JAMES HUNEKER (continued 4)

V

Mentally refreshed after her monologue and physically buoyant because of a dreamless night Mona ate a hearty breakfast. No lilies and languour for her in the golden morning hours. She read a newspaper. Her appetite for the realities we call "life" was fresh; in the evening she couldn't bear the sight of printed news. The post brought her two letters. One told her that her subscription to a musical publication had expired; a glance at the superscription of the other sent her scurrying upstairs to her Ebony Tower, as she fantastically named her study. It was from him, the father of her dream-children, the one man in the world for her. As if dazzled by an unexpected flash of lightning she saw the truth; she loved Ulick Invern. She must make him her husband,—or?... She read his letter. It began thus:

"Grane and Shamus stood near the big tree in the cool park listening to the song of the leaves. This tree had been nice to them, no branches had harshly croaked: 'Go away. I hate little boys and girls.' This tree they heard saying nice things about them to the cross, crooked crab-apple tree next to it.... They loved the singing trees. They loved to be under the 'few large stars', their faces buffeted by sudden little winds from the lazy white clouds in the sky. They were not keeping faith with their mamma. They had promised to be home before dusk and yet they lingered in the twilight park as if they were birds that perched and slept in the hollow night. Their mother longed for them and sent Nursie to fetch them home. But the voices of the leaves held them captive; they overheard the strange secrets and sorrows of the trees. 'O, if only we could run about like those queer human children! Moving plants. If only our branches, which are our arms, could become free and fly through the air instead of cowardly waving to the prompting of every vagrant breeze. Alas! we are rooted in the soil. What crime did our arboreal ancestors commit that we must so suffer and atone for it? In what faraway forest is buried the sinister evidence of the trees fall from grace?' Shamus nudged Grane. 'Do you hear what the trees are telling us?' 'Of course I do, Shamus,' pertly answered Grane, 'but I don't understand them any more than you do.' 'Grane, I'm afraid, let's go back to the house.' 'Cry-baby' retorted his sister, 'I'm not a bit afraid.' They lingered on. The trees still babbled. Then the clear voice of Nursie reached their ears. 'Grane! Shamus! Your mamma wants you to come in right away. Papa is asking for you.' Hand in hand they traversed the field; it didn't seem so big now. They saw a sickle of silver fire floating over the tree tops. It was the new moon. Elated, they both wished that their mamma would reveal the secret of the trees. She gently smiled at their insistent questioning. 'The trees,' she explained, 'were naughty once upon a time in the long-ago. They disobeyed their parents and left their cabin in the woods. Soon they were lost and begged to be shown the way back in the black darkness. Alarmed by their lamentings, the moon appeared and pointed the path of light to their house. They promised never to leave their roots any more.' She looked at Grane and Shamus, and at their papa. He bowed his head. He, too, had wandered in the dark forest and had been lost like the little trees. Then the mama took her darlings to her bosom and over their tiny golden heads she smiled—a smile of tender pity and forgiveness."

Her eyes swimming with unshed tears Mona threw herself on the bed her burning cheeks buried in a pillow. This whimsical letter profoundly moved her. Every fibre of longing, of sweet desires, of craving motherhood tugged at her heart, knocked at the door of her soul and unbidden entered and took possession.... Milt would have told her that seven evil ones possessed her; but she knew better. She was, at last, a woman, with a woman's complex passion, and also a woman's stern purpose. Every monad has its day, she sobbed, but remained dry-eyed. I mean to have mine. Now or never.... It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Mona passed her mother in the doorway. "Where in the world are you off to so late, Mona? It's surely going to rain and you haven't your unbrella. Dear, dear, what a forgetful girl you are." "I'm only going across the park, mamma, and if it threatens, I'll run home," she explained; but her mother shook her head. "You will get wet, and then it will be too late to return." Mona went her way but said naught of her secret errand.

VI

Ulick was reading Le Jardin de Bérénice in his music-room. He had not enjoyed his luncheon, and fearing sleep, for he detested afternoon naps, he took refuge in the pages of the subtle Barrès. It was beginning to darken, though it couldn't have been more than four o'clock, but rain had set in and he was about to turn on the lights when he heard taps on his glass door; this tapping was immediately followed by the entrance of Mona, veiled, and mysterious. He couldn't refrain from frowning, and then he hoped she hadn't noticed his dissatisfaction. She went to him and kissed him. Ulick, surprised, kept his head. "You darling Mona, and I had never expected to see you again." And with that he grasped her and the lovers embraced. Mona made no pretence of coyness. She hugged Ulick as if for the last time. Tears rolled down her cheeks. He was greatly touched, also alarmed by her fervour. But he asked no explanation of her conduct in running away from him; she vouchsafed none. They were happy to be together. What the use of words! He finally begged of her, seeing that she was pale from emotion, to remove her hat and wraps, and he made her sit on the couch close to him. After a pause, she said:

"Ulick, our children, our dream-children, they are born at last, and they are loved by their parents, are they not?" He smiled, though he felt uncomfortable at this putting of the horses behind the cart; in fact, his conscience was beginning to toll warning bells. He had solemnly promised Milt, had he not, and in this very room, that he would respect his sister! And here she was, that adorable sister, in his arms, only a few days after the interview with her brother. Ulick resolved on stern conduct. He gently drew away from Mona and looked at her as steadily as his beating arteries would permit him. She sat up and asked: "Ulick, you have something on your mind. What is it, dearie?" He winced. The same depressing word that Dora always used. He loathed it. It was so commonplace; worse, it had such a "professional" ring. Hearing it now gave him a mental excuse for reaction. He rose, pressed a button, and the apartment became cruelly illuminated. Mona blinked, shaded her eyes with her veil. She didn't like such a glare, she told him, She was irritated. Her current had been turned off that electric current of the sexes. Ulick sat down before his study table. He was already bored; she recognized the symptoms. He drummed with his fingers, his glance went over her head. Evidently he wished her away. She regretted the generous élan that had propelled her into his arms. But she didn't stir from the couch. Another pause, long, distressing to both. Ulick yawned. This was the culminating insult. Her pride pricked, she sat rigid as a candle and regarded the man she loved, the man who fathered her dream-children. Then, "Ulick," she whispered, "Ulick, my love, come to me. Don't let silly reasons keep us apart any longer. Ulick, I say, come at once to your mamma, your little mamma. Oh! Ulick don't forget Grane and Shamus." She stamped her foot. She was growing excited, and Ulick wished himself a thousand miles away. He knew where this would lead. He didn't trust his nerves, which always played him false with women. He knew that his promises to Milt were as naught if this enchanting girl opened her arms. And now she was opening those seductive arms. He felt lost. He didn't think of the future, of marriage; the vivid moment overwhelmed him, swept him down to disaster, a disaster that would be shared—Oh! how bitterly shared—by this imprudent girl. Imprudent? Better say, crazy girl.

He paced the floor. He made up his mind to vanish altogether rather than fall into the burning pit. Milt's phrases came to his memory. Suddenly he resolved on a plan of action. He turned to her. "Mona," he said, "it's getting late. It's raining. Hadn't we better be going?" She didn't budge. He felt ashamed at the crudity of his speech. He had ardently longed for this meeting, and now he was acting like a cowardly eunuch. Mona grasped his hand as he irresolutely stood before her. "Ulick, don't let us waste our happiness. Jewel, love, I'm here. I came to you. I am the suitor. Take me, Jewel, take me. Tomorrow it may be too late." The rising storm was ominously hysterical. She was become uncontrollable. She tried to drag him down to her. He resisted her tumultuous onset blushing like a virgin. Obstinately she tugged at his arm, sitting all the while. For an instant "nymphomaniac" flashed across his consciousness. He dragged his arm from her grasp.

"The open door, the open door to freedom, Jewel," she gasped, and arising she seized him with such passion that he was panic-stricken. He ran into his bedroom bolting the door. Mona, now quite beside herself reached the switchboard and the room was darkened. She went to the closed door and began beating upon its panels with her fists.

"The open door, Ulick, the open door!" she cried and her voice had the accents of a delirious woman. "Oh, please, for God's sake open the door, Jewel——" "It's surely maternal nymphomania," he muttered on the other side of the door. "What shall I do? If she keeps on shrieking she will alarm the house—perhaps the police—horrible!—an ambulance—the police-station—the scandal—her parents—Milt—my God! what shall I do?——" The pounding redoubled. She moaned.

"Make me a woman, Jewel, make me a woman! Open the door, make me a woman!" Perspiration almost blinded him. Make her a woman!... She was the stronger ... as strong as death....

The door slowly opened. Mona fell into his arms, still sobbing: "Make me a woman, Jewel, make me a woman"....

Mona on reaching her home didn't go into the dining-room; instead she rang for her maid and bade her bring tea and toast to the studio; she had a headache, and please let her mother and father know that she wouldn't come down to dinner. Then she went to her mirror and carefully searched as if she were seeking something. Her features were not discomposed, her expression as usual; perhaps she was a trifle paler than her wont, otherwise—rien! Yes, her eyes seemed as if they had been well-washed, as if a beneficent rain had carried away all the signs of discontent, rebellion, unhappiness. Mona tried to imagine herself supremely happy. She wasn't. Then impatiently snapping her fingers she looked at her doll on the bed: "It's frightfully over-advertised, Dolly, that's what love is." Dolly only stared, sphinx-wise.

VII

One evening Ulick leaned over Dora's balcony. He had called unannounced, and found her in anything but an amiable mood. "It's you, is it?" was her reception. He had not been very attentive of late, and Dora, despite her kittenish airs, was strictly business in her methods. With her, one nail replaced another. The devil take the hindmost. If you haven't any money, you needn't come around. Time is money. What are you here for? When you're dead, you're dead a long time. She was fond of repeating this chaplet of pearly wisdom as she faced her favourite work of art, framed and hung on the alcove of her bedchamber: "Rock of Ages cleft for me" was the legend this lovely picture bore. Dora, who wasn't particularly imaginative, saw herself as the attudinizing female who so closely clung to the cross in a typhoon that would have sunk a fleet, but didn't disturb her chaste draperies. She impressed Dora. A vague notion nestled in the recesses of her conscience that she wasn't precisely leading a noble life, and that the necessary rock of ages for her was a comfortable bank account.

He was not disturbed by her cool phrase. It wasn't a novelty. He stared at the town and thought that when the softer and richer symphony of the night arrives, when the jarring of one's ego by the innumerable racking noises has ceased, when the city is preparing to forget the toilsome day, then the magic of New York begins to operate; its missing soul peeps forth in the nocturnal transfiguration. However, not on Broadway, with its thousand lights and lies, not in opera-houses, theatres, or cafés, but from some perch of vantage must the nocturnal scene with all its mysterious melancholy beauty be studied. He saw a cluster of blazing lights across at the West Side Circle, a ladder of fire the pivot. Further down theatre-land dazzled with its tongues of flame. Literally, a pit, white-hot. Across in the cool shadows of the east are level lines of twinkling points. The bridges. There is always the sense of waters not afar. The hotels are tier upon tier starry with illumination. The Avenues, long shafts of bluish-white electric globed fire. The monoliths burn as if to a fire-god their votive offerings. In the moonlight mansions on Fifth Avenue seemed snow-driven. The Synagogue opposite the park, half byzantine, half moresque, might have been mistaken for an Asiatic mosque as it lay sleeping in the moon-rays. The park, as if liquified, flowed in plastic rhythms, a lake of velvety foliage, a mezzotint dividing the east from the west. Sudden furnace bonfires leap up from the Brooklyn side; they are purely commercial; Ulick looked for Whistler's rockets. Battery Place and the Bay are operatic, the stage for a thrilling fairy spectacle. The dim, scattered plain of granite house-tops are like a petrified cemetery of immemorial Titans. At night, he mused, the city loses its New World aspect. It reveals the patina of Time. It is a city exotic, semi-barbaric, the fantasy of an oriental sorcerer who had been mad enough to evoke from unplumbed and forgotten seas the long lost Atlantis....

The buzzing of the annunciator, a man's voice aroused Ulick from his reverie. He hopped into the room where he found Paul. The greeting of the pair was cordial; there wasn't the slightest feeling of jealousy between them, and this was something Dora detested. Competition is the life of cocottes, she declared early and often. In her feline fashion she had tried to arouse the jealousy of Paul and Ulick, but vainly. Ulick was touchy when Easter's name was in the mouth of Paul, and he knew that if Paul ever dared to speak of Mona disrespectfully, he would smash him. But jealousy over Dora? Pas pour trois sous!

Dora was a safe port in emotional storms. When all fruit fails welcome haws, runs the adage. Ulick had been on the jagged edge of ennui ever since the visit of Mona. He hadn't the courage to look into his soul, black with a viler sin. To distract himself, like the man who drinks to forget, he had gone up to Dora's overlooking the fact that it was, for all he knew, Paul's "evening at home." Still, no bones were broken and he shook Paul's hand and said bienvenu! Dora glowered. She talked to herself. She went into the kitchen and raised her voice to the new cook. She noisily rattled dishes, pushed the furniture and behaved like a woman misunderstood. She, too, had her grievances. These fellows of hers weren't behaving on the square. Now, what did Ulick Invern mean by coming up when he knew he would run into Paul! Did he do it on purpose, just to annoy her? She whimpered in the pantry as she took down the decanter of whisky and put the glasses on a tray; whatever else might be criticised in her conduct no one ever would accuse her of inhospitality. This consoling idea struck her and to drive it home more securely in her self-esteem she helped herself to a generous drink. It was not the first "hooker" she had drunk that day; in fact, she was admirably intoxicated when Ulick arrived, and she knew that he noticed it. It was her standing grievance against him that he couldn't be persuaded to drink or smoke. It seemed to put him on a pedestal above her and she hated pedestals. Now there was Paul—always half-stewed.... She fetched in the liquor.

They played cards, that is, Dora and Paul wrangled over some game, Ulick interesting himself in a newspaper; there wasn't a book in the apartment fit to open. Dora's dissatisfaction grew apace. Slapping the cards down she called to Ulick: "You're the nice one I don't think. You don't drink or smoke, you can't even play poker. What are you good for anyhow?" Bored, Ulick went into the hall after his hat and stick. The hints of Dora were not cryptic. He felt that three is company, two none, and he determined to leave them to their desperate ennui à deux. But he had counted without Paul.

"Where are you off to, old top?" Paul asked. "Wait a bit and I'm with you." Dora revolted. "You make me tired, both of you. First Ulick, then you, Paul, and you're going to see the girls, I swear to that." "No," politely contradicted Paul, "no girls when we can have your company Dodo." "That's why you slip away and leave me to spend the evening alone within four walls. Well, that's where you'll get left. I'm going to ring for a taxi and I'll go across to Edie's. She always has company." She was again on the verge of tears. Paul's next speech precipitated the explosion, though from an unexpected quarter. Turning to Ulick he had banteringly remarked:

"Jewel, I'm off to Europe Saturday. I'm going to Paris on the fastest boat I can get, the 'Deutschland'. I hope to see Easter in Paris. Shall I give her your love?" He meant it innocently, but his manner proved the red rag to the bull. Ulick became pale, surest sign that he was angered. He didn't answer at once, then, as he stood in the doorway, he said in his chilliest voice: "I never discuss ladies with such men as you and particularly in such surroundings." This rude speech sent Paul up into the air; he, too, had been drinking far more than was good for him. He went over to Ulick and said: "What's the matter with you? Can't I mention Easter's name without you rearing on your hind legs? Perhaps I should have asked for Mona's permission"—He got no further. Ulick's reach was long, his attack swift—he hadn't studied for naught boxing with his father's old fencing-master, an Irishman, in Paris. He landed his "left" full on Paul's chest and Paul reached the floor amid a huge clatter of displaced chairs, the table, its glasses and decanter. He lay there, not so much stunned, as reflective. Decidedly he was not in the same class with this heroic Franco-American. Dora came to the rescue with screams of rage. Aroused by the scrimmage a coloured girl stood staring from the kitchen, the whites of her eyes like cream, thunder-curdled. She proved the lightning-rod that drew off the accumulated electricity of Dora, who was fearful that the row had been overheard in the eminently respectable house. She flew at the unfortunate cook.

"Get to hell out of here!" she shouted, then turned on her guests. Ulick, shamefaced, stammered an excuse as he helped Paul to his feet. This proved the acme of Dora's unhappiness. "As for you two, you clear out. I've no use for you. Always hanging around with your nasty messing ways. Clear out, both of you, or I'll call the police. Ruining my reputation with your scrapping. I won't have it here, I tell you. My lease says no fighting is allowed on the premises, and what have you fellows been doing? Get away. I won't hear any excuses. And fighting about two ladies"—she sarcastically lowered her voice at the mention of ladies—"Nice ladies they must be. Sly sluts, that's what they are. Don't tell me. Little Dora knows your fine society dames, your artistic ladies—whores the whole lot of them." With that she bundled her "gentlemen friends" out of the apartment. "Good-bye, Dodo," cried Paul. "I'll drop in to say a last good-bye before Saturday." But the door slammed for an answer and presently they were on the lift and soon in the street. Paul, his good temper reasserting itself passed his arm through the abashed Ulick's, and casually exclaimed: "I say, old man, you have a punch! Let's walk down to the Utopian. The fresh air will do me good. But am I thirsty!" The young men slowly moved down the Avenue arm in arm, apparently the best of friends.... Late that night Dora was brought home by two "lady-friends" in a shockingly intoxicated condition.

VIII

... Time fugued. Being no longer under the obligation of visiting Dora since the shindy he had made in her home, Ulick became truly intimate with Mona. They lived like sensible married people. They walked in the park. They went to the theatre, to concerts and the opera. They met every afternoon. At least three times a week Mona took luncheon at the Maison Felicé. She was not noticed there any more than the other ladies who came with their lovers. She would then go afterward to Ulick's rooms where he played Chopin for her, read to her, made love to her; passionate love. She had revised that first hasty judgment and now found the life sensual an entrancing experience. She had confessed to him her disappointments, and for answer he read aloud Stendhal's Lamiel that extraordinary unfinished fiction, with Lamiel's similar adventure. "Is that all?" asks this disconcerting heroine, after she had bribed with silver a stout peasant lad to induct her into the mystery of sex. This episode revolted Mona, who saw in love, but one object—children. Ulick realized now it was maternity suppressed that had sent her to him knocking at his closed door. Love with her was not only a sensation, but also a sentiment. She was not a sentimental girl. She loved Ulick, but she loved children more. "The sacred wound of maternity" was a phrase that appealed to her; it was thus she had heard called the semi-mysterious function of the lunar sex; that sex upon which the moon had impressed its rhythms. Mona, under the skin, was a matter-of-fact woman for whom Mother Nature could do no wrong. She loved children, and in default of them she delighted in the poetic fiction of dream-children. Ulick had only to pronounce the names of Grane and Shamus to see her face swept as if by joyful news. Temperamentally she was elected to happy motherhood. This idea caused him much disquietude.

With intense interest he read of Easter's début at Munich. She had sung Isolde with immense success. The cables were choked with stories of her brilliant singing, dramatic acting. The three Brunnhildes followed, and a few weeks later a royal command came from Baireuth; Queen Cosima graciously permitted the American girl to be a "guest" for a week. Again—Isolde, Brunnhilde, and most startling of all—Kundry. She would be the first American to sing in Parsifal at Baireuth. After that, offers from Paris, Berlin, London, and no doubt, from New York. But the Metropolitan House management was impenetrable. Easter had changed her name to Istar.... Istar the daughter of sin! chuckled Alfred Stone....

THE SIXTH GATE

At the sixth gate, the warden stripped her; he took the rings from her feet, the rings from her hands....

I

Ulick earnestly pondered the character of Mona. Their long conversations about the world, the flesh, and the devil revealed, as in a mirror, her soul. She was essentially a pure girl, because she saw no evil in life. Nature was her sole standard. A pantheist in petticoats. She was as severe in her strictures upon prudish women as her mother was in her judgments upon the contemporaneous girl. Ulick called it an inverted dogmatism. But, then, he reflected, scratch any woman and you come on a squaw; only the squaw is truer to type than the modern woman. He noted, too, the gradual encroachment upon his time, his spirit, of Mona. Her tenacity alarmed him. She said nothing about marriage; that side of the question never obtruded. Mona was a free-thinker à outrance; a law unto herself. She seemed to be without the prejudices of her sex. She didn't interest herself in the woman-question, which she believed was purely an individual one. Let each woman agitate for herself. Let her revolt be within four walls. Let every tub stand on its own bottom. The most refractory male is always forced to lower his standard before the conquering arms of woman. Rabelais—or is it Balzac?—calls it by its true name: the glue-pot of love. Walt Whitman goes him one better. Nevertheless, Ulick detected signs of the tyrannical female in her perpetual hovering about him. Even of the most tender, flower-like women one might say: This is the shrew Shakespeare drew. Every woman is a potential shrew, he decided, and Ophelia would have been no exception if she had married Hamlet. All men are born to be henpecked. Celibates, whether priests or laymen, are not exempted from this primal curse. If it isn't a female relative then it's a housekeeper, a cook or a laundress. Down-trodden women are to blame for their supine attitude. Let them fly the flag of revolt. The men will soon surrender.

Finally, one spring afternoon in the park, they settled these burning problems of humanity and were strolling by the swan-boats when they were hailed by Dora, who, to the critical eye of Ulick, had never been prettier. She accosted the couple quite unabashed.

"Hello, Jewel!" she cried, as she smiled at Mona, who returned the smile, and thought that Ulick might have kept his pet name for her benefit. Ulick was embarrassed only a moment. He expected to see fur fly and when nothing happened he introduced the girls in formal fashion. Mlle. Dora, Mlle. Mona. Et voilà tout! As a foreigner their introduction revolted his taste. Some hazy idea born of the notion that here in America the social lines were not so rigidly marked, had forced him into a false position. He looked around him. He was fearful that acquaintances might see the absurd group: the harlot and the mistress. What to do now! Mona saved the situation by her aplomb. She chatted with Dora, who, as soon as she was put on a level with the other woman, began to exhibit signs of discomfort. Her native insouciance had prompted her to hold up Ulick merely to annoy Mona. This manoeuvre failing she had to fall back into her own rank, which she did, precipitately.

"Well, I must be goin'," she said. "Pleased to have met you Miss—Mademoiselle—I forget. Jewel's French names give me a grouch—Miss Mona." She made a little curtsey. "Ulick, I live in the same apartment. I'm a regular homebody. So run up, whenever you have a night free—that is if your sweetheart will let you. You don't mind me, Jewel and me are such old friends." She flitted away. Mona had smiled sweetly. Ulick was wrathful. It was Dora's method of revenge because of his prolonged absence; he hadn't seen her since the night of his tiff with Paul. He hastened to apologize for the contretemps. Mona didn't mind, so she told him. She only registered her feelings in an ironical aside: "Charming friend of yours, Miss Dora." Then they talked of other things.

Living as husband and wife, they pooled their intimacies and discussed life as if they spent it in domestic seclusion. They almost did. Only at dinner time did Mona go home. She had said nothing of Ulick to her parents, nor had she asked Ulick to call. That puzzled him. Certainly she was not ashamed of him. She paraded herself everywhere with him. They often met Alfred, who now took their friendship as a matter of course. He teased them, asking if the day had been announced, but he seldom visited the Maison Felicé. He told Ulick that he had finer fish to fry, and taunted him with being a sentimentalist.

"Not that Mona isn't a superior girl. She is wonderful. But you are more wonderful. You, of all men, to fall in so speedily. I'm afraid, Jewel, you will make a sorry husband. You should have remained in Paris. And what will our dear old Easter, the celebrated Wagner singer, Istar, say when she hears that her young man has deserted her?" At Easter's name Ulick's brow wrinkled. His only answer was "Qui sait?"

... One afternoon in early summer Mona visited Ulick. He was looking from his window at a flock of pigeons on the roof of the dining-room. As soon as Mona entered he noted her blithe June air, but the expression of her eyes evoked autumnal cemeteries. "What's up, little mamma?" he asked as he embraced her. She buried her head in his breast. "I'm out of breath, Jewel," she panted. "I think mother followed me today. She has been spying on me most curiously for the past month. I wonder if she suspects?" "She wouldn't be a woman if she didn't. You give her lots of reasons to suspect—" he added, and at once regretted having spoken. Mona withdrew her arms and going to the couch sat down and incontinently burst into tears. In a moment Ulick was consoling her. She enjoyed a copious weeping, and drying her eyes she took him into her confidence.

No, there couldn't be the slightest doubt.... Three months had passed. Nothing! Perhaps her mother had been keeping tabs. Prudent mothers do, and if her darling old mumsey was innocent of the world's ways, she possessed the common-sense of the average woman, more sense, in fact, than her dear father, always dreaming over chess or metaphysical problems. Although for months he had been expecting just such news Ulick couldn't repress a long whistle; then he gave her a bear-hug. She nestled, closed her eyes with a sigh of profound contentment. He studied her face. There were violet bruises under her eyes, and her features had become measurably meagre. Her high cheek-bones showed more saliently. Her plump body felt softer to his touch. Good God! She was enceinte, and there sat the pair of them without a sense of guilt, shame, or worriment over the future. Modern? Disgusting! Gently releasing her he began to pace the floor. She watched him. She was perfectly content. There is no tomorrow for such love. The pain in store for her, the world's censure, the shock to her poor parents, the outraged pride that would be Milt's—none of these things mattered now. She would in due time become a mother. She was in the family-way—homely, eloquent phrase, for some girls the abomination of desolation, whether married or single; for Mona a clear title to happiness. Oh! the joys of motherhood. A live lump of flesh in her bosom. Her flesh and Jewel's! What matters a ring, a bit of parchment, a ceremony? Nature, generous, glorious Nature, had performed this miracle in her behalf. She had in the recesses of her being created life. Illegitimate? There are no such monsters. All babies are legitimate and bastards are sometime more beautiful. In the fulness of her heart, from which the mouth speaketh, she uttered all these ideas to her lover, and he smiled, too; was he not above vulgar prejudice! Marry her? Of course, in the twinkling of an eye, when she wished. She was too proud, too happy to mention the odious word. Wait till baby was born; that was the only thing that mattered. What could count in comparison with that magnificent fact—a healthy boy baby! Mona fairly snuggled in Ulick's arms. Her eyes were wet with maternal ecstacy. No nymphomania in this darling woman, thought Ulick.

Nevertheless, he began to take the affair more tragically. Suppose her parents would cast her off! Suppose that Milt would avenge her dishonour! Suppose that she died in accouchement! Suppose—she stayed his mouth and called him a croaking raven. Suppose anything, for that matter. Milt didn't count. He wouldn't be home at the time—she computed on her fingers—and as to her parents, she hadn't made up her mind on any plan of action. She knew that she couldn't or wouldn't, come out flatly now with the truth. That way would be disaster. How could she go away and write those dear little unworldly people? That would be cowardice. No, whatever course she would adopt, she must remain near her father and mother. She must shock them, also console them. Refusal of their forgiveness she did not anticipate. Only—only, one obstacle loomed ahead—their treatment of her Jewel, of the father of her beloved unborn child. Supposing she gave birth to twins! Grane and Shamus! What a paradise life would be! At once she saw herself playing with her babies in her Ebony Tower, converted into a nursery, a super-nursery for their super-babies, she playfully told him. He couldn't view the case so disinterestedly.

"Yes, but darling girl, the chief bother to me is what will your parents say—or do—to me? I'll only be a commonplace seducer in their eyes. Old-fashioned people can't shed their prejudices as snakes shed their skins. I fear a big row. Naturally, we must get married—at once; Mona, immediately!" He said this but his words lacked steam and sincerity to the acute ear of the girl. She felt assured that he saw no other girl save her, yet she knew young men, knew Ulick, knew that his hell of good intentions was often paved with fickle promises. Let matters take their natural course without undue meddling. After baby was born it would be time enough to discuss matrimony. That she was challenging by her unusual conduct worldly judgments she knew. Never cross a bridge till you reach one. Oh! her baby, her baby boy, her Shamus—maybe her Grane, her little white Wagnerian pony. She laughed.

He resumed his futile rambling round the room. An idea, a disagreeable idea, was crystallizing. Why not? Other women have undergone the peril. After several shaky beginnings, he finally compromised with his conscience by whispering in her ear. She blushed. Then repulsing him she exclaimed, No! And he had never expected such decision from a girl of her easy-drifting nature. "And you born a Roman Catholic!" she sorrowfully concluded. Ruefully he acquiesced. There was no way out. Abortion is the resort of assassins. What else? Matrimony would solve the question. Then Mona could possess her soul in peace. She could have her baby, to be sure, a few months ahead of time, but she could look her world in the eye. There was further palaver, nothing decided upon. She embraced Jewel and went home in a taxi, because, as she told herself, she must not take any chances. Already she felt life within her; her breakfasts she got rid of in a summary fashion, as she was too nauseated to swallow them. Tea she could manage. Eggs—ugh! The symptoms were classic, her case normal. But never would she consent to destroy sentient life. No such via dolorosa was in store for her.

A few weeks later just as Ulick was leaving to "cover" the first night of "The Lady With the Lace Legs" at the Empire, he was intercepted by Madame Felicé, whose kindly face wore a worried expression: "Monsieur Invern, you are demanded on the telephone. Il y en a quelque chose de grave pour vous. I hope your young lady, cette charmante fille, Mlle. Mona, is not so ill as they say. Mais dépêchez-vous, cher Monsieur! On vous attend." Ulick took up the receiver. A woman's voice asked in quavering accents: "Is this Mr. Invern?" "Yes." "This is Mrs. Milton, Mona's mother. You know where we live, yes? Please come up at once. Mona is ill—very ill—she may not last through the night. You know what's the matter. Oh! Do come! She asks for you whenever the pains allow her. Don't fear coming, Mr. Invern. Her father understands. Only—hurry—for God's sake hurry!" At his side the Madame had clearly heard every word. But what mattered that? She was hugely tolerant. She wasn't a gossip. And now she was most sympathetic. While he rang up his newspaper she sent out for a taxi. He soon finished with his night editor. He felt ill. Couldn't the city department get someone to cover the operetta? Besides, he was only obliging his confrère, the music-critic who had a poker party on at his house. Music was not in Ulick's bailiwick. The affair was soon settled. Fifteen minutes later he was ringing at the Milton's.

II

A maid opened the door. Her face was drawn, and she enveloped the half-frantic young man in a hostile gaze. He felt like a guilty scoundrel. Evidently he was in for a hard night, but he didn't trouble about himself. His unique sorrow was Mona. He walked up and down the semi-darkened drawing-room. A premature birth. Without doubt. It could be nothing else, unless—unless an accident had supervened. Perhaps his darling had been run down by some selfish brute of a motorist—Mona was so imprudent—he was become well-nigh frantic when Mrs. Milton entered. He thought her positively angelic when she came to him and took his hand in hers. "Don't worry too much, Mr. Invern. Mona is better since she knows you are here. No, no! I shan't listen to any accusations.... We understand, and to understand is to forgive. Mr. Milton thinks as I do. How did it happen! Mona was nearly killed by an auto this morning. She crossed the avenue dreaming of her future happiness. Yes, the sweet child has told us all. Don't be shocked. Girls have different moral codes today and parents must try to sympathize with them; if they do not, then they can't be of use to their daughters—and that would be terrible. The wheels missed her but she received a glancing blow on the shoulder and arm. She fell, and heavily, but she didn't faint. The gentleman in the car drove her home. He was very much concerned, although I am sure he was not to blame. The doctor said the blow was superficial. He bandaged her shoulder, and put her arm in a sling"—Ulick buried his face in his hands and groaned:

"Poor, suffering Mona!" Her mother touched his arm reassuringly. "All went well till late this afternoon. Mona began to suffer atrociously. Pains in her abdomen. They were so horrible that I summoned the doctor again. She didn't mind him, she was suffering so: He hinted at the shock and asked to examine her, fearing, no doubt, peritonitis. And that's precisely what it is ... as soon as he saw her poor swollen figure.... Of course, he knew at once ... and that brave girl never flinched. Her first question was the safety of the ... of her child ... when he told her the truth. Tears rolled down her cheek ... that, and no thought of disgrace troubled her ... she bites the pillow-case when the pains return, she won't scream ... such a brave girl.... She holds as tight as her strength allows that big doll of hers.... Oh, Mr. Invern, don't cry. Be brave. You must see her ... she doesn't speak of anyone but you—she says you are her dear husband—as you are in the sight of God—No, Mr. Milton takes the thing philosophically. He entertains no harsh thoughts concerning you. Young people! Ah! Mr. Invern, this is a sad meeting. My son Milt has spoken so often of you, and so beautifully—why didn't Mona tell us of her love for you? We should have been happy to receive you—but now—the future is a blank. She fell asleep when she learned that you were here. Her father is with her, and the doctor—he would give us no definite promise—septicaemia he fears, and that awful peritonitis ... wait, I'll go see if you may come." Like a genteel apparition she stole away, leaving Ulick in a doleful mood. Where his philosophy now? Where his calm attitude of a spectator on the sidewalk of life? Vanished all his shallow theories. Confronted by invincible facts his sensual day-dreams shrivelled into nothingness. Only Mona—only that she be spared, he prayed, and prayed for the first time since his boyhood. "O Jesus, sauve-moi! Sans toi je périra!" A scrap of a supplication he had heard his mother utter many times in her tribulations: Mrs. Milton was beckoning from the door. He followed her, treading as lightly as he could. He was chilled with fear.

She lay under a counterpane that was as white as her face. The room was empty, the father and medical man elsewhere. She slept. A large French doll was clasped in her arms. Her heavy hair had been braided and rolled off her forehead. Her features were discomposed, her eyelids discoloured. Shocked by the change he saw in her, Ulick knelt at the bedside. Mrs. Milton remained without. Mona's breathing was irregular. She looked ten years older. He hated the grotesque doll with the staring eyes of porcelain. It took up so much space in her bed—in her affection. Her eyes opened.

"Little boy," she tenderly murmured, and stroked his head. He choked his sobs. "Don't worry, poor little boy, we still have our dream-babies." Her face contracted with sudden pain. It was ash-gray, death-like, this sweet face. She held his hand so tightly that it hurt him. She bit the sheet. A low moaning sound issued from her lips, foam-speckled. No longer able to endure the sight of her suffering he called her mother. Mona made a sign, and he got away, he hardly knew how, hurtling into the two men as he went through the corridor. The doctor paid no attention. Mr. Milton, an old man with a head too large for his body, and with white hair like a grizzled mop, looked keenly at him, and then as if he were solving some intricate chess-problem he paused, ruminated, and finally made up his mind. He conducted the young man who had wrought such havoc in his household to the library, gently pushed him into a chair, offered him whisky and cigars. Ulick shook a negative. He was too much moved to utter a word. If he had opened his mouth it would have been to sob. Apologies, explanations, offers of reparation—all such silly phraseology were forgotten in the rush of repentance. It was the first time that he had come to grips with naked truth, and it hurt like a knife in his entrails. He could only sit with eyes half closed and wait—wait. Facing him was her father, who smoked a pipe. Neither one spoke. The hours slowly went by, every tick of the clock torture-breeding. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow!

It was dawn when the groaning of the girl forced itself into his ears, though all doors were closed. The crisis approached. Hurried footsteps were heard and the brittle sound of china. The odors of vinegar, ether and of fumigating pastilles penetrated his nostrils. A solitary scream punctuated the air. Silence followed, profound, enigmatic. Mr. Milton tip-toed to the door and listened. The orders of the doctor had been definite; no one save Mrs. Milton was to be near the sufferer. When Ulick, at last no longer able to sit still, approached the door, the father raised his eyebrows. Not yet! At six o'clock Mrs. Milton appeared. She looked worn and her features were pinched, but she suggested hope. Trembling, Ulick took her hand. She squeezed his. Her husband had left the room.

"The crisis is passed, the doctor tells me. There remains the danger of blood-poisoning. She is weaker than her precious doll. She was delirious for a time and raved over her dream-children. She always loved babies. Poor Mona, what a disappointment her's?" He rubbed his eyes. Was he in a trance! Such people! Such a father and mother! Not a reproach. He might have been the husband of Mona. Truly they were more than Christian in their charity, in their comprehension; they were angelic—there was no other word to describe them as they really were. He asked if he might see Mona once more. She refused. "Come tonight about nine o'clock. She will surely see you then. I'll tell her you stayed near her all night. Go home, and do try to sleep. Don't worry. Everything, please providence, will come out right." Tears fell as he hurried through the morning streets.

Mona slept, though fitfully, her doll beside her. At intervals she opened her eyes murmuring. "Frustrate, frustrate!" Her mother thought that she was again raving....

III

The green and gold of summer modulated into a gorgeous autumnal symphony of faint-coloured flowers; scarlet, yellow and russet browns. October with its tonic and out-door joys was at hand. The tree-tops beckoned to the white clouds, lazily floating aloft. Ulick longed for the hills of New Hampshire, for the Franconian landscape with its sweep of horizon. One black spot in his memory had not been effaced. In review he saw the fanatics headed by the chief of the Holy Yowlers, saw Roarin' Nell and Brother Rainbow, saw, Oh! memorable moment, for the first time the glorious woman called Easter, Esther Brandès, now Istar, the famous Isolde and Brunnhilde. Would he ever see her again? Did he really long for her presence, or was it pure fancy, rather, unmitigated curiosity? Over his tea and toast this morning he couldn't reason the idea to a logical conclusion. He knew that he was fickle. But, then, that was in the past. There was only one girl now—Dora being a light-of-love—and that was Mona. She was adorable—Mona, and her parents hardly less adorable. Since that tremendous night he felt that his love for her had been tested as in a fiery furnace; and through that fiery furnace had passed Mona, little the worse for the experience; yet, as he admitted to himself, somehow changed. She was subdued, her eyes unquiet, her vivacity of speech dampened. The wound in her consciousness had left a deep scar. She could not forget. She would never forget.

He sighed as he thought of the change, yet he was reconciled to their altered relationship. Three times a week he dined at the Milton's. There was no doubt about the cordiality of the old people; they liked him and showed their liking. He was virtually the future son-in-law, and if, at times, he shuddered if he thought of marriage, the sober joy of Mona when he was with them proved a prop to buttress up his irresolution. Milt had written him a friendly letter in which transpired brotherly pride. It was a certain thing. Ulick accepted the situation. Fatalistic by temperament as well as training, he told himself it might better be Mona than any other girl. She was charming. But she was changed. She spoke no longer of her doll, of their dream-children, and once, when he had invited her to luncheon at the Maison Félicé, offering to play Chopin for her afterwards, she had refused. "I have promised," was her explanation. "You play for me at home, even if our upright isn't so splendid as your Steinway grand, we enjoy you just the same." And when he had mockingly called her a naughty little coward, she responded: "If you don't ask me the reason, perhaps that would be the best way to make me tell everything." He desisted, though he yearned for her. He was not a man to resist his amorous inclinations. Dora was off his visiting list. Mona, then, was his sole refuge. She saw that he was suffering, but she had given her word to her mother that she would never visit Ulick alone. Once only and in company with Mrs. Milton she had taken luncheon at the Maison, but when he asked them to go to his music-room she hastily refused. See that room again she could not. She feared her nerves would play her tricks. For the rest, she had been away several months, in the mountains, at the seashore. Her languour had not been dissipated; "tædium vitæ," the doctor named it. She needed, he said, an ocean trip, a complete change of scene. But she preferred not to leave Ulick.

He glanced through the news columns this bright October morning. Suddenly a headline and a name caught his eye. Istar! The elopement of the celebrated opera singer Istar with a prince of the blood royal! A half column cable despatch, evidently elaborated in the newspaper office. It described in exaggerated terms the elopement of Easter with a Bavarian princeling from Munich. She had been singing there as "guest" and the musical prince had lost his head, though married to a dowdy princess, and the father of an increasing family. The pair had run away in the night but all the machinery of policedom had been set whirring. En route for Lake Como they were tracked to Vienna and there arrested. A diplomatic arrest, be it understood. The "avenging wife" figured in the dénouement; she was said to have wielded a whip, but Istar grabbed it from her flaccid grasp and gave the unhappy woman a genuine horse-whipping. But doubtless this incident was manufactured out of the whole cloth. The wretched princeling was nipped and in company with a delegation of solemn functionaries, was sent back to Munich, where he was solemnly spanked and put to bed—metaphorically. The affair made a terrific scandal. Istar was warned by the secret police that she would be expelled if she ever crossed the Bavarian border. What amused Ulick was her reported attitude when she was intercepted. She swaggered to the prince and shaking his chilly, frightened hand, she insolently hummed a familiar tune: "Du bist verrückt mein Kind. Du muss nach Berlin...." The pompous entourage couldn't stand that and there were discreet smiles and much wagging of official skulls. Decidedly, Easter came out with flying colours....

Ulick laid down the paper. Easter was surely on the road to victory. Duels, elopements, scandals, royal favours, Good Heavens! how that girl is going straight to her goal. She is an arriviste, but all women are arrivistes. Never mind so you win! When he thought of some women and compared his own slow mode of reacting to circumstances he realised that his incompetence was encyclopaedic. He admired Easter more than ever, admired her at a distance of three thousand miles. All said and done she was more to his taste than Mona. He was worldly. He was artistic. He liked the éclat of operatic triumphs. Istar had arrived. Lilli Lehmann, retired; Ternina retired—who was there, except Olive Fremstad to take their place! Fremstad would prove a serious rival to Easter. No doubt about that. But she had visited New York before Easter, and that would give the girl a free field.

There was Mary Garden, who had been startling Paris from its musical apathy with her marvellous Mélisande. And the young Geraldine Farrar—she was cutting an artistic swath in Berlin. Yet none was so brilliant, he thought, so promising, as his beloved Easter. Beloved? The word was the father to his wish. Easter had never appeared to him in such alluring shapes. Beautiful girl, great singer—and then her sex suddenly swam before him and he literally saw crimson. His enforced chastity was telling adversely on his sanguine temperament. Be virtuous and you'll be bilious! He sourly quoted to himself. If this thing keeps on I'll be forced to ring up Dora.... He hurriedly dressed and went to his club.

IV

A red touring-car, latest model, stopped before Madame Ash's house. A tall woman alighted and rang the bell. Eloise answered and could only gasp: "Miss Easter! Madame will be so surprised." Easter grasped the faithful girl's hand and shook it in man-like fashion. Her democratic ways were not the least of her endearing qualities. A pupil was singing, but Easter strode in and heartily kissing her teacher she exclaimed: "You darling, how glad I'm to see you!" Madame Ash, who couldn't be startled by an earthquake, was nevertheless, surprised. "You, Easter! And what are you going to do in New York?"

"I'm going to raise hell!" she crisply announced. Madame nodded approvingly. "You will, no doubt about that, and no doubt as to your nationality—you're Yankee all right." She dismissed her pupil and ordered tea in the drawing-room. Such visitors did not come every day. She found Easter handsomer, more self-possessed, also more imperious in her manner. The girl had become woman. Her beauty positively dazzled. It was her health that contributed to this initial impression. Madame Ash interrogated her as to her lessons. With the accustomed forgetfulness of youthful prima-donnas Easter waved away the subject: nor would she sing. "Wait! You will soon have a chance to judge in public." Then she exploded her bombshell. "I open the season at the Metropolitan. Think of it dear Madame Frida, I'll sing Isolde to Jean's Tristan." That was another surprise. And not a line in the newspapers. Why hadn't Alfred told her? "Because he doesn't know," answered Easter. "Not a soul knows. I dodged the reporters this morning. Paul—Mr. Godard—you remember him!—What a friend he has been to me—that scrape at Munich, I mean—He took me down to Italy and I'm glad it was Paul and not that little fiddling Prince Ludwig—well, Frida, I've seen some life—I must be going. Tell Alfred to come to the Waldorf. I'm there for a day or two. And tell him the contract was made by cable. It's the fault of the management if he wasn't informed. It will be in the papers tomorrow morning. Go to the window and look at my new car—nice present, isn't it! It came to the dock to meet us." She stopped for breath.

"So Mister Paul came across with you, did he?"

"The regulation trio," laughed Easter. "A maid, a poodle, a lover. The inevitable...." Madame saw her get into the car, and fancied she also saw a man. Waving her hand Easter disappeared. "Ça y est!" said Madame. The lesson was resumed. Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do!

When Easter rushed into his music-room, followed by Madame Felicé, the legs of Ulick trembled. It was more than a surprise, it was a shock in the nature of hallucination. He took her in his arms and tenderly kissed her, ejaculating: "Easter, Easter, it can't be you! It's a dream!" She, too, was affected; she returned his kisses, and with more fervour. "Good old Jewel. I've come back to you, haven't I Madame?" But Madame had vanished, no doubt wondering over the versatility of young Americans. She had not forgotten Mona. But she was fond of Easter, and admired her, particularly after her newspaper notoriety.

The chums had a thousand things to say. Ulick did not disguise his affection. He hugged her till she broke away, advising prudence. "The same crazy Jewel," she said, as she tidied her hair. He was disappointed. Were they never to begin again? he asked. "Surely," she answered, and mischievously added: "If we ever really began." Another scene ensued. He pursued her from the bedroom to the bathroom, and back again into the music-room. There she stopped and seizing him by the wrists with the grip of a giantess—he carried black and blue marks for a week—she bade him stop his nonsense. Some other day! Besides, she hadn't come to see him for such things. "Why," she blurted out with her accustomed brutal frankness, "why I believe you are overtrained, Jewel. Have you been saving up for me during these years?" Ulick was confused. "A little bird wrote me that there were two girls while I was away, quoi donc, mon cher!" (Damn Alfred! thought Ulick.) "But I must be going. Doesn't Alfred dine here any more? I want to see him badly. He must look after me the night of my début."

"The night of your début?" "Yes, didn't I tell you? I sing Isolde the first night next month at the Metropolitan." Ulick's eyes opened wide. "Does Alfred know the news?" "No,'and I fancy he will be wrathy. I can't help it. The offer came. It was so big that I chucked Berlin, Paris, London and took the first steamer leaving Genoa. Paul said—" "Paul?"...

"Why not? Paul—he came over with us. He has been a true friend. He's waiting outside now in my car." "He's waiting outside now," echoed the dazed young man. "Don't be stupid, Jewel. He and Allie are together, otherwise I shouldn't have stayed so long with you." "Oh! Allie, too," he sarcastically observed. "Yes, Allie Wentworth, too. That girl helped me over some rough places in Europe. I shall never give her up, never," Easter reiterated with passion. "Was she the cause of the duel?" "Honestly, Jewel, living in this provincial town has made you lose your Parisian wits. There was no duel. That story was pure blague. I had a fencing match with Mary Garden and a reporter from the 'Figaro' was there. I filled him full of prunes—that's all." She laughed with the robust ventral laughter of a country girl. She was the same old Easter, and Ulick adored her for her natural manner.

But he pretended that he did not understand. "What did you and Mary row about?" "Oh! Debussy. She thinks him so extraordinary. I don't. No climax, all pretty nuance, not a virile bar in him. A composer who fell asleep and dreamed of Tristan. But after Wagner he is like absinthe after brandy. I like the big, passionate style. I like Rodin. I adore D'Annunzio. Debussy is for artistic capons, and other fearful fowl. But Mary is wonderful. I envy her all the same. I love sumptuous characters. That's why I like to read Mlle de Maupin and also about that perverse puss, Satin, in Nana. She reminds me of Allie, and her pranks—simply adorable, I tell you. Toujours fidèle. But great God, look at the hour! Good-bye, for the present, Jewel. No, don't come to the door: I'll have a hard enough time explaining to those people— they hate each other as do cats and dogs. Don't forget your old sweetheart, Jewel," and she patted his cheek as if he were a schoolboy. He could have killed her. She fled the apartment. But she hadn't said a word about the Munich elopement or the royal lover.

VI

Alfred exploded some nasty phrases when he heard of Easter's début. Close as he was to the Opera direction not a word had been hinted. As a newspaper man he revolted. He wanted the "scoop" for the "Clarion." No one got it; the news was ladled out to all, a regular soup-kitchen affair. He determined to get even with someone, with Easter herself. He had lost heavily that afternoon on the races, and it demanded all Madame Ash's tact to smooth his outraged vanity and feathers. But she did it. She promised to sit beside him that first night. Perhaps Easter wouldn't carry off everything with such a high hand as in Germany ... and there was always Jean de Reszke, not to drag in Edouard, who must be counted ... except Lilli, what Isolde had ever divided the interest of the audience? Jean was peerless. Poor Easter had a rocky road ahead.... Alfred's eyes glistened with malice....

The Great White Way, pleasure-ground of America, is the incandescent oven of the metropolis. Under its fierce glare all felines appear alike. But gray, never. Alfred, who had lived in Europe, noted that the sad-colored procession that slowly moves around Piccadilly Circus, the merry crush of the Friedrichstrasse, and the gayer swirl of the Grand Boulevard, was not so cosmopolitan as Broadway's army. Every nationality helps to swell the stream of petticoats. Lo! this is the City of Dis, he thought, when he saw the maelstrom of faces pass him; faces blanched by regret, sunned by crime, beaming with sin; faces rusted by vain virtue, weary faces, and the triumphant regard of them that are loved. The eyes, the eyes! The city had begun its nocturnal carnival as he went down to the Opera House, and like all organized orgies the spectacle was of a consuming melancholy. No need for him to moralize; cause and effect spoke with an appalling clarity. If Matthew Arnold had been there he would have called Gotham, not Lutetia, the spot where is most worshipped the Great Goddess of Lubricity. Through this volcano of noise, a sinister medley of farce and flame, the Will-to-Enjoy wound like a river of red-hot lava. The day-birds are gone to bed; night-fowl are afield. The owl is a denizen of the dark, yet Minerva's wisdom is not to be found. Even the cats are bathed in the blaze of publicity. Alfred reached the Metropolitan....

All operatic triumphs resemble each other; it is the failures that differ. The début of Istar—how that exotic name did boldly stand out on the bill-boards!—as like the début of the pre-elected. From the rising of the curtain when she hurls her angry disdainful: "Wer wagt mich zu hohnen?" her success was assured. In the first entr'acte Madame Ash said to Alfred: "That settles it." He didn't quite agree with her. He went to Easter's dressing-room. He was not admitted. It looked as if she intended to burn behind her all her boats and bridges; but a few words from Jean, always considerate to débutantes, confirmed Madame Ash's judgment. At the dress-rehearsal Easter had been rotten. That, averred Jean, was sure sign of success. And it was a brilliant success. This audacious American girl came, sang, conquered. She actually divided honors with Tristan. After the last curtain she received an unmistakable personal call. It was for her alone and Jean graciously left the field free. As cool as usual she made a little speech:

"Thank you, dear people. Thank you for your indulgence. It is my début in my beloved land. I am an American-born girl. My first teacher, and my best, was my mother...." The audience received this filial sentiment with overwhelming applause. "Does that young lady know the ropes?" ironically inquired Alfred. "Mother first and best teacher!—that's the stuff to put over for the sentimental imbeciles. And isn't she grateful? Not a word about you—not a word about Lilli or Cosima—that girl has won out in a "walk," he added. As they pushed through the guzzing throng—Max Hirsh told them that the gate-money was bigger than at any other opening night for seasons—they heard nothing but praise. It was Istar here, Istar there, everywhere Istar! The sound of the exotic name seemed to hypnotize the mob. Madame Ash smiled:

"Are you green enough to expect gratitude from a singer? I think the 'mother' allusion was a master-stroke. Esther is a genius."

VII

Happy singers, like happy nations, have no history. Easter was a happy singer, but she had plenty of histories, though they would never be engraved on deathless tablets. Volition being her strongest asset, and pleasure-loving her weakness, she spent her nights singing, her days trifling. She called it happiness, a reaction from the passionate tension of interpreting Isolde, Brunnhilde, Kundry, Norma for the delight of huge audiences. The morning saw her briskly walking through the park. Her apartment was on Central Park West, near 72nd Street. Her robust physique daily demanded many cubic feet of fresh air. In the afternoon she rode about in her car; there now were two at her service, one, an electric brougham for the city visits, the shops. She was fairly prudent in diet, though she drank too much champagne, smoked too many cigarettes. Punctual at rehearsals, she was out of bed earlier on those days. So the opera didn't interfere with hygiene. An admirable artiste, and with the moral sense to be observed in a barnyard.

Paul was the present incumbent in her House of Life. His wealth, social position, above all, his amiable personality, fitted her like a glove. Easter disliked broils or bother. After the tragic happenings of her nightly work, the very sight of a lover pulling a long face, exasperated her. Ulick drove her into fits of rage with his importunings, his complaints that she wasn't treating him on the level. "Very well," she would retort, "I'm not. What are you going to do about it? You know what Paul is, and what I think of him. I'm fond of you, Jewel, but Paul pleases me more. He has tact. He lets me alone. I'm quite sure if he had been mixed up in that horrid mess up in New Hampshire—where was it anyhow?—he wouldn't consider it any claim on me. I don't. But you do—yes, you do, Ulick Invern. You seem to think that you are a sort of a guardian, a lover, perhaps a husband"—she laughed. The idea of a husband having any authority over her tickled her rib risible. Ulick gloomed. What could he say or do in face of such barbed-wire opposition? The only thing he achieved was to neglect, and grossly, Mona Milton. He discontinued his visits, if not altogether, at least spaced them at wide intervals. Mona did not complain. Occasionally she went to luncheon with him at Martin's. The opera and Easter tempted her curiosity. At first the sheer vitality of the glorious singing woman repelled her, but she, too, was eventually trapped. The first act of Tristan and the swan song of Isolde stirred her very entrails. It was conceded, however, by the cognoscenti that Istar's second act lacked the exquisite tenderness of Olive Fremstad— she had arrived—whose Sieglinde was a masterly exposition of the pitiful, charming woodland creature. But in the Immolation Scene of the Twilight of the Gods Istar trod dramatic heights. That chronic fault-finder, Alfred Stone, confessed that since Lilli Lehmann and Milka Ternina, no one had so touched him. Materna and the earlier Wagnerian singers were only bawlers in comparison. But Istar—!

When he heard from her lips the terms that she had imposed on the management without singing a note in advance, he threw up his hands. "In the heart of every prima-donna there is a pawnbroker," he asserted, and the mot rapidly gained currency. Easter only smiled. She liked Alfred. He was the first man who had been kind to her in the big city that depressing night of her arrival. And he had stood by her at the première; to be sure, he couldn't have done anything else without stultifying his critical powers. She was not ungrateful, but that was a secret. Her triumph had been authentic. No preliminary blasts of advertising trumpets. Philip Hale, who came over from Boston for the event, had summed up the situation when wiring to his newspaper "When Istar sings she is her own passionate press-agent." Edgar Saltus compressed it in an epigram: "Istar may be a Daughter of Sin, but she has no vocal vices." It was all true.

For Mona the singer presently became an obsession. She concealed her feelings concerning the palpable defection of Ulick. She was as cordial as ever in her conduct toward him, but she no longer spoke of their dream-children. Grane and Shamus had died the swift death of all poetic conceptions confronted by harsh reality. Her love for him seemed diverted to Easter. As the lustre of an electric lamp attracts the night-moth so the glittering personality and fame of the prima-donna drew within its warm zone the feebler will of Mona. The two girls became close companions. With growing disquietude Ulick noticed this; but he was powerless. He had kept to himself his early adventure with Easter. And Easter had never heard from him a hint of his relations with Mona. Yet he was certain that if she didn't precisely know the facts she surmised them. She would fix her brilliant eyes on the girl and Mona, blushing, would hang her head. How much did Easter know? How much had Alfred told her? He was a gossip, a tattler of mean tales, an amateur in the art of scandalous insinuation. Nevertheless, the others were pleased when he appeared. He saw more clearly than any of them, and he had the disagreeable gift of telling truths. It was a wonder he maintained his unpopularity.

... One sunny afternoon in midwinter they went to the old Vienna Café next to Grace Church to drink coffee and chatter about eternity and the town-pump. It was Alfred's beloved stamping-ground. The white suavities of Grace Church, the twist of the street where Broadway debouches into Union Square, aroused in him the fancy that in no other spot of the planet is the tempo of living faster, or any place where the human pulse beats more quickly. The tumults and alarums of the day are more exciting than a Cycle in Cathay. Vitality is at its hottest. We are like a colony of ants disturbed by a stranger, he ruminated. We are caught in eddies and whirlpools; and on the edges of foaming breakers we are dumped upon densely populated sands. Childe Roland, if he came to New York, would not be heard, so many other knights are blowing their horns; besides, he might be puzzled to find his eagerly sought-for Dark Tower. Our surfaces are hard, boastful, the rhythms of our daily life abrupt, over-emphatic. There are few timid backwaters left for sensitive folk who dislike the glare and rumble of modern traffic. We appear to be making some unknown goal, as in the streets we seem to be running to a fire or a fight that we never reach. Alternately hypnotic and repellant, New York is often a more stony-hearted step-mother than the Oxford street of De Quincey. Alfred admitted to himself that our city would not be considered beautiful in the old order of aesthetics. Its specific beauty savours of the monstrous. The scale is epical. Too many buildings are glorified chimneys. But what a picture of titanic energy, of cyclopean ambition! Look over Manhattan from Washington Heights. The wilderness of flat roofs in London; the winning profile of Paris; the fascination of Rome as viewed from Trinatà dei Monti; of Buda from across the Danube at Pest—those are not more startlingly dramatic than New York, especially when the chambers of the west are filled with the tremendous opal of a dying day, or when the lyric moonrise paves a path of silver across the hospitable sea we call our harbour. With all his ingrained hostility to America and things American (he despised the uncouth Bartholdi statue as an emblem of liberty, saying that its torch was in reality a threatening club: "Get to work," it commanded) he was forced to acknowledge the supremacy of New York. Two European cities only were more dramatic; Toledo, Prague. And during a summer sunrise the reverberations of our parent-planet, of that blazing white disk which made the sky a metallic blue, evokes Africa, rather than Italy; Enfin—the true firmament of North America.

Easter and Mona, escorted by Paul and Ulick, entered. They were in high spirits. They surrounded Alfred, forcing him to drop his newspaper. The habitués were sipping coffee and playing chess. Some were celebrities. Alfred named them. One and all they stared at the singer. Several came over to the table and paid their way with extravagant compliments. She took all without a trace of the pose of the pampered prima-donna. It was her due. It was also in the day's work. When the others had gone, the party fell to arguing. A chance word of Ulick's had sent Easter up into the air. What! if women were such cowardly cows, the slaves of their husbands, and their dress-makers, the dupes of their lovers and children, was that sufficient reason why a level-headed woman should follow the call of these sheep! A woman should listen to her inward promptings. Easter said she didn't propose to be a shop-girl trying to live on the wage doled her by some self-advertising philanthropists—she gave a list that jarred Alfred's cynicism—those humbugs who drove thousands of girls into the ranks of prostitutes. Supposing, she continued, I had no voice, only my looks, what then! The stage, of course. What matters envious backbiting. A nun immured doesn't escape calumny. Hamlet knew. A girl who had an ounce of beauty or brains, practical brains, not moonshine rhapsody, can always make her way. Marry, forsooth! And beget a lot of brats for some cheap clerk, who stints her expenses! Pooh! Short-lived as is the good time of a cocotte despite her inevitable chance of poverty and disease, isn't her existence in a show-down about as useful, or as useless? That depends on the angle of moral incidence—or the chill, gray life of a servant, a factory worker, or the wife of a workman, with the horrors of frequent child-bearing, the hideous drunkenness, abuse and grinding poverty? Many a girl has remained virtuous because she was too plain to be tempted.

"You sweet duckling!" she exclaimed turning to Mona and embracing her energetically, "what will you ever know of the submerged lives about you? You were reared in cotton-wool and have been spared the sight of such agonizing." Mona shivered, and timidly returned the embrace. The three young men exchanged glances. Suddenly Easter took a new tack. "Jewel," she said meditatively regarding him, "Jewel, why don't you write a novel?" "Good heavens, old girl, I have hardly the energy to pencil my allotted newspaper paragraphs. Novels nowadays mean either the naked truth and that spells disaster, or slimy sensual sentimentality. Your heroine to make an impression, must resist seduction, though longing for carnal satisfaction; or, if she happens to be a professional prostitute—led from the sloppy paths of a still sloppier virtue when very young—then she must be converted in the limelight to the sound of pharasaical trumpets. The chief thing is to combine voluptuous description with hypocritical repentance. To dissect the sex emotions calmly is the one unforgivable offence. Foam at the mouth, you may, in presenting the details of nymphomania or satyriasis, if you only piously turn up your eyes at the close. Sex is as sane, as clean as any other physical function; in fact, it's cleaner. Eating, drinking, and digestion are not particularly attractive. Fornication, conception, child-bearing are natural. Treat them naturally. Don't slop over them. Don't tell about blasted lives, blackened souls, because your heroine assumes a horizontal attitude and sees the moon over the shoulder of her lover. Don't gasbag about sin, when the sexual act is no more sinful than eating. Good God! how long are the emasculated ideals of ancient Asiatic fanatics to check the free exercise of a woman's nature? Calling a natural process like copulation a sin doesn't make it so. I am a feminist, as you girls know, but I don't give a rap for the suffrage if it doesn't free woman from her sexual slavery. If a man can run around, having a good time, and not be reproached with his loose-living, why, by the same token, can't a woman?" He was unusually animated.

"Bravo Ulick!" cried Easter. Mona shivered again. She knew. Paul giggled; when in doubt he always giggled, but he was thoroughly shocked by Ulick's banal defence of immorality. Alfred shook his head; he, too, knew the mainspring of this verbiage. "Ulick, my lad, you write your novels in the air. You will never publish one. You are 'veule' as they in your beloved language and 'veule' means something more than soft or weak. The truth is—" "Alfred and his truths," sniffed Easter —"is Ulick, you are rotten, morally rotten. Even your not drinking or smoking is only cowardice. Back to the boulevards for you!"

"Besides," pursued Alfred, thoroughly aroused, "isn't it time to give literature a breathing-spell from this infernal sex-humbuggery? Today everything is referred to sex, from religion to dreams. Childhood is trapped by psychiatrists searching for sex-documents. And, then, doesn't all this interest in a woman's chastity sicken you? It makes me think that men are still Turks buying female flesh by weight. It's simply disgusting, that's what it is. Why not her liver or her lungs! I'd as soon ask if a woman were constipated as ask if she were chaste. The world is hag-ridden by sexuality. And the worst of it is that with their 'new freedom', as they call it, women are becoming more polyandrous. They, too, needs must have a staff of males for their individuality! Music is to blame a lot, Wagner's music in particular. What else is Tristan and Isolde but a tonal orgasm? Think of the Prelude—never mind the love-music in Act II. That is avowedly voluptuous, as it should be—but just see with what savant art Wagner has built up from the sighing, yearning bars at the opening of the Prelude a perfect chart, dynamic, emotional, evoking physical images; then developing a crescendo without parallel in music the climax subsiding into a melancholy close like two felines caterwauling on a back fence. Musical erethism, I tell you...."

Easter's eyes snapped. "Disgusting, Alfred. I fancy you prefer the parsiphallic repulse of Kundry, when Wagner had become anti-natural, denying womanhood, thanks to his epicene patron, crazy King Ludwig of Bavaria." Alfred sniggered. Ulick never moved a muscle. It was vieux jeu, this lecturing from Alfred; at least it didn't stir him to the depths as did the burning phrases of Milt. "I'd like to meet your brother, Mona, if he is anything like you." "He isn't, Istar," she replied, "he has a beautiful nature, pure as the stars." "Listen to her. You might suppose, Mona, that you were leading, or had led—" Easter significantly paused—"a wicked life. You fast! Oh! As for your beautiful souls! Pooh! Men are all alike! Beasts! The soutane checks, no doubt; but I shouldn't like to tempt your brother too far." She became reflective. The men were uneasy. Where was all this vain talk leading to? Easter exploded another little bombshell. "I repeat, I'd like to meet your brother some time, Mona." The other girl nodded. "What's become of Dora that Paul used to rave over, or was it you, Jewel?" "Oh, by Jove, I say," remonstrated Paul. "For God's sake, if we are going to discuss brothels I'm off," said Alfred, and he left in a huff. The party broke up.

Easter often went to concerts with Ulick. One afternoon, after a performance of Vincent D'Indy's masterpiece, "Istar" she told Ulick that these Symphonic Variations had given her the cue for her operatic name. Istar wasn't so different from Easter. Maliciously Ulick pointed out the seventh variation called in the critical notes The Seventh Gate. She read:

"At the seventh gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the last veil that covers her body"....

"You reversed the order of disrobing with me, didn't you, Easter?" She regarded him as if from her tallest tower of disdain and frigidly answered: "Don't be too sure, Jewel. Not even of the Holy Yowlers romance at Zaneburg." He was infuriated. What did she mean? And how well she remembered names, when she wished to. What next—?

VIII

There are limitations to the endurance of an unvirtuous man. Ulick, who had foresworn further advances toward Mona, began his aimless cruising about town in pursuit of complaisant women. He found plenty, yet he remained unsatisfied; mercenary love repelled him. The cocottes of the metropolis were mournful substitutes after the light-hearted irresponsible "filles de joie" of Paris. In that City of Light prostitution is elevated to the dignity of Fine Art. He began thinking of Dora, dear little vulgar Dora; vulgar, but also delicious Dora. Her body was like a white satin stove. Doubtless there had been many applications to fill the niche occupied by Paul; doubtless, too, she had put him out of her memory as one of her sheep that had strayed from the fold. The pathos of passion operating, he saw a idealized Dora; Dora the sweet accomplice in the eternal chess-play of sex; a Dora, voluptuous, yet a house-wife, cook and concubine; but always a Dora that interested with her vivacity, her spurts of wit—original, vile, yet mirth-breeding. Should he, or should he not, phone or write her? He decided that a call would settle the weighty question. For him it was weighty. Woman was not only a diversion, but also a necessity. He liked their propinquity. He could never, he felt sure, conceive himself as Dora's husband. In the rôle of an agreeable mistress—! Ah! that was another phase.

So he leisurely walked, one afternoon, to the apartment-house on upper Lexington Avenue, and soon was pressing the button at her door. He was relieved to find that her name was still there. Migratory birds, these, and she was as restless as her colleagues. After a brief delay, he heard light, hurried footsteps. It was the maid, another coloured girl. She bade him enter and he sent his name to her mistress. A moment later he was ushered into the dining-room, where he found Dora playing cards with an anonymous female who had evidently been drinking. There was a decanter and carafe on the buffet. Dora hardly looked up, but her greeting was cordial enough. "My old man, Lily, this is Jewel, my best lady friend, Lily. Sit down, dearie and hold your horses till we spiel out this hand. I'm in luck, look! Did you ever see such a bunch of cards?" Ulick preserved his patience; he had hoped to find Dora alone. In default of that he made the best of the situation. Finished and victorious, Dora bounded to his knees, addressing him by all the pet names she knew. Her warm, odourous presence—though whisky was one of its components—soothed his irritated vanity. Easter treated him as if he were a eunuch, Dora, as a man should be. He did not underestimate his virile prowess. It was recognized in the Tenderloin district and more than one nightbird had envied Dora the possession of her handsome, athletic young man. She now appeared to be glad of his return. She chirped:

"You bad boy! What naughty girl kept you away from me? That singer, I suppose. Or was it the meek-as-Moses girl! There, there, I shan't begin all over again. I lost my head, and you did yours. Honest to God, Jewel, you hadn't ought to struck Paul. He is a dead-game sport and a friend of yours. Shall we take a ride and a dinner at the Casino? Well, I guess yes. Lily, put on your glad-rags. My old man is going to blow us off to a fine time." Ulick looked his discontent, and Lily diplomatically refused, giving as a reason an engagement with her Fred. Dora passed over her defection. She rushed into the kitchen and gave instructions to the slavey—a damfool, she informed the company; then she dressed herself, and that function occupied precisely one hour. Ulick fumed. Lily helped herself at rhythmic intervals from the decanter prefacing each drink with: "You will pardon me!" Ulick politely replied and wished her in Sheol. Finally they got afloat, and that night he slept from home.

He temporarily disappeared. Mona noted his absence but as she burned her own smoke, her parents made no comment on the tepid attentions of her fiancé. They recognized her fortitude in adverse circumstances, and they preferred to remain neutral. Mona was apathetic they knew, nevertheless they feared to arouse her wrath by criticising the reprehensible behaviour of Ulick. But Easter was different. After several weeks' absence she went down to luncheon at Madame Felicé's. No Ulick. Nor had he been home for nights and nights, she was confidentially informed by Madame. Yes, he had been in at dinner, once; that was last week. He had Dora as company. Madame was a philosopher in petticoats and one girl valued another. She was extremely fond of her ci-devant lodger, the illustrious Istar. But Easter was annoyed. She alone boasted the privilege of broken engagements; Paul or Ulick were mere pawns to be pushed about at her will. She asked Madame if she knew the address of Dora. "I have her telephone number and from that we can surely get the house address from Central." She did this. Dora lived at "The Sappho" on Lexington Avenue. Easter booked the number and thanked Madame, who, naturally curious, queried: "Easter, chérie, I hope you won't go there. Dora is charming, mais c'est une cocotte." "It's not the charming Dora I'm after," was the response. "I'll catch Master Ulick on the wire some morning, and that's my little game. He can't play fast and loose with me as he does with that sweet, unhappy Mona. I'm not built that way. With me it's Either—Or! as they say in some Ibsen play." Madame Felicé lifted eyebrows and smiled—inscrutably.

IX

As Easter rode to the door, another car drove down Lexington Avenue. Dora didn't see her visitor, but Ulick did, and he whispered into the ear of his chauffeur. The machine flew. Easter not wasting a moment didn't leave her car. She saw the couple, and she bade her driver follow. A long stern chase ensued. The two cars kept equal distance all the way down-town. Policemen whistled. People stared. Timid ladies expostulated. Furiously Easter's car pursued the other. At Eighteenth street Ulick told his man to turn west-ward, to Fourth Avenue, thence to the old Everett House on Union Square. There was no sight of Easter. At Gramercy Park Ulick had outmanoeuvred Easter, taking the short cut into Irving Place, while Easter seeing her prey escape had no doubt directed her car to Fourth Avenue by way of Twentieth Street. Ulick inwardly exulted. He had dodged Easter, and he was sure that she was jealous of him, else how account for this wild, whirling chase! Oblivious, Dora wondered at the speed and the growing excitement of her beau—so she called him. He's a sport, after all, she said. The car stopped in front of the hotel, but, alas, as it did, Easter's motor came into view around the corner of the Avenue. So timed was the arrest of the two cars that the chauffeurs grinned, believing the meeting had been arranged.

Ulick bundled Dora into the hotel, calling to the man to go to Broadway ferry, east Fourteenth street; then he fairly pushed Dora through the lobbies, the café, through the Fourth Avenue door, and, the girl scared by his determined face, didn't question him. When they reached Eighteenth street he hurried her along to Third Avenue and there he relaxed. "They were after us Dora." "Who was?" "The police." "My Gawd, the police!" "Plain-clothes men," he sententiously explained, and the frightened girl almost collapsed. The police! The House of Correction, or some horrible Magdalen Home? Ulick seeing that she was suffering cooked up a lie. He had been sued—or was it contempt of court?—at any rate, he had detectives on his trail. No necessity to be troubled over the incident. He, alone, was involved. Reassured, she clung to his arm. They arrived at Fourteenth Street. There they took an east-bound car. At the ferry house the motor was awaiting them. Ulick drew the chauffeur aside, gave him a tip and asked what had become of the other car. It still stood before the hotel, he supposed. The big lady in it had leaped out before it stopped and made a dash after them. But as luck would have it a young gentleman detained her and she was as mad as hops. But he wouldn't let go her wrists. "What sort of looking young gentleman was it?" Ulick asked. Oh, clean-shaved like you, sir, and he wore loud checks in his clothes. He laughed a lot, too, especially when he saw that the lady was getting madder and madder. Phew! She had a temper, that beauty! Ulick told him to drive to Manhattan Beach. It must have been Paul, he fancied.

After midnight they returned. The sea-air had refreshed them. The dinner at Jack's had been excellent, and the roof-garden prime-chop. Dora was drowsy. Dora was affectionate. Her beloved Jewel was beside her once more and she didn't care if she did attract attention by almost sitting in his lap. Some of her "lady-friends", those sweet girl-graduates from the University of Sin, "whose feet took hold on hell," had aroused in her a half drunken quarrelsome spirit when they flirted with her "fellow" at the show. But she had him now, he couldn't be taken from her by any woman alive. She opened the door after some preliminary fumbling with the key. They entered. Her French poodle, which usually barked with joy whenever she came home, did not lift up its voice. Dora was frightened. Dodo was ill, perhaps stolen—and O my Gawd! there's a light in the living-room. Burglars, Jewel, let's go for the police. But Ulick thought otherwise. Burglars don't smoke cigarettes when cracking a crib. It must be Paul. He made a wry face. He called, "Paulchen, is that you?" "No, it's Istarchen," came the answer, in a resonant voice. By all the infernal gods—Easter!

"Well," screamed Dora, "this is a surprise. Where did you blow in from? And how in the world did you break in? Them hall-boys hasn't keys." She was drunk enough to be familiar. She knew Easter only by sight, but whisky bridged the gulf; in her sober senses she would have been too cowed by Easter's magnificent presence to have addressed her thus. Easter, smoking a cigarette, lay outstretched on a divan. She smiled in a friendly manner at Dora, and pulled her down beside her. To Ulick she addressed no word. She gazed at him, and sneered. Dora was in the seventh heaven of pride. She, poor little prostitute, one of the despised and rejected, living on the lusts of men, was treated not only as a human but as a social equal by the greatest living lady opera-singer! She embraced her, and besought her to drink. Easter thanked her, adding "I've already helped myself." She again challenged Ulick with her hard glance. He fell into a chair and held his peace. The two women drank a toast to "happy days and better acquaintance" and Dora, now half-seas over, supplemented it with the classic toast of "professional ladies" and kept-women. Easter laughed uproariously. Her descent into this moral sewer pleased her. Ulick was disgusted. Emboldened by her success Dora persuaded Easter to go with her into the dressing-room, from which, much later, they emerged wearing night draperies. A queer go, this sudden intimacy, ruminated the young man.

The women were in high spirits, and high-balls were absorbed. Ulick saw that Dora was hopeless. The problem was how to get rid of Easter. Her car had been dismissed; no doubt about that. Curiously he asked: "But Easter, how did you get in here?" She turned to Dora, now on the divan, her drunken eyes admiringly blinking at the singer. "Dora, dear, where there's a will there's a way. After I lost you this afternoon at the Everett House"—"Lost me at the Everett?" gasped Dora. "It's a new one on me." She turned to Ulick and fairly snarled. "So that was your game, was it, to go hell-splitting through the town and get rid of my darling friend?" She wept. "You nearly broke my neck, d'ye know it, you herring-gut! Oh! I ain't got any use for a young chap who doesn't drink or smoke. He's sure to be up to something worse. He'll bear watching, so he will!" Easter triumphantly soothed the hysterical girl. They went into the kitchen. Soon a Welsh rabbit was on the table. Easter also possessed culinary technique. Impassioned by her superior prowess, Dora watched her with ravished vision. They drank again. The younger girl became frolicksome. She pulled Ulick's hair. She tickled him. She kissed and hugged Easter as if she were carried away by her friendship. Easter enjoyed the sport. They dragged the unresisting Ulick into the bedroom and assaulted him with pillows. They rolled him on the bed. Dora unbuttoned his vest. Then they tumbled over him, tantalizing him with their pranks. He saw that they were nude beneath their house-wrappers. Abandoning themselves the half-crazy pair would stretch on the sheets and then draw up their legs in unison, while the harrassed Ulick viewed with longing their beautiful figures; Dora, slender blonde, resilient; Easter, brunette, massive, but supple as a snake. He suffered. With shrieks they teased, tempted, evaded him.

Tiring, the trio returned to the dining-room. More whisky. Quite overcome, Dora lolled on the couch. She held Easter closely clutched. Ulick hinted that she had better go to bed. That aroused her. "Yes, but not with you ... my boy." And she returned to Easter. "Go on about your business," she suddenly shrieked. "I hate you. I hate all men. You only want to use me." And then she fell to sobbing. Easter motioned toward the door with her head. "I think you had better go," she calmly counselled. "Dora is overwrought, hysterical, and doesn't know what she is saying or doing." He fetched his hat. "That's true," he answered. "Dora doesn't know what she is doing, but you do, Easter." She gave him a nasty look, in which were mingled amusement and contempt. Too polite to pelt her with the invectives he felt she deserved, he contented himself with saying as he opened the door: "Yes, Easter, I think I had better go; go back to Paris. It can't be any viler there than here." Jeering laughter followed him to the lift.

X

"You look blue about the gills, Ulick," said Milt in his heartiest manner. "You're not well these days, are you? What's the trouble?"

"I'm dizzy most of the time. No, it's not the stomach it's something worse. You know I didn't get a clean bill of health from my father's side of the house. Of late, my left side goes numb for days at a time—partial paralysis or, at least, its prodromes." Ulick seemed out of sorts. His face was earth-coloured. He had been going the pace and consequently suffering. Milt stood over him and harangued:

"Come! Ulick, my boy. You've got to stop your ways of living else land in a hospital, or worse—perhaps in a mad-house, for the epileptic spasm you call love. You are bartering your birthright of soul and body. Now listen! Here is a fair proposition. There is to be a retreat for men at our college, men like you, weary of the world, men who have the honesty to repeat your favourite Baudelaire's prayer: 'O! Lord God! Give me the force and courage to contemplate my heart and my body without disgust.' Admirable humility, for where you end Christianity begins. Yours is not an exceptional case. The whole world is morally out of joint. It is become godless, and were it not for the saving remnant, God in His just wrath would destroy the earth as he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. But He leaves the wicked to their own devices. A catastrophe will surely come to Europe, perhaps Asia and America, a catastrophe that beggars the imagination in the contemplation thereof. Satan will be released from his fiery pit and Antichrist will rule the nations. Presumptuous man has tried to regulate the mighty diapason of the spheres with his pitiful tuning-fork and lo! he has miserably failed. Woe, woe, I say to souls unprepared—" Ulick interrupted.