STEVE.

*CHAPTER XXII*

It happened one day late in May that Cleland, desiring local accuracy of

detail in a chapter of his brand new novel, put on his hat and walked to

Washington Square and across it, south, into the slums.

New leaves graced the trees in the park; spring flowers bloomed around

the fountain, and the grass was rankly fragrant where it had just been

mowed.

But he left the spring freshness behind him when he entered that sad,

dingy, swarming region to the south, where the only clean creature

seemed to be the occasional policeman in his new summer tunic,

sauntering aloof amid the noise and wretchedness and the foul odours

made fouler by the sunshine.

Cleland presently found the squalid street which he wished to describe

in convincing detail, and stood there on the corner in the shelter of a

tobacconist's awning making preliminary mental notes. Then, as he

fished out note-book and pencil, intent on professional memoranda, he

saw Grismer.

The man wore shabbier clothes than Cleland had ever before seen him

wear; he was crossing the filthy street at his usual graceful and

leisurely saunter, and he did not see Cleland under the awning.

There was a chop-suey restaurant opposite, a shabby, disreputable,

odoriferous place, doubly repulsive in the pitiless sunshine. And into

this sauntered Grismer and disappeared.

The slight shock of the episode remained to bother Cleland all the

morning. He kept thinking of it while trying to work; he could not seem

to put it from his mind and finally threw aside his manuscript, took his

hat and stick, and went out with the intention of lunching.

It was nearly lunch time, but he did not walk toward the cream-coloured

Hotel Rochambeau, with its green awnings and its French flag flying. He

took the other way, scarcely realizing what he meant to do until he

turned the corner into Bleecker Street.

He found the basement he was in search of presently; two steps down, an

area gate and bell encrusted with rust, and a diseased and homeless cat

dozing there in patient misery.

"You poor devil," he said, offering a cautious caress; but the gaunt

creature struck at him and fled.

He rang. Jangling echoes resounded from within. Two negro wenches and a

Chinaman surveyed him from adjoining houses. He could smell a sour

stench from the beer saloon opposite, where a fat German beast was

washing down the sidewalk with a mop.

"Hello, Cleland. This is very nice of you. Come in!" said a pleasant

voice behind him, and, as he turned, Grismer, in shabby slippers and

faded dressing-gown, opened the iron wicket.

"I hadn't called," said Cleland a little stiffly, "--so I thought I'd

drop in for a moment and take you out somewhere to lunch."

Grismer smiled his curious, non-committal smile and ushered him into a

big, whitewashed basement, with a screen barring the further end and

quite bare except for a few bits of furniture, some plaster casts, and

half a dozen revolving tables on which stood unfinished studies in clay

and wax.

Cleland involuntarily glanced about him, then went over and politely

examined the studies in clay.

"I've a back yard, too," said Grismer, "where I work in good weather.

The light in here isn't particularly good."

For the wretchedness of his quarters he made no further apology; he

spoke in his easy, amiable way and entirely without embarrassment,

standing beside Cleland and moving with him from one study to another.

"They're just as clever as they can be," said Cleland, "--infernally

clever, Grismer. Are they commissions?"

"I'm sorry to say they are not," replied Grismer with a smile.

"But a man who can do this work ought never to want for commissions,"

insisted Cleland.

"I'm exceedingly glad you like my work," returned Grismer pleasantly,

"but as for orders----" he shrugged--"when I didn't need them they came

to me. But, Cleland, when the world learns that a man needs anything it

suddenly discovers that it doesn't need him! Isn't it funny," he added

good-humouredly, "that prosperous talent is always in demand, always

turning down work which it has no time to do; but the same talent on its

uppers is universally under deep suspicion?"

He spoke lightly, impersonally, and without the slightest trace of

bitterness. "Sit down and light one of your own cigarettes," he said.

"I've only pipe-tobacco, and you probably wouldn't care for it."

Cleland seated himself in the depths of a big, threadbare arm-chair.

Grismer said with a smile:

"No use informing you that I'm obliged to live economically. Models are

expensive; so is material. Therefore, I live where I can afford both,

and a roof to cover them.... And do you know, Cleland, that after all

it doesn't matter much where one sleeps----" he made a slight gesture

toward the screen at the end of the room. "I used to think it did until

I had to give up a place of my own full of expensive and beautiful

things.

"But it really doesn't matter. The main idea is to be free--free of

debt, free of expensive impedimenta which cause one anxiety, free from

the importunities and restrictions of one's friends." He laughed and

dropped one long leg over the other.

"I've niggers and Chinamen for neighbours. They cause me no

inconvenience. It's rather agreeable than otherwise to sit here and

work, or lounge about and smoke, wondering whether a commission is

already on its way or whether it has not yet even taken shape in the

brain of some person unknown who is destined by fate some day to

exchange his money for my bronze or marble.... It's an amusing game,

Cleland, isn't it?--the whole affair of living, I mean.... Not too

unpleasant, not too agreeable.... But if one's heart-action were not

involuntary and automatic, do you know, if it lay with me I'd not bother

to keep my heart ticking--I'd be too lazy to wind it up."

He stretched himself out in his chair gracefully, good-humoured,

serenely amused at his own ideas.

"Did you have a good time abroad?" he inquired.

"Yes.... When you get on your feet you ought to go to Paris, Grismer."

"Yes, I know." He looked humorously at his well-shaped feet stretched

out before him in shabby slippers. "Yes; it's up to my feet, Cleland.

But they're a wandering, indifferent couple, inclined to indolence, I

fear.... Is your work getting on?"

"I'm busy.... Yes, I think it's taking shape."

He looked up at Grismer hesitatingly, frankly troubled. "Grismer, we

were school-mates.... I wouldn't wish you to think me impertinent----"

"Go ahead, Cleland."

"Are you quite sure?"

"I'm sure of _you_," returned Grismer, with a singular smile. "I know

you pretty well, Cleland. I knew you in school, in college.... We

fought in school. You were civil to me at Harvard." He laughed. "I've

always liked you, Cleland--which is more than you can say about me."

Cleland reddened, and Grismer laughed again, lightly and without effort:

"It's that way sometimes. I think that you are about the only man I

have ever really liked. You didn't know that, did you?"

"No."

"Well, don't let it worry you," added Grismer, smiling. "Go on and say

what you were about to say."

"It was--I was merely wondering--whether you'd take it all right if----"

He began again from another angle: "I've a country place--up in the

Berkshires--my father's old place. And I thought that a fountain--if

you'd care to design one----"

Grismer had been watching him with that indefinable smile in his golden

eyes, which perplexed men and interested women, but now he rose suddenly

and walked to the barred windows and stood there with his back turned,

gazing out into the area. After an interval he pivoted on his heels,

sauntered back and seated himself, relighting his pipe.

"All right," he said very quietly. "I'll do your fountain."

Cleland drew a breath of relief. "If you like," he said, "come up with

me to Runner's Rest in June and look over the garden. There ought to be

a pool there; there are plenty of springs on the mountain to feed a

fountain by gravity. I think it would be fine to have a pool and a

fountain in the old garden. Is it understood that you'll do it for me?"

"Yes.... I don't wish to be paid."

"Good Lord! You and I are professionals, Grismer, not beastly amateurs.

Do you think I'd write for anybody unless I'm paid for it?"

Grismer's eyes held a curious expression as they rested on him. Then

his features changed and he smiled and nodded carelessly:

"I'll do your fountain on your own terms. Tell me when you are ready."

Cleland rose:

"Won't you change your mind and lunch with me somewhere?"

"Thanks, no." Grismer also had risen, and the two men confronted each

other for a moment in silence.

Then Grismer said:

"Cleland, I think you're the only man in the world for whom I have any

real consideration. I haven't much use for men--no delusions. But it

always has been different about you--even when we fought in school--even

when I used to sneer at you sometimes.... And I want, somehow, to make

you understand that I wish you well; that if it lay with me you should

attain _whatever_ you wish in life; that if attainment depended upon my

stepping aside I'd do it.... That's all I can say. Think it over and

try to understand."

Cleland, astonished, looked at him with unconcealed embarrassment.

"You're very kind," he said, "to feel so generously interested in my

success. I wish you success, too."

Grismer smiled:

"You _don't_ understand me after all," he said pleasantly. "I was

afraid you wouldn't."

"You are offering me your friendship, as I take it," said Cleland

awkwardly. "Isn't that what you meant?"

"Yes. And other things...."

He laughed with a slight touch of malice in his mirth:

"There's such a lot yet left unsaid between you and me, which you and I

must say to each other some day. But there's plenty of time, Cleland....

And I shall be very glad to design and execute a fountain for your

garden."

He offered his hand; Cleland took it, the embarrassed flush still

staining his face.

"Yes," he said, "there is a matter that I wish to talk over with you

some day, Grismer."

"I know.... But I think we had better wait a while.... Because I wish

to answer everything you ask; and for the present I had rather not."

They walked slowly to the area gate and Grismer unlocked it.

"I'm glad you came," he said. "It's a bit lonely sometimes.... I have

no friends."

"When you feel that way," said Cleland, "drop in on me."

"Thanks."

And that was all. Cleland went away through the ill-smelling streets,

crossed the sunny square, and walked thoughtfully back to his own

studio.

"He's a strange man," he mused, "--he was a strange boy, and he's grown

into a curious sort of man.... Poor devil.... It's as though something

inside him is lacking--or has been killed.... But why in God's name did

Steve marry him unless she was in love with him? ... It must be.... And

his pride won't let him take her until he can stand on his own feet....

When I dig that pool I'll dig a pit for my feet.... A grave for a

fool...."

He unlocked his studio and went in.

"I'm done with love," he said aloud to himself.

The jingle of the telephone bell echoed his words and he walked slowly

over to the table and detached the receiver.

"Jim?"

"Is it you, Steve?"

"Yes. Would you like some tea about five?"

"All right. I've had no lunch and I'll be hungry."

"You know, Jim, I'm not going to provide a banquet for you. Why don't

you go out and take lunch?"

"I forgot it. I don't feel like work. Shall I come down and talk to

you now?"

"I'm going out to take a dancing lesson in a few moments. I'll talk to

you while I'm putting on my hat."

He said "All right," took his hat and stick and went downstairs again.

She opened the door for him, offering him her cool, slim hand, then she

opened a hat-box and lifted from it a hat.

"I believe I'll join the Russian ballet," she said. "I do dance very

nicely. You should hear what the ballet master says. And Miss Duncan

and Miss St. Denis watched me yesterday, and they were very

complimentary and polite."

"Nonsense. It's good exercise, but it would be a dog's life for you to

lead, Steve. Where is Helen?"

"Out hunting a model for her Pegasus. She asked me to pose for the

mounted figure, but I haven't time. I can fancy myself, in a complete

state of nature, scrambling onto some rickety old livery hack----" She

threw back her head and laughed, then inspected her new hat, and, facing

the studio mirror, pinned it to her chestnut hair.

"Do you like it, Jim?"

"Fine. You make all hats look well."

"Such a nice, polite boy! So well brought up! But unfortunately I

heard you say the same thing to Helen.... Where have you been, Jim? I

called you up an hour ago."

"I went to see Grismer," he said, coolly ignoring her perverse and

tormenting humour.

"You did? Bless your dear, generous heart!" cried the girl. "Do you

know that if it were in me to be sentimental over you, what you did

would start me? Continue to behave like a real man, dear friend, and

I'll be head over heels in love before I know it!"

"Why?" he asked, conscious again of her gaily derisive mood and not

caring for it.

"Because," she said, "you have acted like a man in calling on Oswald,

and not like a spoiled boy. You resented Oswald's marrying me. You

have been sullen and suspicious and aloof with him since you came back.

I know Oswald better than you do. I know that he has felt your attitude

keenly, though he never admitted it even to me.

"He is a man of few friends, admired but not well liked; he is

wretchedly poor, fiercely proud, sensitive----"

"What!"

"Did you think he wasn't?" she asked. "He is painfully sensitive;

pitiably so. I think women divine it, and it attracts them."

"He hasn't the reputation of being very thin-skinned," remarked Cleland

drily.

"The average man who is sensitive would die to conceal it. You ought to

know that, Jim; it's your business to dissect people, isn't it?"

She thrust a second pin through the crown of her hat and adjusted it

deftly.

"Anyway," she said, "you are a nice, polite boy to go to see him, and

you have made me very happy. Good-bye! I must run----"

"Have you lunched?"

"No, but I'm going to."

"With whom?" he asked incautiously.

"A man."

"You're usually just going out to lunch or dine with some man," he said

sullenly.

"I like men," she said, smiling at him.

"What you probably mean is that you like admiration."

"I do. It's agreeable; it's sanitary; it's soothing. It invigorates

one's self-confidence and self-respect. And it doesn't disarrange one's

hair and rumple one's gown. Therefore, I prefer the undemonstrative

admiration of a man to the indiscreet demonstrations of a boy."

"Do you mean me?" he asked, furious.

But she ignored the question:

"Boys _are_ funny," she said, swinging her velvet reticule in circles.

"Any girl can upset their equilibrium. All a girl has to do is to look

at a boy sideways--the way Lady Button-eyes looked at you yesterday

afternoon----"

"What!"

"At the Rochambeau. And you got up and went over and renewed your

friendship with her. Helen and I saw you."

"I was merely civil," he said.

"So was she. She fished out a card and wrote on it. _I_ don't know

what she wrote."

"She wrote her telephone call. There isn't the slightest chance of my

using it."

Stephanie laughed:

"He certainly is the nicest, politest boy in all Manhattan, and sister

is very, very proud of him. _Good_-bye, James----"

She offered her lips to him audaciously, bending forward on tip-toe,

both hands clasped behind her. But her grey eyes were bright with

malice.

"Nice, polite boy," she repeated. "Kiss little sister."

"No," he said gloomily, "I'm fed up on sisterly kisses----"

"You insulting wretch! Do you mean you _won't_? Then you _shall_----!"

She started toward him, wrath in her eyes, but he caught her wrists and

held her.

"You're altogether too well satisfied with yourself," he said. "You've

no emotions inside your very lovely person except discreet ones.

Otherwise, you've got the devil inside you and it's getting on my

nerves."

"Jim! You beast!"

"Yes, I am. What of it? Beasts have emotions. Yours have either been

cultivated out of you or you were born without any. I'm glad I am part

beast. I'm glad you know it. The rest of me is human; and the

combination isn't a very serious menace to civilization. But the sort of

expurgated girl you are is!"

"Don't you think I'm capable of any deep emotions?" she asked. The

smile had died on her lips.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Who should, if you don't?"

He shrugged:

"Your husband, perhaps."

"Jim! I told you not to call him that!"

"Well, a spade is a spade----"

"Do you mean to be offensive?"

"How can that offend you?"

She released her wrists and shot a curious, inexplicable look at him.

"I don't understand you," she said. "You can be so generous and

high-minded and you can be so unkind and insolent to me."

"Insolent?"

"Yes. You meant it insolently when you spoke of Oswald as my husband.

You've done it before, too. Why do you? Do you really want to hurt me?

Because you know he isn't my husband except by title. He may never be."

"All right," he said. "I'm sorry I was offensive. I'm just tired of

this mystery, I suppose. It's a hopeless sort of affair for me. I

can't make you love me; you're married, besides. It's too much for

me--I can't cope with it, Steve.... So I won't ever bother you again

with importunities. I'll go my own way."

"Very well," she said in an even voice.

She nodded to him and went out, saying as she passed:

"There'll be tea at five, if you care for any." And left him planted.

Which presently enraged him, and he began to pace the studio, pondering

on the cruelty, insensibility and injustice of that devilish sex which

had created man as a convenience.

"The thing to do," he said savagely to himself, "is to exterminate the

last trace of love for her, tear it out, uproot it, trample on it

without remorse----"

The studio bell rang. He walked to the door and opened it. A

bewilderingly pretty girl stood there.

"Miss Davis?" she inquired sweetly. "I have an appointment."

"Come in," said Cleland, the flush of wrath still on his countenance.

The girl entered; he offered her a chair.

"Miss Davis happens to be out at the moment," he said, "but I don't

believe she'll be very long."

"Do you mind my waiting?" asked the pretty girl.

"No, I don't," he said, welcoming diversion. "Do you mind my being

here? Or are you going to put me out?"

She looked surprised, then she laughed very delightfully:

"Of course not. Miss Davis and I have known each other for a long

while, and I owe her a great deal and I am devoted to her. Do you think

I'd be likely to banish a friend of hers? Besides, I'm only one of her

models."

"A model?" he repeated. "How delightful! I also am a model--of good

behaviour."

They both laughed.

"Does it pay?" she inquired mischievously.

"No, it doesn't. I wish I had another job."

"Why not take the one I've just left?"

"What was it?"

"I was dancing at the Follies."

"All right. Will you try me out?"

"With pleasure."

"I'll turn on that music-box."

The girl laughed her enchanting little laugh, appraised him at a glance,

then turned her pretty head and critically surveyed the studio.

"I believe," she said, "I'm to pose for Miss Davis seated on a winged

horse. Isn't that exciting?"

"You'd be delightful on a winged horse," he said.

"Do you think so?"

"I suspect it. What did you do in the Follies?"

"Nothing very interesting. Have you seen the Follies?"

"You ought to know I haven't," he said reproachfully. "Do you suppose I

could have forgotten you?"

She rose and dropped him a Florodora curtsey. They were getting on very

well. She glanced demurely at the music box. He jumped up and turned

it on. The battered disc croaked out a tango.

"Shall I take up those rugs?" he inquired.

"What on earth would Miss Davis say if she found us dancing?"

"She isn't here to say anything. _Shall_ I?"

"Very well.... I'll help you."

They dragged the rugs aside.

The studio was all golden with the sun, now, and the brilliant rays

bathed them as she laid her gloved hand in his and his arm encircled her

waist.

She was a wonderful dancer; her supple grace and professional perfection

enchanted him.

From time to time he left her to crank up the music-box; neither of them

tired. Occasionally she glanced at her jewelled wrist-watch and

ventured to voice her doubts as to the propriety of continuing in the

imminence of Miss Davis's return.

"Then let's come up to my studio," he said. "I've a music-phone of

sorts. We can dance there until you're tired, and then you can come

down and see Miss Davis."

She demurred: the music-box ran down with a squawk.

"Shall we take one more chance here?" he asked.

"No, it's too risky.... Shall I run up to your place for just one

little dance?"

"Come on!" he said, taking her hand.

They went out and he closed the door. Then, hand-in-hand, laughing like

a pair of children, they sped up the stairs and arrived breathless

before his door, which he unlocked. And in another minute they were

dancing again while a scratched record croaked out a fox-trot.

"I _must_ go," she said, resting one gloved hand on his arm. "I'd love

to stay but I mustn't."

"First," he said, "we'll have tea."

"No!"

But presently they were seated on his desk, a plate of sweet biscuits

between them, their glasses of sherry touching.

"Unknown but fascinating girl," he said gaily, "I drink to your health

and fortune. Never shall I forget our dance together; never shall I

forget the charming stranger who took tea with me!"

"Nor shall I forget you!--you very nice boy," she said, looking at him

with smiling intentness.

"Would it spoil if we saw each other again?"

"You know that such delightful encounters never bear repetition," she

answered. "Now I'm going. Farewell!"

She laughed at him, touched her glass with her lips, set it aside, and

slipped to the floor.

"Good-bye!" she said. He caught her at the door, and she turned and

looked up gravely.

"Don't spoil it," she whispered, disengaging herself.

So he released her, and she stretched out her hand, smiled at him, and

stepped out. The music-phone continued to play gaily.

A girl who was coming upstairs saw her as she left Cleland's studio;

and, as the pretty visitor sped lightly past her, the girl who was

mounting turned and watched her. Then she resumed her ascent, came

slowly to Cleland's open door, stood there resting a moment as though

out of breath.

Cleland, replacing the rugs, glanced up and caught sight of Stephanie;

and the quick blood burnt his face.

She came in as though still a trifle weary from the ascent. Neither

spoke. She glanced down at the two empty wine glasses on his desk, saw

the decanter, the biscuits and cigarettes. The music-phone was expiring

raucously.

"Who is that girl?" she asked in an even, colourless voice.

"A girl I met."

"Do you mind telling me her name?"

"I--don't know it," he said, getting redder.

"Oh. Shall I enlighten you?"

"Thank you."

"She's Mary Cliff, of the Follies. I've seen her dance."

"Really," he said carelessly.

Stephanie leaned against the desk, resting one hand on it. An odd sense

of mental fatigue possessed her; things were not clear in her mind; she

was not very sure of what she was saying:

"I came up to say--that I'm sorry we quarrelled.... I'm sorry now that I

came. I'm going in a moment.... You've already had tea, I see. So you

won't care for any more."

After a flushed silence, he said:

"Did you have a successful lesson, Steve?"

"I've had two--lessons. Yes, they were quite--successful."

"You seem tired."

"No." She turned and walked to the door. He opened it for her in

silence.

"Good night," she said.

"Good night."

*CHAPTER XXIII*

Cleland's unhappy interpretation of the episode was masculine and

therefore erroneous--the interpretation of a very young man whose

reverence for the restless sex might require revision some day or other

unless he died exceedingly young. For he concluded, now, that he had

thoroughly disgusted Stephanie Quest; first by his vulgar flirtation

with Lady Button-eyes, then by losing his temper and admitting to her

his own odious materialism; and, furthermore and flagrantly, by his

hideous behaviour with a pretty girl whose name even he had not known

when he entertained her at his impromptu the-dansant.

He saw himself quite ruined in the unemotional grey eyes of a girl who,

herself, was so coldly aloof from the ignoble emotions lurking ever and

furtively in the masculine animal.

He had had little enough chance with Stephanie, even when his conduct

had been exemplary. Now he was dreadfully certain that his chances were

less than none at all; that he had done himself in. What had he to hope

of her now?

To this unconventional yet proud, pure-hearted girl had been offered the

very horrid spectacle of his own bad temper and reprehensible behaviour.

And, although there had been no actual harm in it, _she_ could never,

never understand or forgive it. Never!

Her virginal ears had been insulted by the cynical avowal of his own

masculine materialism. Of the earth, earthy, he had vaunted himself in

his momentary exasperation--"of humanity, a shamelessly human example."

With her own incredulous, uncontaminated eyes she had seen him pocket

Lady Button-eye's telephone number. Her shrinking ears had heard the

mutilated record in his music-phone dying out in a tipsy two-step; her

outraged gaze had beheld a perfectly strange young girl's gaily informal

exit from his own bachelor apartment, where sherry still stood in both

glasses and the rugs lay scattered in disorder against the wall.

Elimination was naturally the portion he had to expect. And he gloomily

schooled himself to endure annihilation.

According to his philosophy there was nothing else on earth to do about

it. Doubtless she'd ultimately forgive him, but her respect he couldn't

hope for at present; and as for any deeper sentiment, if ever there had

been any hope in his heart that he might one day awaken it, now he knew

it was wriggling in its death-throes, making him, by turns, either

frightfully unhappy or resentfully reckless.

The hopeless part of it was that, unlike weaker men, he had no desire to

drown sorrow in any irregular and unworthy fashion.

Many men of many minds turn to many things seeking the anodyne in one

form or another--the nepenthe of forgetfulness, rarer than the

philosopher's stone.

Neither wine nor the dreary quest for heart-ease among frailer

companions ever appeals to any but weak minds. And the boy, not knowing

what to do, turned to his work with a renewed energy resembling

desperation.

It is the only hope for ultimate anesthesia.

Also, he took to prowling by night, being too unhappy to remain in his

studio so near to Stephanie.

He prowled about Broadway and Long Acre with Badger Spink, whose

restless cleverness and self-absorption ended by wearying him; he

prowled with Clarence Verne one night, encountering that strange sphinx

by accident, and strolling with him at hazard through the purlieus of

Chelsea. Both men seemed deeply preoccupied with problems of their own,

and though they knew each other only slightly they maintained the

reticence of intimacy--an odd assumption, as Cleland thought afterward.

Yet, one of them was very sick for love, and the other very sick of it;

and, besides, there roved with them a third and unseen companion,

through the crooked, lamp-lit streets, whose shrouded arm was linked in

Verne's. And perhaps that accounted for the sombre silence which

brooded between these men in trouble.

Verne said at parting--and gazing absently at nothing while he spoke:

"The tragedy of civilization--of what the world calls

civilization!--that is the most terrible of all, Cleland. That is the

real and only hell. Not the ruthless eruptions of barbarism; not the

momentary resurgence of atavistic violence--of red-blooded rapine and

lust--but the ordered, lawful, stealthy, subtle horrors of civilization:

they slay men's souls."

"I don't get you, Verne."

"No, Cleland. But somebody else will--somebody else will get me--very

soon, now.... Good-bye."

A few days later Cleland prowled with Harry Belter, intent upon supper

somewhere in the outer marches of the town.

For an episode had occurred that shook them both with the most sobering

and distressing jar that youth experiences in fullest mental and

physical vigour.

"I _don't_ see how a man can kill himself," said Cleland. "I don't see

why he can't go somewhere else and cure himself of his unhappiness.

Travel, change, new faces----"

"Perhaps he wants to be rid of faces," muttered Belter.

"There are wonderful wildernesses."

"Perhaps he's too tired to admire 'em. Perhaps he's half dead for

sleep."

"You talk as though you sympathized and understood, Harry."

"I do."

"_You_! The indefatigable optimist! You, the ever-welcome, the gay

consoler, the irrepressible spirit among us!"

"If I didn't play that role I'd do what Clarence Verne did!"

"_What!_"

"Long ago," added Belter.

"For God's sake, why? I never dreamed----"

"You were away, three years, having a good time abroad, weren't you?

How should you know what happened to others?"

"Did something happen to you, Harry?"

"It did. If you wish to know exactly what, I'll tell you what happened

to me was a woman. Now you know something that nobody else

knows--except that demon and myself."

"But such things----"

"No. Such things destroy, ultimately. I'll die of her, one day."

"Nonsense!"

But Belter, the jester, laughed a terrifying laugh and sauntered into

the open door of the restaurant which they had walked a mile or two to

find.

"It's a low pub," he remarked, "and suitable to my mind." They seated

themselves at a cherry table. One or two newspaper men nodded to Belter.

A confidence man, whispering to a painted mulatto girl, turned to

scrutinize him; a ruffianly bar-keeper saluted him cordially.

There was a grill glowing beyond the bar. A waiter, chewing a

tooth-pick, came up and stood leaning on their table with both hairy

hands spread flat on the polished top.

"Well, gents, what is it?" he asked hoarsely.

They gave their order. Then Belter, leaning forward and planting both

elbows on the table, said in a low voice:

"They call me a caricaturist, but, by God, Cleland, I'm a realist! I've

learned more about women by caricaturing them than I ever read in their

smooth countenances. They _are_ caricatures, in their secret

souls--every one of them; and when I exaggerate a weak point and ignore

everything but the essential character lines and contours, by jingo,

Cleland, I've discovered 'em--exposed 'em as they really are!--distorted

caricatures of human beings."

Cleland disagreed with him, gloomily, amazed at his bitterness.

"No," said Belter, "if you tell the mere truth about them they're a

nuisance! We don't understand 'em. Why? There's very little to

understand and that's all on the surface as plain as the nose on your

face!--too plain for us to notice. And you writers explore and dissect

'em, seeking deeps where there are shallows, mysteries where there are

facts, subtleties where everything is obvious. They haven't much mind,

they have few traits because they have precious little character. They

are not like humans; they resemble Fabre's insects--strange,

incomprehensible Martians, doing things not from intelligence, not from

reason, impulse, desire, but merely from an inherited instinct that apes

intelligence, that parodies passion."

"What _have_ they done to you, Harry?"

"Nothing, in years.... Because I won't let 'em. But the spectacle of

the world suddenly crawling with women, all swarming restlessly over the

face of the globe, not knowing why or whither--it appalls me, Jim. And

we men continue flinging at them everything we can think of to stop

them, quiet them, and keep them still--personal liberty, franchise,

political opportunity, professional and industrial chances--and still

they twist and wriggle and squirm and swarm over everything restlessly,

slowly becoming denatured, unsexed, more sterile, more selfish,

insolent, intolerable every day. They are the universal nuisance of the

age; they are slowly smothering us as shifting dunes threaten the

fertile plain----"

"For heaven's sake----"

"There's the unvarnished truth about woman," insisted Belter. "She's

got the provocative calinerie of a cat; the casual insouciance of a

sparrow; the nesting and hatching instinct of the hen; the mindless

jealousy of a Pekingese.

"The creative mind that marries one of 'em is doomed either to sterility

or to anguish. Their jealousy and malice stultify and slay the male

brain; there is no arguing with them because they have no real mind to

appeal to, no logic, no reason. Like the horrible praying Mantis they

suffer the embrace of the male and immediately begin to eat him,

commencing with the head----"

Cleland began to laugh. His mirth, unrestrained, did not disturb

Belter, who continued to eat his club sandwich and wash it down with

huge draughts of Pilsner.

"Do you think I'd marry one of 'em?" he demanded scornfully. "Do you

know what really happened to Clarence Verne?"

"No."

"Well, he married a dainty little thing and expected to continue earning

two thousand dollars for every magazine cover he designed. And do you

know what happened?"

"No, I don't."

"I'll tell you. The dainty little thing turned jealous, hired a shyster

who hired detectives to follow Verne about and report to her what he did

inside and outside his studio. She doped his food when she thought he

had a rendezvous; she had his letters stolen. In his own world, any

woman he found agreeable was cut out by his wife; if, in the jolly and

unconventional fellowship of Bohemia, he ever stopped on the street to

chat with a pretty girl or took one, harmlessly, to lunch or supper, or

offered any of 'em tea in his studio, her detectives reported it to her

and she raised hell.

"It killed spontaneity, any gaiety of heart, any incentive in Verne. It

embittered him, aged him, strangled him. Look at his work to-day!

Nothing remains except the mechanical technique. Look at the man. Dead

in his bathroom. Don't talk to me about women."

"Why didn't he divorce her if he knew of all this she was doing?"

"He had a little girl to think of. After all, Verne had lived his life.

Better snuff it out that way and leave the child in decent ignorance of

family dissension.... And that was the matter with Clarence Verne,

Cleland. And I tell you that into the heart of every man who has been

fool enough to marry, some canker is eating its way. There is not one

woman in a million with mind enough and humanity enough to keep her

husband's love--not one who knows enough to

'Let him alone

And he'll come home--'

Not one with the brains, mental resource, wisdom, to mate without

becoming a parasite. And still, all over the world the asses are

solemnly asking each other, 'Is marriage a failure?' Bah! The world

makes me very sick!"

They went to Verne's funeral a few days later. The widow was very

pretty in her deep mourning. Her little girl was with her.

But the affair was not even a nine-days' gossip in the artists' world.

Verne had stalked wistfully among them for a few years, but had never

been of them since his marriage: he had lived at home in one of the

fashionable quarters, although his studio--and his heart--were in

Chelsea.

So his well-known magazine covers were missed more than he was, and

people soon ceased discussing him and his fate; and in a month nobody

remembered whether it had been done with a razor or a revolver. And

very few cared.

As for Cleland, he had never known Verne well, and the damnation of his

taking off affected him only superficially. Besides, busy men have

little time to bother about death; and Cleland was now extremely busy

with his novel, which began to take definite shape and proportion under

unremitting labour.

He now saw Stephanie much as usual; and the girl did not seem seriously

changed toward him in behaviour. Her spirits appeared to be high

always; she seemed to be always doing something interesting and

delightful, dining out, going to theatres--though the choice was now

limited, as many were already closed for the summer--motoring out to the

country, taking her dancing and dramatic lessons, entertaining in the

studio.

It is true that he seldom or never saw Stephanie alone now, but that

seemed accidental, because he really had been absorbed in his work and

she was usually out somewhere or other during the day. But she appeared

to be cordial to him--just as full of gay malice and light banter as

ever--full of undisguised interest in the progress of his work and

delighted with his promise to let her read the manuscript when it was

typed and before he submitted it to any publisher.

So all seemed to go serenely between them; he resolutely told himself

that he had given her up; she did not appear to be aware of anything

altered or subdued in his cordiality toward her--apparently missed

nothing in his attitude that might once have been to her significant of

any deeper feeling.

Yet, once or twice, when a gay company filled her studio, amid the

chatter and music and movement of dancers, he became aware of her level,

grey eyes gravely intent on him--but always the gravity he surprised in

them turned to a quick, frank smile when his gaze encountered hers, and

she always made him some pretty signal of recognition across the

animated scene.

As for Helen, he always got on delightfully with that charming and

capable girl. There was something very engaging about her, she was so

wholesome, so energetic, so busy, so agreeable to look at.

He had acquired a habit of dropping in on his way out to lunch to watch

her working on the sketches and studies for "Aspiration;" but one day

she forgot to warn him and he blundered into the courtyard where, on a

white circus-horse, a lovely, slender, but rather startling figure hid

its face in its hands and desperately attempted to make a garment of its

loosened hair, while an elderly female holding the horse's head cried

"Shoo!" and Helen hustled him out, a little perturbed and intensely

amused.

"I ought to have told you," she said. "I wouldn't mind, but even

professional models object to anybody except, occasionally, another

artist."

"I'm sorry," he said. "Please tell little Miss Eve that I didn't mean

to scare her."

They chatted for a few minutes, then Helen smilingly excused herself and

went back to her work, and Cleland continued on his way to lunch,

chagrined at his stupidity.

"I wonder," he thought, "if that was my little unknown dancing partner?

Now, she will think I've 'spoiled it all.'"

He was in masculine error again. Disconcerted beauty has the

consolation that it is beautiful. Otherwise, it remains merely outraged

modesty; and bitterness abides in its soul.

Helen, laughingly mentioning the affair to Stephanie, still immensely

amused at Cleland's distress and apologetic blushes, added that the

model, Marie Cliff, had been sensible enough to appreciate the humour of

it, too.

"You mean," said Stephanie, coldly, "that she didn't care." And, not

smiling, went on with her sewing.

"She's rather a refined type," said Helen, looking curiously at the girl

who, bent over her mending, was plying her needle furiously.

Stephanie shrugged.

"Don't you think so, Steve?"

"No. I think her typically common."

"How odd! She's quite young, and she's really very nice and modest--not

the type of person you seem to imagine----"

"I don't _like_ her," interrupted Stephanie calmly. But her slender

fingers were flying, and she had set her teeth in her under lip, which

had trembled a little.

Helen, chancing to mention Cleland that night as they were preparing for

bed, was astonished at Stephanie's impatient comment:

"Oh, Jim's quite spoiled. I'm rapidly losing interest in that young

man."

"Why?" asked Helen, surprised.

"Because he runs about with queer people. No man can do that and not

show it in his own manner."

"What people, Steve?"

"Well, with Lady Button-eyes for one. With your modest and bashful

little model, for another."

"Does he?" Then she began to laugh. "I'm glad he displays good taste,

anyway! The little Cliff girl is charming."

"Isn't that rather a horrid and cynical thing to say?" demanded

Stephanie, flushing brightly.

"Why? I think she's quite all right. Let them play together if they

like. It's none of my business. Are you, the high-priestess of

tolerance, becoming intolerant?" she added laughingly.

"No. I don't care what he does. But I should think he'd prefer to

frivol with one of his own class."

"It's a matter of chance," remarked Helen, brushing out her curly brown

hair. "The beggar-maid or Vere-de-Vere--it's all the same to a man if

the girl is sufficiently attractive and amusing."

"Amusing?" repeated Stephanie. "That is a humiliating role--to amuse a

man."

"If a girl doesn't, men soon neglect her. Men go where they are amused.

Everybody does. You do. I do. Why not?"

Stephanie, still hotly flushed, shook out her beautiful chestnut hair

and began to comb it viciously.

"I don't see how a common person can amuse a well-born man," she said.

"It's a reflection on us if we give them the opportunity," retorted

Helen, laughing. "But if we're not clever enough to hold the men of our

own caste, then they'll certainly go elsewhere for their amusement."

"And good riddance!"

"But who's to replace them?"

"I can get along perfectly without men."

"Steve, you're talking like a child! What happens to be the matter with

you? Has anything gone wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing----" She turned sharply; her comb caught in her

hair and she jerked it free. Perhaps that accounted for the sudden glint

of tears in her grey eyes.

Helen slipped her arm around her, but the girl's rigid body did not

yield and she kept her head obstinately averted.

"Are you getting tired of your idiotic bargain with Oswald?" asked

Helen, gently.

"No, I am not! _He_ never bothers me--never gets on my nerves--never is

unjust--unkind----"

"Who is?"

"I don't know.... Men in general--annoy me--men in--general."

"None in particular?"

"No.... It isn't very agreeable to know that one's brother goes about

with a shameless dancer from the Follies."

"Are you sure he does?"

"Perfectly. He gives her a party in his studio, too, sometimes."

"But there's no harm in----"

"A party for _two_! They drink--together."

"Oh."

"They drink and dance and eat, all by themselves! They take up the rugs

and turn on the music and--and I don't know what they do!--I--d-don't

know--I don't--I don't----!"

Her head fell into her hands; she stood rigid, her body shaken by

emotions too unhappy, too new, too vague for her youthful analysis.

"I--I can't bear to think of him that way----" she stammered, "--he was

so straight and clean--so clean----"

"Some men drift a little--sometimes----"

"They say so.... I don't know. I am too miserable about him--too

unhappy----"

She choked back a sob, and the slender hands that covered her eyes

slowly clenched.

Helen looked at her in consternation. Girls don't usually betray so

much emotion over some casual irregularity of a brother.

Stephanie pressed her clenched hands mutely against her lids for a

while, then, her lips still quivering, she reached for her brush and

began to groom her splendid hair again.

And Helen, watching her without a word, thought to self:

"She behaves as though she were falling in love with him.... She'd

certainly better be careful. The boy is already in love with her, no

matter how he acts.... If she isn't very, very careful she'll get into

trouble with him."

Aloud she said cheerfully:

"Steve, dear, I really think I'm clever enough to have taken the measure

of your very delightful brother. And I honestly don't believe it is in

him to play fast and loose with any woman ever born."

"He _is_ doing it!"

"With whom?"

"That--Dancing girl----"

"Nonsense! If it's an ephemeral romance, which I don't believe, it's a

gay and harmless one. Don't worry your pretty head about it, Steve."

After Stephanie was in bed she kissed her lightly, smiled reassuringly,

switched off the light and went to her own room, slowly.

Very gravely she braided her hair before the mirror, looking at her

pale, reflected face.

Yet, though pale, it was still a fresh, wholesome, beautiful face. But

the brown eyes stared sadly at their twin brown images, and the girl

shook her head.

For the nearest that Helen Davis had ever come to falling in love was

when Cleland first walked into her studio. She could have fallen in

love with him then--within the minute--out of a clear sky. She realized

it after he had gone--not too deeply astonished--she, who had never

before been in love, recognized its possibility all in a moment.

But she had learned to hold herself in check since that first, abrupt

and clear-minded recognition of such a possibility.

Never by a word or glance had she ever betrayed herself; yet his very

nearness to her, at times, set her heart beating, set a faint thrill

stealing through her. Yet her eyes always met his pleasantly, frankly,

steadily; her hand lay calm and cool in his when she welcomed him or

bade him good-bye. Always she schooled herself to withstand what

threatened her, gave it no food for reflection, no sustenance, no

status, no consideration.

Love came as no friend to her. She soon realized that. And she quietly

faced him and bade him keep his distance.

She looked at herself again in the glass. Her brown eyes were very,

very serious. Then the smile glimmered.

"Quand meme," she murmured gaily, and switched off the light.

*CHAPTER XXIV*

It was a warm day in early June and Cleland, working in trousers and

undershirt, and driven by thirst to his tin ice-box, discovered it to be

empty.

"Confound it," he muttered, and rang up Stephanie's studio. A maid

answered, saying that Miss Quest had gone motoring and Miss Davis had

not yet returned from shopping.

"I want to borrow a lump of ice," explained Cleland. "I'll come down for

it."

So he concealed his lack of apparel under a gay silk dressing gown,

picked up a pan, and went down, not expecting to encounter anybody.

In the kitchenette, in the rear, the obliging maid gave him a lump of

ice. Carrying it in one hand, aloft, as an expert waiter carries a

towering tray of dishes, and whistling a gay air with great content--for

his work upstairs had gone very well that morning--he sauntered out of

the culinary regions, along the alley-like passageway, into the studio.

And as he started for the door which he had left ajar, a figure opened

it from without and entered hurriedly--a scared, breathless little

figure, bare-footed, swathed in a kimono and a shock of hair.

They stared at each other, astonished. Both blushed furiously.

"I simply can't help it," said the girl. "I was sitting on that horse

waiting for Miss Davis, when a bee or a horsefly or something stung him

and he began to rear and kick all around the court, and I slid off him

and ran."

They both laughed. Cleland, clutching his pan of ice, said:

"I seem doomed to run into you when I shouldn't. I'm terribly sorry."

She blushed again and carefully swathed her waist in the obi.

"You didn't mean to," she said. "It was rather startling, though."

"It was, indeed. And now we're having another unconventional party.

Shall I leave this ice here and go out and quiet the nag?"

"He'll surely kick you."

"I'll take a chance----" He set the pan of ice on a table, girded up

his dressing-gown, and went out into the court. The horse stood quietly

enough now. But Cleland soon discovered a green-eyed horsefly squatting

on the wall and rubbing its forelegs together in devilish exultation.

"I'll fix you," he muttered, picking up a lump of wet clay and

approaching with infinite caution. He was a good shot; he buried the

bloodthirsty little demon under a spatter of clay. Then he went back

for his ice.

"The deed is done," he said cheerily. "It was a horsefly, as you

said.... Good-bye.... When are we going to have another dance?"

"We'd better not," she said smilingly. She had seated herself on the

sofa and had drawn her pretty, bare feet up under her kimono.

"You won't let me give another party for you?" he inquired.

"I ought not to."

"But _will_ you?"

"I don't know. This kimono party we're having now seems sufficient for

the present; and I think you'd better go."

"Anyway," he said, "when a desire for innocent revelling seizes you, you

know where to go."

"Yes, thank you."

They laughed at each other.

"Good-bye, pretty stranger," he said.

"Good-bye, you nice boy!"

So he went away upstairs with his ice, and she stole out presently and

ventured into the courtyard where the placid white horse stood as calmly

as a cow.

And Stephanie, lying on her bed in her own room, twisted her body in

anguish and, hands clenched, buried her face in her arms.

Helen, returning an hour later, and glancing into Stephanie's bed-room

as she passed, saw the girl lying there.

"I thought you were motoring!" she exclaimed.

"The car is laid up," said Stephanie, in a muffled voice.

"Oh. Don't you feel well, Steve?"

"N-not very."

"Can I do anything? Wait a moment----" She continued on to her

bed-room, unpinned her hat, drew on her working smock, and came slowly

back, buttoning it.

"What's wrong, Steve?" she inquired.

"Nothing," said the girl, drearily. "I'm just--tired."

"Why--you've been crying!" murmured Helen, bending over her. "What is

making you so unhappy, Steve? Don't you wish to tell me?"

"N-no."

"Shall I sit here by you, dear? I can work this afternoon----"

"No.... It's nothing at all--truly it isn't."

"Had you rather be alone?"

"Yes."

Helen went slowly away toward the court where her nag and its rider were

ready for her. Stephanie lay motionless, dumb, wretched, her bosom

throbbing with emotions too powerful for her--yet too vague, too blind,

to enlighten her.

Unawakened to passion, ignorant of it, regardless and disdainful of what

she had never coped with, the mental and spiritual suffering was,

perhaps, the keener.

Humiliation and grief that she was no longer first and alone in

Cleland's heart and mind had grown into a sorrow deeper than she knew,

deeper than she admitted to herself. All the childish and pettier

emotions attended it, mocking her with her own frailty--ignoble

jealousy, hard resentment, the primitive sarcasm born of envy--the white

flash of hatred for those to whom this man turned for amusement--this

man whom she had adored from boyhood.

Why had he cast her out of the first place in his heart and mind? He

had even told her that he was in love with her. Why had he turned to

this shameless dancer?

And to what others did he also turn to find amusement when she did not

know where he was?

Had it been her fault? No. From the very first night that he had come

back to her--in the very face of her happiness to have him again--he had

shown her what kind of man he was--there at the Ball of All the

Gods--with that dreadful Goddess of Night.

She turned feverishly, tortured by her thoughts, but neither they nor

the hot pillow gave her any rest. They stung her like scorpions, setting

every nerve on edge with something--anger, perhaps--something

unendurable there in the silence of her room.

And at last she got up to make an end of it, once and for all. But the

preparations took her some time--some cold water, brush and comb, and a

chamois rag.

Cleland, now dressed for luncheon, humming a comic song under his breath

and contentedly numbering his latest pencilled pages, heard the tap at

his open door, and looked up cheerfully, hoping for Marie Cliff, a

pre-prandial dance, and a pretty companion at luncheon. Tragedy entered,

wearing the mask of Stephanie Quest.

"Hello!" he cried gaily, jumping up and coming toward her. "This is too

delightful. Are you coming out to lunch with me, Steve?"

"Sit down a moment," she said. But he continued to stand; and she came

over and stood beside his desk, resting one hand on it.

And, after a moment, lifting her grey eyes to his:

"I have borne a great deal from you. But there is an insult which you

have offered me to-day that I shall not endure in silence."

"What insult?" he demanded, turning red.

"Making my studio a rendezvous for you and your--mistress!"

He knew what she meant instantly, and his wrath blazed:

"It was an accident. I don't know how you heard of it, but it was pure

accident. Also, that is a rotten thing to say----"

"Is it! You once told me that you prefer to call a spade a spade! Oh,

Jim!--you were _clean_ once. What have you done!"

"But it's a lie--and an absurd one!"

"Do you think that of me, too--that I tell lies?"

"No. But you evidently believe one."

"It is too obvious to doubt----" Her throat was dry with the fierceness

of her emotions and she choked a moment.

"Who told you?"

"I was there."

"Where?"

"In my bed-room. I had not gone out. I heard the maid tell you I was

out motoring. I meant to speak to you--but you have been so--so

unfriendly lately.... And then that woman came in!" ... Her grey eyes

fairly blazed.

"Why do you do this to me?" she cried, clenching both hands. "It is

wicked!--unthinkable! Why do you hold me in such contempt?"

Her fierce anger silenced him, and his silence lashed her until she lost

her head.

"Do you think you can offer me such an affront in my own studio because

I am really not your sister?--because your name is Cleland and mine is

not?--because I was only the wretched, starved, maltreated child of

drunken parents when your father picked me out of the gutter! Is that

why you feel at liberty to affront me under my own roof--show your

contempt for me? _Is_ it?"

"Steve, you are mad!" he said. He had turned very white.

"No," she said, "but I'm at the limit of endurance. I can't stand it any

longer. I shall go to-night to the man I married and live with him and

find a shelter there--find protection and--f-forgetfulness----" Her

voice broke but her eyes were the more brilliant and dangerous for the

flashing tears:

"I know what you and my aunt talked over between you," she said. "You

discussed the chances of my developing erratic, unscrupulous, morbid,

immoral traits! You were anxious for fear I had inherited them. Probably

now you think I have. Think as you please----!" she flashed out through

her tears; "you have killed every bit of happiness in me. Remember it

some day!"

She turned to go, and he sprang forward to detain her, but she twisted

herself out of his arms and reeled back against the desk.

Then he had her in his arms again, and she stared at his white, tense

face, all distorted by her blinding tears:

"I love you, Steve! That's all the answer I give you. That's my reply

to your folly. I never loved anybody else; I never shall; I never can.

I am clean. I don't know how it happens, but I _am_! They lie who tell

you anything else. I'm like my father; I care for only one woman. I'm

incapable of caring for any other.

"I don't know what I've done to you to make you say such things and

think them. I consider you as my own kin; I respect and love you like a

kinsman. But--God help me--I've gone further; I love you as a lover. I

can't tear you out of my heart; I've tried because I saw no hope that

you ever could fall in love with me--but I couldn't do it--I couldn't.

"If you go to the man you married I shall never love any other woman.

That is the truth, and I know it, now!"

Her body was still rigid in his arms; her tense hands lay flat on his

breast as though to repulse him.

But there was no strength in them and they had begun to tremble under

the hard beating of his heart.

Her mouth, too, was quivering; her tear-wet eyes looked mutely into his;

suddenly her body relaxed, yielded; and at his fierce embrace her hot

mouth melted against his.

"Steve," he stammered--"Steve--can you care for me--in my way----?"

Under the deep-fringed lids her grey eyes looked at him vaguely; her

lips were burning.

"Steve----" he whispered.

Her slowly lifted eyes alone responded.

"Can you love me?"

Her eyes closed again. And after a long while her lips responded

delicately to his.

"Is it love, Steve?" he asked, trembling.

"I don't know.... I'm so tired--confused----"

Her arms fell from his neck to his shoulders and she opened her eyes,

listlessly.

"I think it--must be," she said.... "I'm quite sure it is!"

"Love?"

"Yes."

*CHAPTER XXV*

Cleland, tremendously thrilled and excited by the first but faint

response to his ardour which he had ever obtained of Stephanie, but

uncertain, too, and almost incredulous as to its significance and

duration, retained sufficient common sense and self-control to restrain

him from pressing matters further. For Stephanie seemed so listless, so

confused, so apparently unable to comprehend herself and these new and

deep emotions which threatened her, that he forebore to seize what

seemed to be an undue advantage.

They parted very quietly at her studio door; she naively admitting

physical fatigue, headache, and a natural desire to be down in her

darkened room; he to return to his studio, too much upset to work or to

eat, later, when the dinner hour drew near.

However, he took his hat and stick and went down stairs. When he rang

at her studio, Helen admitted him, saying that Stephanie was asleep in

her room and had not desired any dinner. So they chatted for a while,

and then Cleland took his departure and walked slowly up the street

toward the Rochambeau. And the first person he met on University Place

was Marie Cliff.

Perhaps it was the instinct to make amends to her for the unjust

inferences drawn to her discredit a few hours before--perhaps it was the

sheer excitement and suddenly renewed hope of Stephanie that incited

him. Anyway, his gay greeting and unfeigned cordiality stirred the

lonely girl to response, and when they had walked as far as the Beaux

Arts, they were quite in the mood to dine together.

She was grateful to be with an agreeable man whom she liked and whom she

could trust; his buoyant spirits and happy excitement were grateful for

somebody on whom they could be vented.

In that perfumed tumult of music, wine, and dancing they seated

themselves, greeted cordially by Louis, the courtly and incomparable;

and they dined together luxuriously, sometimes rising to dance between

courses, sometimes joining laughingly in a gay chorus sustained by the

orchestra, sometimes, with elbows on the cloth and heads together,

chattering happily of nothing in particular.

Men here and there bowed to her and to him; some women recognized and

greeted them; but they were having much too good and too irresponsible a

time together to join others or to invite approaches.

It was all quite harmless--a few moments' pleasure without other

significance than that the episode had been born of a young man's high

spirits and a young girl's natural relief when her solitude was made gay

for her without reproach.

It was about eleven o'clock; Marie, wishing to be fresh for her posing

in the morning, reminded him with frank regret that she ought to go.

"I wouldn't care," she said, "except that since I've left the Follies I

have to depend on what I earn at Miss Davis's studio. So you don't

mind, do you, Mr. Cleland?"

"No, of course not. It's been fine, hasn't it?"

"Yes. I've had such a good time!--and you are the nicest of men----"

Her voice halted; Cleland, watching her with smiling eyes, saw a sudden

alteration of her pretty features. Then he turned to follow her fixed

gaze.

"Hello," he said, "there's Harry Belter. Are you looking at _him_?"

Her face had grown very sober; she withdrew her gaze with a little shrug

of indifference, now.

"Yes, I was looking at him," she said quietly.

"I didn't know you knew him."

"Didn't you? ... Yes, I used to know him."

He laughed:

"The recollection doesn't appear to be very pleasant."

"No."

"Too bad. I like Belter. He and I were at school together. He's

enormously clever."

She remained silent.

"He really is. And he is an awfully good fellow at heart--a little

pronounced, a trifle tumultuous sometimes, but----"

She said, evenly:

"I know him better than you do, Mr. Cleland."

"Really!"

"Yes.... I married him."

Cleland was thunderstruck.

"I was only seventeen," she said calmly. "I was on the stage at the

time."

"Good Lord!" he murmured, astounded.

"He never spoke of it to you?"

"Never! I never dreamed----"

"_I_ did. I dreamed." She shrugged her shoulders again, lightly.

"But--I awoke very soon. My dream had ended."

"What on earth was the matter?"

"I am afraid you had better ask him," she replied gravely.

"I beg your pardon; I shouldn't have asked that question at all!"

"I didn't mind.... It is my tragedy--still. But let a man interpret it

to men. A woman would not be understood."

"Are you--divorced?"

"No."

Cleland, still deeply astonished, looked across the room at Belter.

That young man, very red, sat listening to Badger Spink's interminable

chatter--pretending to listen; but his disturbed gaze was turned from

time to time on Marie Cliff; and became hideously stony when it shifted

to Cleland at moments without a sign of recognition.

"Shall we go?" asked the girl in a low voice.

They rose. A similar impulse seemed to seize Belter, and he got up

almost blindly and strode across the floor.

Cleland, suddenly confronted at the door of the cloak-room, from which

Marie was just emerging, said:

"Hello, Harry," in a rather embarrassed manner.

"Go to hell," replied the latter in a low voice of concentrated fury,

and turned on his wife.

"Marie," he said unsteadily, "may I speak to you?"

"Certainly, but not now," replied the girl, who had turned white as a

sheet.

Cleland touched the man's arm which was trembling:

"Better not interfere," he said pleasantly. "The disgrace of a row will

be yours, not your wife's."

"What are _you_ doing with my wife!" whispered Belter, his voice shaking

with rage.

"I'll tell you, Harry. I'm showing her all the respect and friendship

and sympathy that there is in me to to show to a charming, sincere young

girl.... You know the sort of man I am. You ought to know your wife but

evidently you don't. Therefore, your question is superfluous."

Belter drew him abruptly back to the foot of the stairs:

"If you're lying I'll kill you," he said. "Do you understand?"

"Yes. And if you make any yellow scene here, Harry, after I've taken

your wife home, I'll come back and settle you. Do _you_ understand? ...

For God's sake," he added coldly, "if you've got any breeding, show it

now!"

The tense silence between them lasted a full minute. Then, very slowly,

Belter turned toward the cloak-room where, just within the door, his

wife stood looking at him.

His sanguine features had lost all their colour in the greyish pallour

that suddenly aged him. He went toward her; she made the slightest

movement of recoil, but faced him calmly.

"I'm sorry," he said in a voice like a whisper. "I am--the fool that

you--think me.... I'll--take myself off."

He bowed to her pleasantly, turned and passed Cleland with his hat still

in his hand:

"I'm sorry, Jim; I know you're all right; and I'm--all wrong ... all

wrong----"

"Come to the studio to-morrow. Will you, Harry?" whispered Cleland.

But Belter shook his head, continuing on his way to the street.

"I'll expect you," added Cleland. "Come about noon!"

The other made no sign that he had heard.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

Stephanie was awake with the sparrows the next morning, and her face

betrayed not a trace of the pallour and fatigue which had made Helen a

little anxious when she came into the studio after her interview with

Cleland.

"I never had such a sleep in my life!" she announced, sauntering into

Helen's room, already bathed and dressed, when at last she heard the

latter's bath running. "I feel about sixteen, Helen."

"You look it, dear. What was the matter with you last night? Jim came

about nine."

"Did he?" said the girl, turning to conceal a smile. "What did you do to

entertain him."

"Talked about you," said Helen, watching her where she stood at the

sunny window, absently pleating the sash curtains between idle fingers.

"Was he edified?"

"He seemed to be. When I changed the subject he went away."

Stephanie, at the window, suddenly laughed outright, but her back

remained turned.

"Men are funny," she said.

"Women are funnier, Steve."

"What! Are _you_ a traitor to your sex?"

"Sometimes," said Helen, absently. "I feel that my sex betrays me--and

a few others of my own mind."

Stephanie turned and looked at her, still laughing:

"Like the Kiltie," she said, "you complain that the rest of the regiment

is marching out of step with you."

"There's only a corporal's guard of us in step to the music," smiled

Helen.... "You're looking radiant, Steve! I've never seen you as

enchanting."

"I feel like enchanting the world--like a sorceress all ready for

business.... This is a wonderful day, Helen."

"What are your engagements?"

"Two lessons this morning.... I don't know whether I'll go. Luncheon

with Oswald at Tinto's. But it's so stuffy there in June, and the summer

garden is so grubby."

"You're not going, then?"

"I don't know. I don't want to hurt his feelings," said the girl,

reluctantly.

Helen sat up, flung off the bed clothes, and swung her superb young body

out of bed.

"My bath's running over. Sit there and talk, Steve----"

But Stephanie turned to the window, her lips still edged with the same

indefinable smile, and gazed at space through the netted squares of

sunshine.

Breakfast was served in the studio presently. Helen joined her in

bathrobe and slippers, knotting the belt around her waist.

"I'm wonderfully hungry," exclaimed Stephanie.

"It's more than you've been for several weeks, Steve."

Again the girl laughed, not meeting Helen's glance.

"What do you think of marriage?" she inquired presently. "I hope you

haven't the very horrid ideas of Harry Belter."

"What are Harry's ideas?"

"He says it's the curse of civilization," said Stephanie, "and the

invention of meddlesome and superstitious imbeciles. He says that the

impulse toward procreation is mechanical and involuntary, and ought to

be considered so without further personal responsibility; and that the

State should nourish and educate whatever children were worth saving to

replenish the waste, and put the others out of the way."

"Harry," remarked Helen, "talks for talking's sake very often."

"He's quite serious. His ideas are revolting. Never have I known a man

who is so savagely an iconoclast as Harry Belter."

Helen smiled.

"Harry is a talker, dear. He doesn't believe a word of it. Harry

Belter is, by nature, a fat, happy, witty, clever and very sentimental

young man who also is so overwhelmingly selfish that anything which

happens to annoy him he considers a cataclysmic catastrophe involving

the entire civilized world in ruin!"

"What!"

"Do you wish to know what really is the matter with Harry Belter? Shall

I tell you what actually has inspired this noisy iconoclast and moral

anarchist with the urge for talking?"

"I'd like to know."

"I'll tell you. Three years ago he married a child of seventeen and

started to mould her to suit himself. The only trouble was that she had

a mind. She knew what she wanted to do and to be. She could not

understand why this was incompatible with being his wife, especially as

he had won her by his loudly reiterated advocation of personal liberty

and the fundamental necessity for the development of individualism."

"How do you know this?"

"She told me."

"When?"

"Three years ago."

"Who is she, Helen?"

Helen answered pleasantly, looking into the curious grey eyes:

"Her name, on the stage, is Marie Cliff. I have known her a long while

and I am very fond of her."

Stephanie, scarlet, winced under her faintly humourous smile.

"They are divorced, then," she managed to say.

"No."

"Why not?"

"She has never given him any cause," said Helen, slowly. "No woman, of

her own knowledge, can truly say one word against her character; nor can

any man. She merely revolted at the tyranny he attempted, in the guise

of affection, of course. She refused to be deprived of the liberty to

think and act as she chose. She rejected the worn-out conventions with

which he attempted to chain her--this apostle of personal freedom. She

cared for her profession--he married her when she was on the stage--and

she resolutely insisted on her liberty to continue it.

"The result was a family smash--her return to the stage. And since then

she has refused to accept a penny from him and has supported herself by

her profession, and, sometimes, by posing for artists.

"And that is the real story of Harry Belter and Marie Cliff. So you can

believe as much as you choose of his views on matrimony."

After a flushed and painful silence, Stephanie said:

"Do you believe this to be true?"

"If one woman can judge and understand another, what I have told you is

true, Steve. Long ago I won the child's confidence. She told me this

quite frankly, and in a manner which makes the truth of it

unmistakable.... We have become great friends, this little dancer and

I. I don't think I ever knew a simpler nature or a more transparently

honest one.... And that is why I was not worried at any little

ephemeral romance that might amuse the child with Jim Cleland.... I was

too certain of them--_both_," she added, looking calmly into the grey

eyes that winced again and fell under her serene gaze.

"I'm a rotten little beast," said Stephanie.

"You're very feminine."

"Oh, Helen, I'm not. I'm a rotter. I didn't know it was in me. I

thought I was above such things----"

"Nobody is, Steve, until they make the effort. High thinking requires

more than a natural generosity and sympathy--more than innate sentiment.

It is an attainment; and there is none without effort. And effort

sometimes hurts."

"I want to speak to that girl when she comes in," said Stephanie. "I

never have; I've never noticed her at all. I shall ask her to tea."

Helen laughed:

"She'll be here pretty soon. Of course you're not supposed to know

about Harry."

"Of course not. But I'll make amends for my incivility. I _was_ a

beast! But--it's confusing--and hard for a girl to understand when a

girl like that is so unconventional with one's--one's----"

"Brother?" suggested Helen drily.

"Yes.... I'm terribly ashamed.... Does Jim know?"

"About Harry Belter? No. I don't think anybody does."

"What a sham that man is!" exclaimed Stephanie hotly.

"No. He's a typical man, dear. Some women yield, some resist; that's

all. And the man never has the slightest idea that he is tyrannizing.

If you tell him that he'll be amazed and furious. He'll point out to

you all the love and affection and solicitude and money he's lavished on

the object of his adoration; he'll portray for you her obstinacy, her

coldness, her shocking ingratitude for benefits received. He really

believes himself a martyr.

"Steve, man's idea is still that to the victor belong the spoils. We

are the spoils of the chase, dear. His conventions were made to contain

us in a sort of game-preserve before capture; cage us after we are made

prisoner. His laws fetter us; a misstep ruins us; irregularities never

impair him. That is the ancient view; that, still, is the secret view

of man; that is his inborn conviction regarding us and himself.... And,

very slowly, we are beginning his education."

"I didn't know you felt that way," said Stephanie.

"I do.... But if I were in love"--she laughed gaily--"I'd be inclined

to take my chances with this monster I have painted for you."

"You _do_ believe in marriage?"

"What else is there, dear? Harry's piffle means nothing except that a

plucky girl has begun his education, and it hurts. I don't know what

else there is to take the place of marriage. It's the parties to the

contract who don't understand its essence."

"What would you suggest?" inquired Stephanie curiously.

"Education. A girl should be brought up to master some trade or

profession. She should support herself by it. She should never go to

her husband empty-handed and unable to support herself.

"If, then, under the mutual marriage contract, her earning capacity be

necessarily checked by child-birth, and by the later and natural demands

of progeny, these alone should temporarily but only in part interrupt

her in the exercise of her trade or profession. And he should pay for

them.

"But she should have a life work to do; and so should he, no matter how

ample their means. Domestic drudgery must be done by others hired for

the purpose, or else by themselves, sharing alike. In no other way that

I see can marriage remain endurable."

After a silence Stephanie said naively:

"I haven't any trade or profession."

"You are a graduate nurse."

"Oh. I forgot. That _is_ comforting!"

"Also you are already married."

The girl looked up in a startled way, as though hearing this information

for the first time. Helen gazed gravely into the troubled grey eyes:

"Do you regret it, Steve?"

"I don't know. I haven't had time to think about it."

"It's high time, isn't it?"

"Y-yes.... I've got to do a--a lot of thinking some day, I suppose."

She gazed absently into space for a few moments; then again the faintest

of smiles curved her lips and she bent her head and remained very still,

deep in reflection.

... "Did you wish to speak to Marie Cliff?" asked Helen, breaking the

prolonged silence.

The girl looked up, dim-eyed, confused:

"Yes."

"I think she just went into the court-yard."

Stephanie's wool-gathering wits returned; she sprang up and walked

swiftly out to the court, where the white horse was just being led in

and the pretty dancer stood unpinning her hat.

She turned when Stephanie entered, and the girl went up to her,

smilingly, and offered her hand.

"Miss Davis will be here in a few moments," she said. "I thought I'd

come and tell you."

"Thank you," said Marie Cliff, curiously.

"Also," said Stephanie, "I wanted to tell you how very lovely you are on

that horse. I had a glimpse of you last week, and you were too

enchanting! No wonder Helen's study is so exquisite."

The little dancer flushed brightly. Her gloved hand still lay

lifelessly in Stephanie's, who had retained it; her childish eyes asked

for the reason of this kindness from a girl who had never noticed her.

Then, reading the unuttered question, Stephanie blushed too:

"I'm not much older than you are," she said, "and I'm not nearly as

sensible. I've been rude enough to ignore you. Could you forgive me

and be friends?"

"Yes," said Marie Cliff.

That was all the explanation offered or asked.

"Will you come to tea at five?"

"I should like to."

"I'd love to have you. And if it doesn't bore you, would you tell me

something about your very beautiful profession? You see, stage dancing

fascinates me, and I'm taking lessons and I've an inclination to become

a professional."

"I'd love to talk about it with you!" said Marie Cliff impulsively.

"I'll tell you everything I know about it.... And I do know a little,

because I have been on the stage since I was a child."

"You're one now," said Stephanie, laughing, "--an adorable one!" And

she bent and kissed the little dancer on the lips.

"I'm glad we're friends," she said. "Don't forget five o'clock."

"N-no," said Marie Cliff unsteadily.

*CHAPTER XXVII*

At five o'clock that afternoon Cleland, working fiercely on his

manuscript toward a climax he had not planned for but which, suddenly

but logically developing, threatened with disaster his leading lady and

the young gentleman playing opposite, heard a step on the threshold of

his open door.

"Hello, Harry!" he said with a friendly but vague wave of his

pencil--for he had not stepped quite clear of the story in which he had

been living among people never born--"I'd rather given you up. Come in

and close the door."

"I couldn't keep away," said Belter hoarsely. He came in and closed the

door. He looked even more grey and haggard than he had the night

before.

"I expected you this morning," said Cleland, stepping clear of his story

now, and looking very soberly at his old school-friend.

"I didn't intend to come at all." He seated himself in the chair

indicated. "But I couldn't keep away."

"You look about all in."

"I didn't sleep."

Cleland got up, walked to the ice-box, knocked off a bit of ice with a

tack-hammer, and leisurely constructed a highball.

"Here you are, Harry. I can't; I'm working. There are cigars by your

elbow, cigarettes, too."

Belter looked vacantly at the iced bracer, then he dropped both elbows

on the edge of the desk and took, his drawn face between his hands.

Cleland began to pace the studio. Presently he halted by Belter's

chair.

"Hell," he said pleasantly, "cut out the tragedy! It's good enough for

my novel, where the poor devils I write about have to do what I make

'em. But you and I are free to do what we choose."

"Yes.... And I've done it.... I've done what I chose. Where has it

landed me, Cleland?"

He looked at the frosty glass, pushed it away from him:

"That was a sorry spectacle I made of myself last night. Can you beat

that for degradation--a man who has made a damnable failure of marriage,

skulking at his wife's heels to snap and snarl at any decent man who is

civil to her?"

"Don't talk so bitterly----"

"I'm indulging in a luxury, Cleland--the luxury of truth, of honesty, of

straight thinking.... I've been bragging about it, celebrating it,

extolling it for years. But I never did any until last night."

"You're rubbing it in pretty hard, Harry. A man is bound to make

mistakes----"

"_I'm_ the mistake! I realize it, now--as Verne realized it. That's

why he did what he did. You don't, if you _are_ right.... I never

supposed I could behave as rottenly as I did last night. But it's been

a long strain.... You heard that rotten outbreak of mine concerning

women--the night we heard what Verne had done? Well, the strain was

showing.... It broke me last night...."

He lifted his head and looked intently at Cleland:

"It was the shock of seeing her in a public place with another man. I

had never seen her with any other man. It's nearly three years, now,

since I made a damned ass of myself, and she very quietly went her way

leaving me to go mine.... And in all that time, Cleland, there has not

been a breath of suspicion against her. She has been in the lighter and

more frivolous shows almost continuously; but she has lived as straight

a life as any woman ever lived.... And I know it.... And I knew

it--cur that I was--when I spoke to her as I did, and turned on you like

a rotter----"

He extended his hand and took hold of the iced glass, but let it rest

there.

"I've lied and lied and lied," he said, "to myself about myself; to

others about my estimate of women.... I'm just a four-flusher, Cleland.

The best of 'em are better than our stars. The remainder average as

well as we do.... Verne got what was coming to him.... And so have I,

Cleland--so have I----"

"Wait a moment----"

"Wait?" Belter laughed mirthlessly. "All right. I know how to wait.

Waiting is the best thing I do. I've waited for nearly three years

before I've told myself the truth. I've told it now, to myself, and to

you.... But it's too late to tell it to her."

"Do you think it is?"

Belter looked up in pallid surprise:

"Of course."

"I wonder," mused Cleland.

Belter's sunken gaze had become remote and fixed again. He said, half

to himself:

"I couldn't let her alone. I couldn't learn to mind my own business.

I'd been bawling aloud my theories for years, Cleland, but I couldn't

apply them to her or to myself. I bragged about my mania for personal

liberty, for tolerance; I lauded the maxim of 'hands off.' But I

couldn't keep my meddling hands off her; I couldn't understand that she

had the right to personal liberty--freedom in the pursuit of happiness.

No; I tried to head her off, check her, stampede her into the common

corral whither all men's wives are supposed to be driven--tried to rope

her and throw her and blindfold, hobble and break her to suit myself....

And, Cleland, do you know what happened? I found I had come upon a

character, a mind, a personality which would not endure the tyranny we

men call domestic affection.... That's what I discovered.... And I did

not do the breaking. No; she has accomplished that. And--here I am, to

admit it to you.... And I think I'll go, now----"

Cleland walked slowly to the door with him, one arm resting on his

shoulder:

"I wish you'd tell her what you've told me, Harry."

"It's too late. She wouldn't care, now."

"Are you very sure?"

"Do you think a man can use a woman the way I have used her, and make

her care a straw about what I say to her now?"

Cleland said in a low voice:

"I can't answer you. I don't understand women; I write about them....

I have troubles of my own, too. So I can't advise you, Harry.... Are

you still in love with her?"

He said in a dead voice:

"I've always been. It's done things to me. I'll die of it, one day.

But that's no argument."

"I don't know. Tell her."

"It's no argument," repeated Belter. "It's purely selfish. That's what

I am--purely selfish. I'm thinking of myself. I'm in love with her....

And she's better off without me."

"All the same, I think I'd take a chance. I think I'd tell her. After

all, you owe her that much--whatever she may choose to do about it."

"She doesn't care, now."

"Still, you owe it to her. You're not a welcher, you know."

They had reached the foot of the stairs. Helen, coming out of the

enclosed court, met them face to face; and they exchanged amiabilities

there outside her studio door.

"Come in and have some tea," she said. "Harry, you look ill. Are you?

Anyway, a cup of tea won't slay you in your tracks----" fitting her key

to the door all the while she was talking--"so come in like two polite

young men----"

The door swung open; they entered.

"Oho!" exclaimed Helen; "Steve must be here because the kettle-lamp is

lighted. We'll have something to nibble presently, I expect. Find a

chair, Harry, and watch that kettle. Jim, show him the cigarettes. I'm

going to take off this blouse and I'll be back with Steve in a

moment----"

She stopped short: Stephanie and Marie Cliff, coming from the

kitchenette, appeared at the further end of the studio, the former

bearing a big bowl of strawberries, the latter a tray of little cakes.

Stephanie greeted the newcomers with an airy wave of her hand; Marie

Cliff promptly lost her colour; but there was nothing to do except to

advance, which she continued doing, moving very close to Stephanie's

elbow.

The situation was going to be as awkward as the people involved made it:

Cleland, secretly aghast, came forward to relieve Stephanie and Marie of

their burdens:

"If there isn't enough food for a party, I'll take Harry and go," he

said gaily. "It isn't done--this grasshopper-like invasion of your

natural resources."

"Piffle," said Helen, "there's plenty."

Harry Belter, who had been standing in the middle of the floor as though

petrified, wrenched himself out of his trance and put his legs in

motion. His face was very red: he greeted Stephanie elaborately but

mutely; he bowed mutely to his wife.

She had managed to recover her self-control: a deep flush invaded her

pallour. Then, under the eyes of them all, very quietly she did a thing

which confirmed the admiration and respect of everybody there: she

extended her child-like hand to her husband, saying:

"It is nice to see you again, and I'm very sure that there is enough tea

for everybody."

Her hand lay in her husband's for an appreciable moment; then he bent

over it, lower, to conceal the nervous working of his features--and

touched it with trembling lips--something he had never before done in

all his life--and passing, by the same token, out of the free and arid

desert of his folly, he rested, _sub jugum_, beside the still waters of

eternal truth.

Helen went on toward her room to shed her clay-stained smock; Stephanie

investigated the kettle which was approaching the boiling point, and

Cleland deposited the provender on a neighbouring table.

"Keep away from them," whispered Stephanie, close beside him--so close

that the fragrance of her hair and breath caressed his cheek.

"You darling," he motioned with his lips.

"Oh, dear! Are we on _such_ a footing!" she asked, with a little

quick-drawn breath of smiling dismay.

"Why not?" he said under his breath. "You're awake, now."

"Am I?"

"Are you not, dearest?"

"I--had a wonderful sleep last night," she said perversely. "I don't

know whether I'm awake or not."

"Oh, Steve!----"

"I don't, I tell you!----" keeping her gaze smilingly averted and very

busy with kettle and tea-caddy.... "Where have you been all day?"

"I came down, but you had fled to your lesson. Then I had a date with

H. Belter, but he didn't appear until nearly five. It was a strenuous

interview."

She lifted her eyes to his, full of interested inquiry.

"Yes," he nodded; "he's found out he's an ass, and he's in love with his

wife. If she can stand for him now, after these three years, I think

he'll make a better husband than the average."

"She's a dear," murmured Stephanie. "What a painful situation!--but

wasn't she dignified and sweet? Oh, I do hope she cares enough for Harry

to give him another chance.... Are they amiable together over there? I

don't want to turn around."

He cautiously surveyed the scene out of a corner of his eye:

"She's seated beside the piano. It's evident she hasn't asked him to be

seated. They are horribly serious. He looks ten years older."

"We must let them alone. Tea is ready, but I sha'n't say so until they

move.... What was it you asked me, Jim?--whether I am awake? ... Do you

know that I believe I'm stirring in my slumbers because--because, now

and then--just for an instant--a stab of contrition goes through and

through me. Do you know why? I have a glimmering of guilty misgiving

concerning this painful throb of conscience----"

She looked about her, searching among the paraphernalia of the tea tray.

"Oh, the deuce! I remember, now, that we're out of lemons! You have

some, haven't you?"

"Yes, I'll run up and----"

"I know where they are in your ice box. I'll find them----"

"What nonsense! Wait!----"

She had started already; but swiftly as her light feet sped he overtook

her on the stairs; gathered her into his arms, all pink and breathing

rapidly:

"Steve--my darling!----"

"I thought you might do this.... I wanted to see----"

"What?"

"Whether it could happen to me again--what I experienced with you----"

There was a silence: her young lips melted against his; lingered; her

arms tightened around his neck. And the next instant she had freed

herself, hot-cheeked, disconcerted.

"Oh, it, was--quite true----" she stammered, resting against the

banisters with one hand pressed tightly over her heart. "My curiosity

is satisfied.... _Please!_--Jim, dear--we ought to behave

rationally--oughtn't we?"

But she did not resist when he framed her face between his hands; and

she suffered his lips again, and again her slight response and the grey

eyes vaguely regarding him shook his self-control.

"Will you try to love me, Steve?"

"I seem to be doing it."

"Is it really love, Steve? Do you truly care for me?"

"Oh, dear, yes!" she said, with a quick-drawn breath which ended in a

quiet sigh, scarcely audible. Then a faintly humorous smile dawned in

her eyes: "You're changing, Jim. You always were very wonderful to me,

but you also _were_ mortal. Now, you're changing; you are putting on a

glorious, iridescent immortality before my eyes. I'm quite

bewildered--quite dazzled--and my mind isn't very clear--especially when

you kiss me----"

"Are you making fun of me?"

"No, I'm not. That's the way with the gods when they start a love

affair with a mortal girl. Sometimes she runs, but they always catch

her or turn her into a tree or a waterfall or something they can acquire

and fence in, and visit like a plot in a cemetery. And if she doesn't

run away, then she just falls into a silly trance with her Olympian

lover, and somebody comes along and raises the dickens with them

both.... And now I'd like to know what's going to happen to me?"

"You're going to try to fall in love with me first."

"Oh. And then?"

"Marry me."

"Oh. And what will old lady Civilization say? I told you somebody

would raise the dickens!"

"Who cares?"

"I suppose I wouldn't care if I loved you enough."

"Will you try?"

"Oh, dear." ... She freed herself gracefully, stepped back a stair

lower, and leaned on the rail, considering.

"Oh, dear," she repeated under her breath. "What a tangle! ... I don't

know why I've let myself--care for you--in your way. I ought to stop

it. Could you stand it?" she added naively. And the reply in his eyes

scared her.

"Oh, this is serious!" she murmured. "We've gotten on much further than

I realized.... I remember, when you began to make love to me, I thought

it very sweet and boyish of you--to fall in love with your own sister.

But I've begun to make love to you, now.... And I ought not to."

"Because you are married?" he asked under his breath.

"Oh, yes. It won't do for me to make advances to you."

"When have you made any advances?"

"I came out here. I wanted you to--kiss me. Oh, this isn't going to do

at all. I can see that, now!----" She framed her face in her hands and

shook her head. "Jim--dearest, dearest of men--it won't do. I didn't

realize that I was caring for you in this way. Why," she added, her

grey eyes widening, "it is almost dangerous!"

"The thing to do," he said, reddening, "is to tell Oswald."

"I can't tell him!"

"You've got to, if you fall in love with me."

"Oh, Jim, it would be too heartless! You don't know----"

"No, I don't!" he exclaimed impatiently, "and I think it's time I did!

You can't be in love with two men at the same time."

She blushed furiously:

"I--he never even touched my fingers with his lips! And you--you take me

into your arms with no more hesitation than if I were a child.... I

believe I've behaved like one with you. I'm old enough to be ashamed,

and I'm beginning to be."

"Is it because you're married?"

"Yes, it is! I can't let myself go. I can't let myself care for--for

what you do--to me. I came out here to give you the chance--ready to

learn something--desiring to. I mustn't take any more lessons--from

you."

He said:

"I am going to tell Oswald that I care for you, Steve."

To his astonishment, tears flashed in the grey eyes:

"If you do," she said, "it will be like killing something that makes no

resistance. It--it's too cruel--like murder. I--I couldn't bring

myself----"

"Why? Did you marry him out of pity?"

She bit her lip and stood staring into vacancy, one hand tightening on

the stair-rail, the other worrying her lips.

"I tell you," she said slowly, her gaze still remote, "the only thing to

do is to do nothing.... Because I'm afraid.... I couldn't bear it.

I'd have to think of it all my life and I--I simply couldn't endure

it.... You mustn't ask me any more."

"Very well," he said coldly. "And I think we'd better go back to the

studio----"

As he passed her he paused, waiting for her to precede him. She turned;

her hand fell from the banisters and hung beside her; but the slender

fingers groped for his, slipped among them, tightened, drawing him

partly toward her; and her left foot moved forward a trifle, blocking

his way and bringing them closely confronted.

"I--love you," she faltered. "And I don't know what to do about it."

Crushed into his embrace she did not seem to know any the more what she

was going to do about it. Her flushed cheek lay hot against his; her

hands moved restlessly on his shoulders; she tried to think--strove to

consider, to see what it was that lay before her--what she had to do

about this matter of falling in love. But her fast beating heart told

her nothing; a listless happiness invaded her; mind and body yielded to

the lethargy; thought was an effort, and the burden lay with this

wonderful being who held her in his arms--who, once mortal--had assumed

the magic of immortality--this youthful god who was once a man--her

lover.

"It's got to come right somehow, my darling," he whispered.

"Yes--somehow."

"You'll explain it some day--so that I shall understand how to make it

come right."

She did not answer, but her cheek pressed closer against his.

When they entered the studio Helen, seated by the tea table, rose with a

gesture of warning:

"That child is in my room and Harry is with her. They were standing

together over there by the piano when I came out of my room. I saw at

once that she was on the verge of something--she tried to look at

me--tried to speak; and Harry didn't even make the effort. So I said,

quite casually, 'It _is_ frightfully close in the studio, Marie. But

you'll find it cool in my room. Better lie down in there for a moment.'

... They're in there. I don't know what I hope, exactly. She is such a

dear.... Where on earth have you two been?"

"On the stairs," said Stephanie. "We started to get something--what was

it, Jim? Oh, yes; there's no lemon here----"

"Did you get any?"

"No; we just conversed." She picked up a cake, nibbled it, selected a

strawberry and nibbled that, too.

The tea wasn't fresh, but she sipped it, sitting there very silent and

preoccupied with now and then a slow side-glance at her lover, who was

attempting to make the conversation general.

Helen responded lightly, gaily, maintaining her part in a new and

ominous situation which had now become perfectly recognizable to her.

For these two people on either side of her had perfectly betrayed

themselves--this silent, flushed girl, still deep under the spell of the

master magic of the world--this too talkative, too plausible, too

absent-minded young man who ate whatever was handed to him, evidently

unaware that he was eating anything, and whose eyes continually reverted

to the girl.

The smile on Helen's lips was a little fixed, perhaps, but it was

generous and sweet and untroubled. A man sat at her elbow whom she

could care for, if she let herself go. A girl sat on the other side who

was another man's wife, and who was already in love with this man. But

the deep anxiety in Helen's heart was not visible in her smile.

"What about that very tragic pair in my room?" she asked at last.

"Shall we clear out and give them the whole place to settle it in? It's

getting worse than a problem play----"

She looked up; Oswald Grismer stood on the threshold of the open door.

"Come in!" she said gaily. "I'll give you tea in a few minutes."

Grismer came forward, saluted her with easy grace, greeted Stephanie

with that amiable ceremony which discloses closer intimacy, turned to

Cleland with that wistful cordiality which never seemed entirely

confident.

"Oswald," said Helen, "there's a problem play being staged in my

bed-room."

"Marie Cliff and Harry Belter," explained Stephanie in a low voice.

Grismer was visibly astonished.

"That's amusing," he said pleasantly.

"Isn't it?" said Helen. "I don't know whether I'm pleased. She's such

a little brick! And Harry has lived as he pleased.... Oh, Lord! Men

_are_ queer. People sneer at a problem play, but everybody ever born is

cast for some typical problem-play part. And sooner or later, well or

badly, they play it."

"Critics talk rot; why expect more of the public?" inquired Grismer.

"And isn't it funny what a row they make about sex? After all, that's

what the world is composed of, two sexes, with a landscape or marine

background. What else is there to write about, Cleland?"

The latter laughed:

"It merely remains a matter of good taste. You sculptors have more

latitude than painters; painters more than we writers. Pathology should

be used sparingly in fiction--all sciences, in fact. Like a clove of

garlic applied to a salad bowl, a touch of science is sufficient to

flavour art; more than that makes it reek. Better cut out the art

altogether if the science fascinates you, and be the author of 'works'

instead of mere books."

Stephanie, watching Cleland while he was speaking, nodded:

"Yes," she said, "one could write fiction about a hospital nurse, but

not about nursing. It wouldn't have any value."

Grismer said:

"We're really very limited in the world. We have land and water, sun

and moon and stars, two sexes, love and hate to deal with. Everything

else is merely a modification of these elemental fixtures.... It

becomes tiresome, sometimes."

"Oswald! Don't talk like a silly pessimist," said Stephanie sharply.

He laughed in his easy, attractive way and sat gently swinging one long

leg, which was crossed over the other.

He said:

"There is in every living and articulated thing a nerve which, if

destroyed, destroys for its possessor a certain area of interest in

life. People become pessimists to that extent.

"But, where all the nerves converge to form the vital ganglion, a stroke

there means extermination."

"Apropos of what is this dissertation wished upon us?" asked Stephanie

with an uneasy smile.

"Did you ever see a paralyzed spider, Stephanie?--alive, breathing,

destined to live for weeks, perhaps, and anyway until the wasp's egg

under it hatches and becomes a larva to devour it?

"Well, the old wasp required fresh meat for its young, so, with her

sting, she annihilated the nerve controlling motion, laid her egg,

certain that her progeny would find perfectly fresh food when born. But

if she had thrust that sting of hers a little higher--at the juncture of

skull and thorax--death would have taken that spider like a stroke of

lightning."

He laughed:

"So I say it's better to get the stroke of Fate in the neck than to get

it in any particular area and live for a while a paralyzed victim for

some creature ultimately to eat alive."

There was a silence. Helen broke it with pleasant decision:

"This is _not_ an appetizing conversation. If anybody wishes any the

tea is ready."

There was enough daylight left in the studio so the lamps remained

unlighted.

"Do you suppose we ought to go out somewhere?" asked Stephanie, "and

leave the place to those two poor things in there? You know they may be

too unhappy or too embarrassed to come out and run the gauntlet."

But Stephanie was wrong; for, as she ended, Belter appeared at the end

of the studio in the fading light. His young wife came slowly forward

beside him. The strain, the tension, the effort, all were visible, but

the girl held herself erect and the man fairly so.

There was tea for them--no easier way to mitigate their ordeal.

Conversation became carelessly general; strawberries and little cakes

were tasted; a cigarette or two lighted.

Then, after a while there chanced to fall a silence; and the young wife

knew that the moment belonged to her.

"I think," she said in a distinct but still little voice, "that we ought

to go home. If you are ready, Harry----"

*CHAPTER XXVIII*

By the end of the first week in June Cleland was in a highly excited

state of mind in regard to his infant novel, in which all the principals

were now on the edge of catastrophe.

"I don't know how they got there," he said nervously to Badger Spink,

who had dropped in to suggest himself as illustrator in case any

magazine took the story for serial publication.

Spink's clever, saturnine features remained noncommittal. If Cleland

turned out to be a coming man, he wished to participate and benefit; if

he proved a failure he desired to remain pleasantly aloof.

For the only thing in the world that interested Badger Spink was his own

success in life; and he had a horror of contaminating it by any

professional association with mediocrity or failure.

"What's your story about?" he inquired with that bluntness that usually

passed for the disinterested frankness of good comradeship.

"Oh, it's about a writer of stories," said Cleland, vaguely.

"He's the hero?"

"If you'd call him that. What is a hero, Spink? I never saw one in real

life."

Spink squinted. It was his way of grinning.

"Well, a literary hero," he said, "is one who puts it over big on his

first novel. The country goes crazy about his book, the girls go crazy

over _him_, publishers go panting after him waving wads; editors flag

him with fluttering cheques. That's one sort of hero, Cleland. But

he's a myth. The real thing is a Charlie Chaplin. All the same, you'd

better let your hero make a hit with his novel. If you don't, good

night!"

Cleland's features became troubled:

"I suppose _his_ book ought to make a hit to make _my_ book popular," he

said. "But as a matter of fact it doesn't. I'm afraid the character

I've drawn is no hero. He's like us all, Spink; he writes a book;

friends flatter; critics slam; the public buys a number of copies, and

it's all over in a few weeks. A punk hero--what?"

"Very. He won't get over with the young person," said Spink. "In these

days of the movie and the tango nobody becomes very much excited over

novels anyway; and if you don't startle the country with your hero's

first novel--make it the sort that publishers advertise as 'compelling'

and 'a new force in literature'--well, you'll get the hook, I'm afraid.

Listen to me: work in the 'urge'; make it plain that there's not a trace

of 'sex' in your hero's book or in yours--or any 'problem' either.

Cheeriness does it! That intellectual eunuch, the 'Plain Peepul,' is

squatting astride of the winged broncho. His range reaches from the

Western plains to the New England kitchen. The odours of the hired man

and of domestic dishwater are his favourite perfume; his heroines smirk

when Fate jumps upon them with hobnailed boots; his heroes are shaven as

blue as any metropolitan waiter and they all are bursting out of their

blue flannel shirts with muscular development and abdominal prosperity.

That's the sort, Cleland, if you want to make money!" He shrugged his

shoulders. "But of course if you don't, well, then, go on and transmute

leaden truth with your imagination into the truer metal wrought by art.

If there's a story in it, people will excuse the technical excellence;

if there isn't, they won't read it. And there you are."

They remained silent for a while, and Spink regarded him shrewdly from

moment to moment out of his bright, bold eyes. And he came pretty close

to the conclusion that he was wasting time.

"Did you ever make any success with your stuff!" he inquired abruptly.

Cleland shook his head.

"Never heard anything from anything you've done?"

"Once," said Cleland, "a woman wrote me from a hospital that she had

read a novel I published in England, when I was living in France....

She said it had made her forget pain.... It's pleasant to get a letter

like that."

"Very," said Spink drily, "unless she meant your book was an anodyne."

He laughed his abrupt, harsh laugh and took himself off.

Belter, who haunted the studio now toward noon, so that he could take

his wife to luncheon, roared with laughter when Cleland mentioned

Spink's visit.

"When there's any rumour of a new man and a new book, Spink's always

certain to appear out of a cloudless sky, like a buzzard investigating

smoke for possible pickings. If you make good, he'll stick to you like

a burdock burr. If you don't, he's too busy to bother you. So he's

been around, has he?"

"Yes."

"Watch him, Cleland. Spink is the harbinger of prosperity. He

associates himself only with the famous and successful. He is clever,

immensely industrious, many sided, diversely talented. He can write,

rehearse and stage a play for the Ten Cent Club; he can draw acceptably

in any medium; he can write sparkling stuff; his executive ability is

enormous, his energy indefatigable. But--that's the man, Cleland.

You'll have him at your elbow if you become famous; you'll see only the

back of his bushy head if you fail."

Cleland smiled as he ran over the pile of pencilled pages on the desk

before him, pausing here and there to cross out, interline, punctuate.

"When Oswald Grismer was rich and promised so well as a sculptor," said

Belter, "Spink appeared as usual out of a clear sky, alighted, folded

his wings, and hopped gravely beside Grismer until the poor devil came

his cropper.

"Now, he's always going somewhere in a hurry when he encounters Grismer,

but his 'How are you! Glad to see you!' en passant, is even more

cordially effusive than before. For Badger Spink never wittingly makes

an enemy, either."

"Poor Spink. He misses a lot," commented Cleland, renumbering some

loose pages. "Tell me, Harry, how are things going with you?"

Belter said, naively:

"When a man's quite crazy about his wife, everything else goes well."

Cleland laughed:

"That sounds convincing. What a little brick she is! I suppose you're

lunching with her."

"Rather!" He looked at his watch. "God knows," he added, "I don't want

to bore her, but it would take a machine gun to drive me away.... I

tell you, Cleland, three years of what I went through leave scars that

never entirely heal.... I don't yet quite see how she could forgive

me."

"Has she?"

"I'm trying to understand that she has. I _know_ she has, because she

says so. But it's hard to comprehend.... She's a very, very wonderful

woman, Cleland."

"I can see that."

"And whatever she wishes, _I_ wish. Whatever she desires to do is

absolutely all right because she desires it. But, do you know, Cleland,

she's sweet enough to ask my opinion? Think of it!--think of her asking

my opinion!--willing to consider my wishes after what I've done to her!

I tell you no man can study faithfully enough, minutely enough, the

character of the girl he loves. I've had my lesson--a terrible one. I

told you once that it was killing me--would end me some day. It would

have if she had not held out her hand to me.... It was the finest,

noblest thing any woman has ever done."

All fat men are prone to nervous emotion; Belter got up briskly, but his

features were working, and he merely waved his hand in adieu and

galloped off down stairs to be in time to join his wife when she emerged

from her seance with the white circus horse in Helen's outer workshop.

Cleland, still lingering with fluttering solicitude over his manuscript,

heard a step on the stair and Stephanie's fresh young voice in gay

derision:

"You're like a fussy old hen, Jim! Let that chick alone and take me

somewhere to lunch! I've had a strenuous lesson and I'm starved----"

She dodged his demonstration, eluding him with swift grace, and put the

desk between them.

"No! _No_! I chanced, just now, to witness the meeting of the Belters,

and that glimpse of conjugal respectability has stiffened my moral

backbone.... Besides, I'm deeply worried about you, Jim."

"About me?"

"Certainly. It fills me with anxiety that you should so far degrade

yourself as to attempt to kiss a respectable married woman----"

She dodged again, just in time, but he vaulted over the desk and she

found herself imprisoned in his arms.

"I'll submit if you don't rumple me," she said. "I've such a darling

gown on--be very circumspect, Jim----"

She lifted her face and met his lips, retained them with a little sigh,

placing her gloved hands behind his head. They became very still, very

serious; her grey eyes grew vague under his deep gaze which caressed

them; her arms drew his head closer to her face. Then, very slowly,

their lips parted, and she laid her hand on his shoulder and drew his

arm around her waist.

In silence they paced the studio for a while, slowly, and in leisurely

step with each other deeply preoccupied.

"Steve," he said, "it's the first week in June. The city will be

intolerable in a fortnight. Don't you think that we ought to open

Runner's Rest?"

"You are going up there with Oswald, aren't you?" she asked, raising her

eyes.

"Yes, in a day or two. Don't you think we'd better try to get some

servants and open the house for the summer?"

She considered the matter:

"You know I've never been there since you went abroad, Jim. I believe

we would find it delightful. Don't you?"

"I do, indeed."

"But--is it going to be all right--just you and I alone there? ... You

know even when we considered each other as brother and sister there was

a serious question about our living together unless an older woman were

installed"--she laughed--"to keep us in order. It was silly, then,

but--I don't know whether it's superfluous now."

"Would Helen come?"

"Like a shot! Of _course_ that's the solution. We can have parties,

too.... I wonder what is going to happen to us."

"What!"

"To you and me, Jim.... It's becoming such a custom--your arm around me

this way; and that secret and deliciously uneasy thrill I feel when I

come to you alone--and all my increasing load of guilt----"

"There's only one end to it, Steve."

"Jim, I _can't_ tell him. I'm _afraid_! ... Something happened once....

I was scarcely eighteen----" She suddenly clung to him, pressing her

face convulsively against his shoulder. He could feel the shiver

passing over her.

"Tell me," he said.

"Not now.... There doesn't seem to be any way of letting you

understand.... I was not yet eighteen. I never dreamed of--of

love--between you and me.... And Oswald fascinated me. He does now. He

always will. There is something about him that draws me, influences me,

stirs me deeply--deeply----"

She turned, looked at him, flung one arm around his neck:

"Will you let me tell you this and still understand? It's a--a different

kind of affection.... But it's deep, powerful--there are bonds that

hold me--that I can't break--dare not.... Always he was attractive to

me--a strange, sensitive, unhappy boy.... And then--something

happened."

"Will you tell me what?"

"Oh, Jim, it involves a question of honour.... I can't betray

confidence.... Let me tell you something. Did you know that Oswald,

ever since you and he were boys together, cared more for your good

opinion than for anything else in the world?"

"That's strange."

"_He_ is strange. He has told me that, as a boy, one of the things that

most deeply hurt him was that he was never invited to your house. And I

can see that the fact that dad never took any notice of his father

mortified him bitterly."

"What has this to do with you and me, Steve?"

"A great deal, unhappily. The seeds of tragedy lay in the boy's soul of

Oswald Grismer--a tender sensitiveness almost girlish, which he

concealed by assertiveness and an apparent callous disregard of opinion;

a pride so deep that in the shock of injury it became morbid.... But,

Jim, deep in that unhappy boy's soul lay also nobler qualities--blind

loyalty, the generosity that costs something--the tenderness that

renounces.... Oh, I know--I know. I was only a girl and I didn't

understand. I was fascinated by the golden, graceful youth of

him--thrilled by the deeper glimpse of that mystery which attracts all

women--the veiled unhappiness of a man's secret soul.... That drew me;

the man, revealed, held me.... I have told you that I never dreamed

there was any question about you. I was obsessed, wrapped up in this

man so admired, so talented, so utterly misunderstood by all the world

excepting me. It almost intoxicated me to know that I alone knew

him--that I alone was qualified to understand, sympathize, advise,

encourage, rebuke this strange, inexplicable golden figure about whom

and whose rising talent the world of art was gossiping and guessing all

around me."

After a long silence he said:

"Is that all you have to tell me?"

"Nearly all.... His father died.... My aunt died. These facts seem

unrelated. But they were not.... And then--then--Oswald lost his

money.... Everything.... And I--married him.... There was more than I

have told you.... I think I may tell this--I had better tell you,

perhaps.... Did you ever know that my aunt employed lawyers to

investigate the matter concerning the money belonging to Chiltern

Grismer's sister, who was my mother's mother?"

"No."

"She did. I have seen Mr. Grismer at the hospital once or twice. He

came to see my aunt in regard to the investigation.... The last time he

came, my aunt was ill, threatened with pneumonia. I saw him passing

through the grounds. He looked frightfully haggard and ill. He came

out of the infirmary where my aunt was, in about an hour, and walked

slowly down the gravel path as though he were in a daze.... He died

shortly afterward.... And then my aunt died.... And Oswald lost his

money.... And I--married him."

"Is that all you can tell me?"

After a silence she looked up, her lip quivering:

"All except this." And she put her arms around his neck and dropped her

head on his breast.

*CHAPTER XXIX*

In reply to a letter of hers, Cleland wrote to Stephanie the middle of

June from Runner's Rest in the Berkshires: