now--his presence in Cubawith Savina--in a storm of publicity and condemnation. He regrettedthis, because of Savina, dead. Alive she would have smiled hercontempt; but death was different. Anyone would acknowledge that. Thedead should be protected from slurs and scandal and obscene comments. Aconfusion of small facts poured through him, and broke into trivialfragments any single dignity of emotion; no generous sorrow saved himfrom the petty actuality of his situation; even his sense of loss, herealized dismayed, was dull. 

Savina was rapidly growing, at last, cold; her arm was stiffening inthe position in which he had left it; in a necessary forciblegentleness he composed her body. But he didn't hide her--not yet--witha sheet. That would follow soon enough. The blueness was receding, leaving her pinched, but white. She had always been pale.... By God, hehad forgotten to tell them. Lee, stumbling down the stairs, foundDaniel, the doctor, and the proprietor of the hotel, Venalez, talkingtogether. As he approached there was a flash of premonition on hisbrother's broad unstirring face. Lee said humbly:

"She is dead. "

Fancett, with Daniel Randon, went up at once, but he lingered, facingthe Cuban. Venalez had a long brown countenance, with a disorderedmoustache. His trousers were thrust into the customary dingy boots, buthis shirt was confined at the waist, and he had dispensed with amachete. He grew uneasy under Lee's stare, and shuffled his feet; then, behind a soiled thin hand, he coughed. It was clear that he wishedintensely to escape, but was held by his conceptions of the obligationsof conduct. "The suddenness--" Lee said, and then paused with afurrowed brow; "that's what surprises me. She was as well as you, andsinging, yes--singing, that she didn't want to be a wife. I thought shehad tripped on the loose silk thing she wore; and then I was certainthat she had fainted from your heat. " He bore heavily on the word your, and then proceeded to curse the atmosphere, in a heavy mannersuggesting that it were a property, a condition, under the direction ofthe hotel proprietor. From that he proceeded to damn Utica and thestate of Ohio. 

"But you can't understand me, " he added, illogically angry at that, too. Daniel was again at his side, speaking. "There is nothing for youto do here, and you may as well come to the batey with me. There aresome accidents that cannot be provided against. This is one of them. She will be attended to; but you must explain about the cables. "

"I had better get her things, " Lee replied. He couldn't leave thedelicate and beautiful trifles of Savina's living in the blue vaultabove. "They were scattered about the room. " That, as well, Danielassured him, had not been neglected. Her effects were to go over in thewagon with them. Lee, jolting on a springless contrivance over aninformal road, kept his hand on the bags beside him. They were inHolland cases which hid the sets of initials ending in G. A revolverwas shoved under the leather seat at the driver's left. There were thenegro women, half naked, lounging in their doorways. 

Telling himself that Savina was dead, he lingered over that term, atonce so definite and obscure. There had been a pain in her heart at theDos Hermanos, while they were having dinner, after the steamer, blazingwith lights and with music on the upper deck, had swept out of theharbor. And, since then, at night, she had cried out. That, he hadthought, was the expression of her consuming passion. He hadn't killedher; he would correct Fancett there. The doctor's glance, almostsuspicious, had been intolerable. Savina had whispered to him, at theend, that she was sorry for nothing; she had begged him to be happy. 

He roused himself and asked Daniel if they had far to go, and learnedthat they had almost reached the batey. Where, Lee added silently, Daniel wouldn't have us. It might well have saved Savina. The sameideas persisted in his mind. He wondered if, in the hurried packing, her handkerchief had been neglected? It was one of a number that Savinahad bought in Havana. He had stayed outside, in the motor, smoking;and, when she had rejoined him, after a long wait, she had displayedher purchases. Her voice had been animated with pleasure at theirreasonable price. Things small and unimportant! His brain workedmechanically, like a circling toy that had been tightly wound up andmust continue until its spring was expanded. 

The fundamental calamity was too close for any grasp of its tragicproportions: Savina dead was far more a set of unpredictableconsequences than a personality. Alive she had drawn him into herself;she had, with her body, shut out the world of reality if not of mentalquery. Even the fervor of Cuba had seemed to pale before her burningspirit. What, without knowing it, Dr. Fancett had meant--a thing Leehimself had foreseen--was that Savina had killed herself, she had beenconsumed by her own flame. But she hadn't regretted it. That assurance, bequeathed to him in the very hush of death, was of massive importance. Nothing else mattered--she had been happy with him. At last, forgetfulof the ending, he had brought her freedom from a life not differentfrom a long dreary servitude. He would need to recall this, to remindhimself of it, often in the years that would leadenly follow; for hemust be regarded as a murderer--the man who, betraying William Grove, had debauched and killed his wife. 

That, of course, was false; but what in the world that would judge, condemn, him wasn't? He had his memories, Savina's words. A sharpersense of deprivation stabbed at him. Why, she was gone; Savina wasdead. Her arms would never again go around his neck. The marks of themules across her narrow feet! He put out a shaking hand, and DanielRandon met it, enveloped it, in a steady grasp that braced him againstthe lurching of the wagon. 

 * * * * *

On the veranda of Daniel Randon's house Lee sat pondering over hisbrother's emphatic disconnected sentences. "This conventionality, thatyou have been so severe with, is exceedingly useful. It's not too muchto say indispensable. Under its cover a certain limited freedom isoccasionally possible. And where women are concerned--" he evidentlydidn't think it necessary even to find words there. "The conventions, for example, stronger in William Grove than his feelings, saved thereputation of his wife; they kept Fanny alive and, with her heroic andinstinctive pride, made it possible for you to go back to Eastlake. Ifyou choose, of course. I can't enter into that. But, if you decide toreturn, you won't be supported by noble memories of your affair--was itof love or honor?--no, an admirable pretence must assist you. Theother, if you will forgive me, is no more than the desire for a cheappublicity, a form of self-glorification. Expensive. The proper clothes, you see--invaluable! The body and the intentions underneath areseparate. It is only the thoughtless, the hasty and the possessed whoget them confused. "

The veranda occupied all four sides of Daniel Randon's low, wide-roofeddwelling, continuous except for the break where an open passage led toa detached kitchen. Seated in an angle which might be expected to catchthe first movement of the trade winds sweeping, together with night, from the sea, practically the whole of the batey was laid out beforeLee. The sun was still apparent in a rayless diffusion above a horizonobliterated in smoke, a stationary cloud-like opacity only thinningwhere the buildings began: the objects in the foreground were sharp;but, as the distance increased, they were blurred as though seenthrough a swimming of the vision. The great bulk of the sugar mill, atthe left, like--on the flatness of the land--a rectangular mountainshaken by a constant rumbling, was indistinct below, but the miradorlifted against the sky, the man there on look-out, were discernible. The mill, netted in railroad tracks, was further extended by thestorage house for bagasse--the dry pulpy remnant of the crushed cane--and across its front stood a file of empty cars with high skeletonsides. There was a noisy backing and shifting of locomotives among thetrains which, filled with sugar cane, reached in a double row out ofsight. 

The cars were severally hauled to the scales shed, weighed, and thenshoved upon a section of track that, after they were chained, sharplytilted and discharged the loads into a pit from which the endless beltof a cane carrier wound into the invisible roller crushers. The heavyair was charged with the smooth oiled tumult of machinery, the blastwhistles of varied signals, and the harshness of escaping steam. Otherhouses, smaller than Daniel's but for the rest resembling it, werestrung along the open--the dwellings of the Assistant Administrador, the Chief Electrician, a Superintendent, and two or three more that Leehadn't identified. He had been, now, nearly four weeks with Daniel, andthe details of La Quinta, the procedure of the sugar, were generallyfamiliar to him. 

However, he had had very little opportunity to talk to his brother: thedifficulties, in Cobra and Havana, of shipping Savina's body back toNew York--William Grove, persuaded that it was unnecessary, hadn't cometo Cuba; a fire in one of the out-lying colonias of the La Quintaestate, that had destroyed three caballerias of ratoon; the sheertyranny of an intricate process which, for seven months in the year, was not allowed to pause, had kept Lee from any satisfactorycommunication of his feelings or convictions. But, at last, returninghot and fatigued from the clearing, by fire, of a tumba, Daniel hadbeen sitting with him for more than an hour, and he showed no signs ofimmediate change or activity. 

"What you say is clear enough, " Lee Randon admitted; "and yet--but Ican't see where--there is a sophistry in it. " Daniel made a gestureboth curt and indifferent. "I tell you it would be better, even at thedestruction of the entire present world, to establish honesty. Sinceyou have referred to me--what we, Savina and I, did was, simply, honest; but, again as you pointed out, its effect around us, for bad orvery possibly good, was brought to nothing by the way it was drawn backinto the victorious conspiring of sham. Even I don't know which, commendable or fatal, it was; I haven't been able to find out; I hadn'ttime. But Savina preferred the two weeks we had together to an infinityof the other. Fancett may call it an acute dilatation of the heart, butit was happiness that killed her. It's possible for me to say thatbecause, fundamentally, I didn't bring it to her. Savina found it, created it, for herself. Through that time--was it long or short? Thetwo weeks seemed a life--she was herself, superior. "

"How about you?"

"I was absolutely contented, " Lee replied. 

"Isn't that a pale word for an act of passion?"

"Perhaps. It may be. " A troubled expression settled over Lee's eyes. "There is something I should like to explain to you, Daniel, to ask youabout, but it would take a great many words?" He cast this in the toneof a query, and palpably waited for the encouragement to proceed fully;but Daniel Randon was persistently non-committal. He had no intention, he said, of urging Lee to any speech he might later regret and wishunpronounced. "It's about my attitude toward Savina, " Lee proceeded;"or it may be about a doll; I don't know. No, Savina and the dollweren't as distinct as you'd suppose; they were, in the beginning andat the end, one: Savina and Cytherea. That has given me some wretchedhours; because, when it was over, I didn't miss Savina, I couldn't evencall her individually back to my mind; and the inhumanity of that, thesheer ingratitude, was contemptible. 

"I can explain it best by saying that Cytherea had always representedsomething unknown that I wanted, that always disturbed me and made medissatisfied. She was more fascinating than any living woman; and hercharm, what she seemed to hint at, to promise, filled me with the needto find it and have it for my own. That desire grew until it wasstronger than anything else, it came between everything else and me andblinded me to all my life--to Fanny and the children and my companies. But, before I saw Cytherea, I was ready for her:

"Because of the conventions you uphold as being necessary to--tocomfort, nothing greater. My life with Fanny had fallen into asuccession of small wearing falsehoods, pretences. I had made a mistakein the choice of a career; and, instead of dropping that blunder, Ispent my energy and time in holding it up, supporting it, assuringmyself that it was necessary. The most I would acknowledge, evenprivately, was that, like the majority of men, I hated work. Like somany men I was certain that my home, my wife, were absorbing aspossible. Wherever I looked, other lives were built of the same laboredand flimsy materials. Mine was no worse; it was, actually, far betterthan most. But only better in degree, not in kind. It occupied about afifth of my existence, and the rest was made up of hours, engagements, that were a total waste. 

"At one time I had enjoyed them, I couldn't have thought of moresplendid things; but the spirit of that period was not the same, and itwas the spirit which made them desirable. I suppose that could becalled my love for Fanny. I was glad to sit and discuss the hem of herskirt with her. It was enough just to be coming home to the house whereshe was waiting. I tell you, Daniel, my life then was transfigured. Howlong did it last--four years, six, eight? I can't be exact; but if Ispeak of its duration you will guess that it went. It went slowly, soslowly that for a long while I was ignorant of what was happening. Itleft in the vanishing of the little lubrications you insist are asneedful for society as for your machinery. They began as lubrications, evasions, to keep the wheels turning smoothly, and they ended as grainsof sand in the bearings. 

"First there was Fanny's convention of modesty--it had been put intoher before birth--which amounted to the secret idea that the reality oflove was disgusting. She could endure it only when feeling swept herfrom her essential being. When that had passed she gathered her decencyaround her like Susanna surprised. Positively she had the look of atemporary betrayal. So that, you see, was hidden in a cloak ofhypocrisy. Then she had the impracticable conviction that I existedsolely in her, that she was a prism through which every feeling andthought I had must be deflected. Fanny didn't express this openly, ithad too silly a sound, but underneath, savagely, she fought and schemedand lied--more conventions--for it. And, when the children were born, she was ready for them with such a mountain of pretty gestures andideas that I gave them up: I couldn't fight their mother and the nursesand the maids in the kitchen--the whole bloody nice world. For onething I wasn't home enough; when I got in for dinner they were eitherin bed or starched for their curtesies and kisses. They are superiorchildren, Daniel; yet what they were taught to say sounds like theinfantile sentimentalities of the stage. "

 * * * * *

The capataz of the batey gang, a tall flushed Jamaican negro, passed ona cantering white pony. The American wives, the flowers of Utica andOhio, went by in light afternoon dresses, one propelling a baby in acart. The Field Superintendent, lank and sun-dark under a greenpalmetto hat, wearing a grotesquely large revolver, saluted Daniel fromthe open. "Trouble at the cantina barracon, " he called cheerfully. 

"It was then, " Lee specified, "that all my loose ends were gathered upin Cytherea. I have, I think, explained her. She was a doll, but it ismore useful, now, to picture her as a principle. I didn't realize thatat first: I took her to be an individual, the image of a happy personalfate that, somehow, I had missed, but might still catch up with. 

"The wildest kind of a dream, " Lee Randon proclaimed. "But when Ibecame aware of Savina, or rather of her passion, I was sure I had beencompletely justified. She was, I believed, Cytherea. They looked alike. They were the same! However, I mistook that sameness. I can understandnow, very clearly; it seems incredible that I had been so blind, sofatuous, Daniel. I actually thought that there was a choice, a specialgraciousness, existing and reserved for me. " He laughed, not bitterly, but in a wonderment that bordered on dismay. "I felt that I had foundit in Savina. I did get a lot there--more than I should have hoped for--but not precisely that. At last I know. " His voice was grave, and hepaused that Daniel might grasp the weight of what was to follow. "I hadmade the mistake of thinking that I, as an individual, had anyimportance. In my insane belief that a heavenly beauty, a celestialchorus girl, was kept for me, I pictured myself as an object of tenderuniversal consideration. 

"Damned anthropomorfic rot!

"It was a principle all the while, " he cried; "a principle that wouldfill the sky, as vast as space; and ignorant, careless, of me, it wasmoving to its own end. And that--do you see, Daniel?--had growndestructive. It had begun differently, naturally, in the healthyfertility of animals and simple lives; but the conceit of men, men likeme, had opposed and antagonized it. Magnifying our sensibilities, wehad come to demand the dignity of separate immortalities. Separateworms! We thought that the vitality in us was for the warming of ourown hearts and the seduction of our nerves. And so I left the safety ofa species, of Fanny and children, for the barrenness of Cytherea. 

"That's her secret, what she's forever smiling at--her power, throughmen's vanity, to conquer the earth. She's the reward of all ourfineness and visions and pleasure, the idol of our supremeaccomplishment: the privilege of escaping from slavery into impotence, the doubtful privilege of repaying the indignities of our birth. " Hisrigid strained face was drenched with sweat. "We made her out of ourlonging and discontent, an idol of silk and gilt and perverse fingers, and put her above the other, above everything. She rewarded us, oh, yes--with promises of her loveliness. Why shouldn't she be lovelyeternally in the dreams of men?

"Then, finally, Savina and Cytherea were merged again. In Savina herpassion, always abnormal, hadn't been spent; there she was younger thanthe youngest girl I knew; incomparably more dangerous. She, too, hadbeen constrained by the artificial, by conventionality; and when themoment of reality came it broke William Grove, Fanny, Helena andGregory--all the threads that precariously held us. She was strongerthan I, Savina was the goal and I was only the seeker--that was thedifference between us--and in absorbing me she was content. "

"That is very ingenious, " Daniel told him. "Do you notice that thesmoke is thicker in the east?"

"Not more in one direction than in another, " Lee answered indirectly;"in the east and south, the north and west, up above and underneath. It's a good thing for our comfort that there's so much of it we can'tsee the fires. If the books of physics are to be credited, the centerof the earth is liquid flame; certainly it is hot enough here tosuggest something of the sort. "

"It is worse in Oriente, " Daniel informed him. 

"What I have said, " Lee Randon continued, "came from my remark, the oneyou disagreed with, about the need of an understanding everywhere!Isolated, in a chance individual like me, it is worse than useless, fatal. It destroys the support of a common cause with a humanity onlyless resentful than sentimental. And this has brought me to the reasonwhy--in spite of her splendid proposal--I can't go back to Fanny: Ihave grown too detached to give her effort a possibility of success, ofhappiness for her. "

"If you are so cursed abstract, you may as well be in Eastlake as at LaQuinta, " his brother asserted. 

"Your saying that is curious, " Lee replied, "for it is exactly what Itold a man, in circumstances remarkably like my own, not long ago. Iexplained that life was all monotonously alike; and that, therefore, itdidn't really matter where he changed to. I still think that most of itis inexcusable, perhaps hopeless, but I can't subscribe to it. WhatFanny wants is contrition and the return to a time forever lost. Ishouldn't be able to persuade her that I hadn't been in a temporaryfever which, if she were sufficiently careful, would go and leavethings very much as they were. That is her strength, her necessity, andshe must uphold it until farthest old age and death. "

Daniel Randon rose and went to the railing of the veranda, gazingintently into the hidden east. "You are right, " he said, crediting Leewith a contention he hadn't made; "that is the refuse on Jagües. "

"Helena and Gregory don't need me, " Lee went on and on; "or, if youprefer--I am no longer afraid of words--I don't need them. I believe, in nature, that the length of paternity is measured by the helplessnessof the young. An elephant is more devoted than a crow. My obligationwas soon ended. "

"Bring it down to this, " Daniel's brevity was explicit: "what in thedevil are you going to do?"

"I haven't any idea beyond the realization that I can't stay heretaking up your room and Juan's time. It seems to me that for a month hehas done nothing but concern himself with my comfort. I did, in Havana, while Savina was living, think of writing; but I have given it upbecause it would involve me in so much that is disagreeable. Theamazing fact is that, since I have acquired a degree of wisdom, thereis nothing for me to do, nowhere to go. The truth, I have always heard, will make you free; but for what, Daniel? What is it the truth willmake you free for except to live in the solitude of public hatred? WhenI refuse, as I certainly shall, to return to Fanny the world where Imight accomplish something will be closed to me. 

"I could be a farmer if it weren't for the impossibility of my sleepingthrough the early part of the night; my hands are too stiff to learn atrade. I don't want to learn a trade!" he exclaimed. "And as forstarting more stock companies, rolling greater quantities of refuseinto cigarettes or bottling harmless colored water, or controlling anews sheet in the interest of my other interests--" he could think ofno term sufficiently descriptive of his remoteness from all that. "Ishall have to be what a universal Eastlake will prefer to call me. I'dstay here, at La Quinta, if you could find something for me to do--likepicking the limes fresh for the Daiquiri cocktails. Do you think yourcompany would carry me on its rolls for that? I could gather them inthe morning and evening, when it was cooler. Thank God, I haven't anymaterial ambition. I like the clothes, the life, of that nigger, thecapataz, who rode by, as well as most. I'd sit up on the mirador andkeep--what do you call it?--the veija, for months on end. "

The servant, Juan, small and dark in his white house coat, appearedwith a tray on which two glasses with stems held a fragrant amberliquid. 

"That is perfection, " Lee murmured; "where else could it be found?Advise me, Daniel, " his voice was both light and serious. "You havenever been known to give advice, but certainly my case is unusualenough to warrant extraordinary pains. Shall I make a neat hole at theproper point in my skull; or, better yet, put half a grain of a drugthat will occur to you on my tongue and close my mouth on furtherindiscretions? That has its aspects. But not so strongly after one ofJuan's drinks; they are distilled illusions, vain dreams still of hope. They have all the brave ring of accomplishment without its effort. ButI can see the end even of them--atrophy. Soon Cytherea will go into theattic, have her nose broken, and the rats will eat the clothes from herindifferent body. Cytherea on a pearl shell in the Ionic Sea... I wasone of her train, Daniel. " He leaned sharply forward--

Daniel Randon was asleep.