Cytherea

lf supported. "It's really too foolish," his wife told him; "what can Mrs. Grove and you have to say to ea

en't been away for so long-if you'd come with me. This other affair woul

low her enough time for preparations. "You don't realize how much there is to do here, getting the servants and the children sati

the reports of his varied profitable concerns. He had had a reply, sufficiently cordial, to his telegram, arranging for him to go directly to the Groves' house; bu

ling and elaborate panels of black walnut and a high dull silver paper. The reception room into which he was shown, by a maid, was jungle-like in its hangings and deep-tufted upholstery of maroon and royal blue velvets, its lace and twisted cords

e, with a small black three-cornered hat, a sable skin about her neck, and highly polished English brogues with gaiters. Mrs. Grove was thin-no, he corrected that impression, she was slight-her face, broad at the temples, narrowed gracefully to her chin; h

yond speech. But William won't have it touched. Probably you are not familiar with the stubborn traditions of old New Yorkers. Of course, when Mrs. Sim

ignature suggested was true: she was more forcible, decisive, than he had expected. Money and place, with an individual authe

uncomfortable Jacobean chair, "if something or other happen

uldn't come," Lee told her in

ouldn't resist the attempt. But I hope she understood tha

annoyed by the bris

been our only child. She is a daughter of a cousin of William's. Mina, I must admit, has become very difficult; I suppose because of her genius. She is perfe

. "Why," she observed, "it is worse than I had hoped. But I should have guessed from th

I am not much of a meddler: it is so dangerous for everyone concer

say," she commented, studying him. "You mustn't

plained, "it was a sort of digression. I want to do what

laire didn't curse me, I know these girls-it is so much easier to deal with vulgar people. I can see now what it was in the young man that captured Mina, she'd like that type-the masculine with an air of fine linen." The tea-tabl

size; and the cigars before him, a special Corona, the Shepheard's Hotel cigarettes, carried the luxury of comfort to its

usted you to

t will be worse. Outrageous! I tell her she isn't worth it. And, now, this tiresome Morris has money, too; and you say he's as bad

wasn't possible. You've discouraged me, though; I suppose I

favorite; when she is out with me the most odious crowds positively stop my car. I won't go with her any more where

very much. Do you mind my saying he'll be relieved? He is such a Knickerbocker. I needn't add, Mr. Randon, that you shall be entirely free: whenever you want to go down town Adamson will take you." The exact moulding of her body was insolent. "Well, then,

on, would he enjoy William? It was questionable in the present state of his mind. Dinner, a servant at the Groves' informed him, would be at eight. His bag was swiftly and skillfully unpacked for him-this always annoyed Lee-and the water was turned into the tub. His room,

pt into her voice. "I can't understand it at all," he heard her say, so clearly that it reconstructed her, expression and probable dress and setting, completely. "You asked me

there. When he left-it would be late tomorrow or early the next day, Lee thought-she could meet him and do as they planned. But Fanny refused to agree: it would, now, be a needless expense. No, the oth

ow, with the Raff woman. I suppose Mrs. Grove, who seem

sted. "It hasn't occurred to me to think about her. I'm sorry you won'

dren are here and send their love. They'd like

for dinner no

his waistcoat, changed his money from the trousers on the bed to those he was wearing, in a formless indignation. This wasn't his fault, he repeated; positively, judged

with its moustache twisted into points, the clouded purple of his cheeks contradicted by the penetration of a steadily focussed gaze, expressed nothing more than

u set before him in a miniature silver frame. This Lee Randon admitted,

ing with the young w

e with women. Mina wants her Peyton-if that's his name; Go

get him," Lee observed; "I must s

aordi

on her shoulders, with a girdle of small gilt roses, her hair in a binding of grey broca

what it's

" he acknowledged; "I was thinking of that, rea

Trouble always follows. I don't care who they are, but if you throw two fairly young people of opposite sex together in circumstances any way out of the ordinary, you ha

have often heard you say so. But what is your opinion, Mr.

erienced to be understood; certainly it hasn't a great deal to do with the mind." He turned to William G

. It's a law of nature, that's all; keep away from it if you want security. I can't imagine people of breeding-you will have to overlook this, Mr. Randon, on the account of Morris-getting so far down the slide. I

and juggled to suit different climates and people, that hardly any of the original impulse is left on vie

," Grove rep

all laws and order were made for the good of the mob. I don't need the policeman I see in the stree

rself for a damn; she ought to have a nurse. Your theories contradi

elicate tracery inside the bend of her arms. But her face, Lee reflected, was too passive, too inanimate; her lack of color was unvaried by any visible trace of emotio

d, and the gesture, the suspended grace of the wrist, was familiar to him. Finally Lee Randon, unable to satisfy his curiosity, exasperated at the usual vain stupidity of such comparisons, gave up the effort. Wil

na had told the Groves nothing; Savina Grove was ignorant of what they intended. That it would begin at once was evident. "William is always a little annoyed by my contradictory character," she observed, gazing down at her slippers. They were grey, slight like a glove, on slight arched feet that h

igued, merely polite in remaining in the room with him? She needn't inconvenience herself on his account! It was pleasant enough at the Groves'; without doubt-in

e; but I almost never get to them; and it occurred to me that, if you di

allor of her face, and the deep folds of the gloves on her wrists emphasized the slender charm of her arms. No young-younger woman, he decided, could compete with her in the worldly, the sophisticated, attractiveness she commanded: on the plane of absolute civilization she was supreme. In the semi-gloom of the closed car, sunken in her voluminous wrap of dull gold, with a high-bridged nose visible, a hand in its dead-white covering pressed into the cushion, she satisfied his every aesthetic requirement. Women, he reflected, should be primarily a show on a stage carefully set for the purpose of their loveliness. Not many men, and scarcely more women-so few were lovely-would agree with him there. Argument would confront him with the moral and na

agraph, satisfactory to him in the slightest, about the emotional sum of a man and a woman. What he read he couldn't believe; it was a paste of moralistic lies; either that or the writer had no greater power of explication than he. But, while he might deny a fundamental irregularity, the majority of men, secretly de

maison. He left his outer things at the door, but Mrs. Grove kept her cloak, and they mounted in an elevator to the café floor. The place was crowded with brightly filled tables surrounding the rectangular open dancing space, and Lee signalled for a captain. That experienced individual

e their drinks undisturbed while the floor was choked by slowly revolving figures distilling from the rhythm frank gratification. There was an honesty of intention, the admission that life and nights were short, lacking in the fever at the Eastlake dancing; here, rather than unsettled restraint, was the determination to spend every excited nerve on sensation, to

of her arms, and the indicated purpose about them, were not worlds apart. But the latter met its announced intention; it was dissipated-normally-in satiety. But, where Mrs. Grove wa

t's very successfu

had a vision of Mrs. Grove in the dress they were studying. The same thing, it appeared, was in her mind. "We

y n

er skirt. Lee had come prepared for the pleasure to be had from on-looking; but he had become the most oblivious of all the active participants. After a second brief understanding with the captain, another quickly-disposed currency note, there was the familiar smothered uncorking of champagne by his ear. To Lee Randon's lavishness

iliar to him-Anette, in the same circumstances, would have radiated a bubbling sensual pleasure, indulged in a surface impropriety; any girl around them would have given more than Mrs. Grove; everything, probably. But he preferred the penetrating judgments, the superior mental freedom, of his companion. If she

either; they would have ordered lemonades or claret cup; and, by midnight, gone back to the hotel. It was now past two o'clock. There was no lessening in the vigor of the dancing, the laughter, or in the stream of laden trays; no trace of fa

e automobile, the door closed smoothly on them, and again she was absorbed into the cushions and her wrap. But there was a change in his feeling for her, an indefinable but potent boundary had been crossed: they had l

or work, he was, lightly and wholly, an idler in a polite sphere. The orchids in their glass holder, dimly visible before him, were a symbol of his purely decorative engagement with life. Now Lee couldn't reconcil

, "It has been su

n you spoke, I was trying to real

hasis, from which she drew perceptibly away. She extinguished the cigare

that she objected that he would not see Mina Raff, nothing would be accomplished. "She might have dinner with yo

his wife. That was beyond contradiction; and he sharply added that not Fanny, but the role of a wife, a housewife, was under observation. Mrs. Grove was married, but that didn't keep her from the Malmaison, at what Eastlake disapprovingly called all hours of the night. She had no aspect of a servitude

ow," Mrs. Grove said, "y

sted; "I was thinking of how marriage s

quietly, inc

sted, aggrieved

animation on her immobile face. "Escape, what do you mean by that?" s

lance by the rapid attack of her questioning; "I

action makes me rage, How do you dare, knowing nothing, to decide what I am

all, I didn't accuse you of much that was serious. I only said yo

rself," she reminded him disagree

answered, "a very

ing of wisdom." The car stopped before the Grove house and, within, her good-night was indifferent even for her. What, he w

; for the morning, Lee gathered. His pajamas, his dressing gown and slippers, were conveniently laid at his hand. He was, in fact, so comfortable that he had no desire to get into bed; and he sat smoking, over a tall drink, speculating about his hostess. Perhaps s

, the diminishing barking of dogs and the birds-sparrows in winter and robins in the spring-were the only sounds that disturbed the dark. In the morning the farmer above Lee rolled the milk down the road, past his window, on a carrier, and the milk cans made a sudden rattle and ringing. Then Christopher washed th

p of coffee with a cigarette casting up its fragrant smoke from the saucer. His shoes might have been lacquered from the heighth of the lustre r

treet; but the maid at the door told him that there was tea up in the library. This he found to be a long gloomy room finished in a style which, he decided, might be massively Babylonian. A ponderous table for the support of weightless trifles fill

, and whiskey glasses, in evidence, but Mrs. Grove was alone. She had been about to have them removed, she to

drop you on the floor." Lee drew up a tabourette for his glass and ash tray. The banal idea struck him that, although he had met Mrs. Grove only yesterday, he knew her well; rather he had a sense of ease, of the familiar, with her. The sole evidence she gave of an agreement in his feeling was that she almost total

son had been of use. "I walk whenever it's possible," he proceeded; "but that way you wouldn't have reached Beaver Street yet. Nothing to drink, thanks, Savina, but a cigarette-" Lee Randon reached forward with the silver box and, inadvertently, he pressed into Mrs. Grove's knee. He heard a thin clatter, there

ness; he hadn't supposed that anyone could be so super-sensitive and suspicious; and it damaged his pride that, clearly, she should consider him capable of such a juvenile proceeding. Lee rose

, would exhaust her first consideration of him; she wouldn't-how could she?-question the wisdom of his

here on an errand of my own," he proteste

t be too severe," he said. Someone had to be, the reply came, faint and indistinct. "Is there anything else?" he asked. Of course, how stupid, she was keeping him; the sound was no

ence of her weariness. A short and extremely romantic veil hung from the close brim of her hat-with her head bent forward she gazed at him seriously through the ornamental filaments; her chin

tains and velvet carpet and gold mounted vanities, Mina Raff was remarkably child-like, small; her face, brightening at intervals in the rapidly passing lights outside, was touched by pathos; she seemed crushed by the size, the swiftness and complexity, of her

votion to her. Mina realized to the last possible indefinite grace the ideal, always a silver abstraction, of youth; the old worn simile of an April moon, distinguished in her case by the qualification, wi

swift passage of that young idealism: after forty, the nebulous became a need for sensuous reality. Certain phases of Mina, as well, were utterly those of a child-she had the eluding sweetness, the flower-like indifference, of Helena, of a temperamental virginity so absolute that it

ook of suffering, of drawn pain. He couldn't recall the appearance of a shade of anger; yet the spoon had fallen as if from a hand numb with-with resentment. No other deduction was possible. He wished it were permissible to speak to her again about what-but obviously-had been no more than an accident; he objected to leaving such a ridiculous misconception of himself lodged p

as a play, an interlude, would fall he

scious of heads turning, and of a faint running whisper-Mina Raff had been recognized. However, without any exhibited consciousness of this, she addressed herself to him with a pretty exclusion; and, pausing to explain h

e Plaza, that you

ene has been shot. You see, that makes it all so expensive; I want to d

at she said, thought, felt, was magnificently reflected, given visibility, by her fluid being. "But yo

he had made the introducti

n assurance to him. "Things were taken out of our hands. Why I went to Eastlake I don't know, it was dreadfully inconvenient, and my director did what he could to keep me working. But, as you know, I persisted. Why?" She stopped and re

int, she had resisted, and then-how charming it must have been for Morris-she collapsed. She had c

eeling about men-and that he played football at Princeton and is very strong. You have no idea, Mr. Randon, how different he is from the men I am thrown with! There are some actors, of course, who are very

ur life, he'll have a collection of men to knock down. I'd like to tell you whatever I have discovered about him, for your own consideration, and Peyton is a snob. That isn't necessarily a term of contempt; with him it simply means that he is impatient, doubtful, at what he does

t is hard to believe," she objected; "he talks to me beautifully about my pictures

put in; "but did Peyton sh

acefully lowering

There was no reply to this. "I don't need to tell you," he admitted, "that I did my best to disco

't, it won't be true. Do you think, just because I

genius. Talent may be faithful to a number of things-a man or a cou

t of that," she

ictures: it would be a sentimentally stupid director. You must believe me: your acting will always be incomprehensible to Peyton: he will approve of the results and raise hell-fo

gering, served a wide and practical variety of purposes. "In the end," he insisted, "Peyton will wan

anted it? You mustn't think

way from it; you will never sit contentedly through long afterno

h a funny decided fist. I wanted to hug him, but I remembered that it wasn't the thing

rted; "not in the face of emotion itself; they have becom

with me," Min

had a tender maternal glamour, her eyes were misted with sentiment; a super

mething inimitable, supremely valuable, and you are dreaming like a rabbit. If you must

d no attention to him, back again i

e will very soon get over it; Ir

t insignificant person alive, hate me. It makes me too wretched to sleep. They will have to understand, be generous; I'll

tter about your memory. However, publicly, I suppose it will do you more good than harm. The public loves such scandal; but, with that advertisement, the other will continue. It isn't logical, I'll admit; except for Claire I should support you. That is where, and only where, I am dragged into your privacy.

though an internal struggle, evident in her tense immobility, had been decided against what was being powerfully urged upon her. A conviction that here, too, finally, he had failed,

cold, what you said. Why did you come to New York and talk to me like this

ount. In her limousine she seemed smaller, more lost in her fate and money, than before. She resembled a crushed and lovely flower; and Lee reflected that it was a shame no one was there to revive her. Mina Raff, at the Plaza, insist

d in sallies of a vigorous but not unkindly humor. Lee gathered that his practice was large and select; and he quickly saw the reason, the explanation, of this: Dr. Davencott had carried the tonic impatience of earlier years among inconsequential people into a sphere where bullying was a novelty with

and, as he looked, the expression he had seen on her face that afternoon in the library, drawn and white with staring black eyes, came upon her. It amazed him so much that he, too, sat regarding her in an intentness which t

o remain seated, calmly talking, for another minute. The conversation of the Davencotts that had so engaged him now only sounded like a senseless clatter of words and unendurable laughter. He wished they would go; that all of them except Savina Grove would vanish; but why he wanted her to stay, why he wished to be alone with her, and what, in such a circumstance, he w

sonal than his presence allowed and were waiting for just that. He was aware that Mrs. Grove's gaze, as though against her resolute effort, was moving toward him; but, quite desperately, he avoided it; he gazed up at a chandelier of glittering and coruscating glass

credible, but it was true; he had never before seen, nor imagined, such an instant sultry storm of emotions held precariously in check. Beyond measure it surprised and baffled and agitated him. He understood now that sense of impending lightning; and, at the same time, he had a sense that a peremptory brass gong had been struck beside

is was of enormous importance. He must at once regulate his approach to Mrs. Grove, get himself firmly in hand; the situation, for him particularly, had far-reaching unpredictable possibilities. F

Randon, however, had no intention of involving himself there while, ironically, he was engaged in securing for Claire Morris her husband; he didn't propose to compromise his ease of mind with William Grove's wife. There was, as well, the chance that she was a little unbalanced; progressing, he might involve himself in a regrettable, a tragic, fix. He would not progress, that was all there was to that! Lee felt better, freer already, at this resolution

eniality when he had a glimpse of Mrs. Grove's face turned slightly from him: the curve of her cheek met the pointed chin and the graceful contour of her exposed long throat; there was the shadow of a tormenting smile on the pale vermili

im; that was buried in the secret of instinctive recognitions. "Well, the thing for me to do is to go to bed," he said aloud, but it was no more than an unconvinced mutter, addressed to the indeterminate region of his feet. Savina Grove was standing by the door, in the place,

ink, has ever found it out like that." Her remark was without intelligible preliminary, but he grasped her meaning at once. "How you happened to stir it in me I have no idea-" she stopped and looked at him intently. "A terrible accident! I would have d

on you; at the same time I can't pretend-perhaps the safest thing of all-not to understand what, entirely agai

se of shame with you. It's gone." She gazed despairingly around as if she expected to see that restraining quality embodied and recoverable in the propriety of the room. "I'm frightened,"

afraid and ashamed. The nicest thing to call it is feeling; but in such an insane degree; at night it comes over me in waves, like a warm sea. I wanted and wanted love. But not in the little am

yone see inside me; I couldn't have men touch me; and whenever I began to like one I ran. It was disgusting, I was brought up to be

im, really, more than the rest. He had to dominate me, be masculine, and I had to be modest, pursued-when I could have killed him." Her emotion swept her to her feet. "But I was, he thought, proper; although it tore and

young; and, as you say, in a few years all will be over, solved. We are both, it seems, happily married."

t course in a

chestnuts. It is bad because you are contented. I hate life as muc

reat many men whom it would be safer to tell this to. If I haven't had such a sharp struggle as you, I've been

to be safe,"

d and half fell on a chair across the low back of which her arm hung supinely. The lightning, he thought, had struck him. Winding in and through his surging, tempestuous emotion was an objective realization of what was happening to him: this wasn'

artled unfamiliar voice. This would not do, he told himself deliberately, with a separate emphasis on each word. William Grove might conceivably come in at any moment; and there was no hope, no possibility, of his wife quickly

her arms, with an air of insuperable weariness. Her expression was da

ty out of the turmoil of his being. "We are not young," he repeated stupidly;

h an entire honesty of intention; bu

ible wisdom in him. Instead of that he was being inundated by a recklessness of desire that reached Savina's desperate indifference to what, however threatening, might overtake her. He couldn

alled before the nakedness left by the tearing away of everything imposed upon her. She should have said that, he realized, unutterably sad, long ago, to William Grove. But, instead, she had told him; and, whatever the consequences might

downstairs seemed, more than anything else, astounding; Mrs. Grove, Savina, had bewildered him with the power, the bitterness, of her feeling. At the thought of her shaken with passionate emotion his own nerves responded and

ion about the possibly ideal character of an intimacy with William Grove's wife; she, as well, had illuminated that beyond any obscurity of motive or ultimate result. Lee's mind shifted to a speculation about the cause of their-their accident. No conscious act, no desire

eater, a prolonged, intimacy of contact; something in the moment, a surprising of her defences, a slight weariness in a struggle which must often seem to her unendurable, had betrayed her. Nothing, then, than what had occurred, could have been farther from his mind; he had never connected Mrs. Grove with such a possibility; she hadn't, the truth was, at first attracted him in that way. Now he thought that he had been blind to have missed he

and he had been swept off their feet. A sense of helplessness, of the extreme danger of existence, permeated and weakened his opposing determination-he had no choice, no freedom of will; nothing august, in him or outside, had come to his assistance. In addition

d attitudes were largely a part of a public hypocrisy which had no place in the attempted honesty of his thoughts. Lee was merely mapping out a course in the direction of worldly wisdom. Then, inconsistently leaving that promise of secu

d then defrauded, became violent, wilfully obscene, and his profanity emerged from thought to rasping sound. His forehead, he discovered, was wet, and he dropped once more into the chair by the laden tray, took a deep drink from a fresh concoction. "This won't do," he said; "it's cra

ty, merged to confound him. In the consideration of Savina and himself, he discovered that they, too, were alike; yet, while he had looked for a beauty, a quality, without a name, a substance, Savina wanted a reality every part

he got what he called a hold on himself. All that troubled him seemed to lift, to melt into a state where the hopeless was irradiated with tender memories. His mood changed to a pervasive melancholy in which he recalled the lost possibilities of his early ambitio

e completed his preparations for the night; but he still lingered, some of the drink remained. Lee was glad that he had grown quieter, reflective, middle-aged; it was absurd, undignified, for him to imitate the transports of the young. It pleased him, though, to realize that he

iend of his she had ten; she was universally liked and admired. Lee was, at last, in bed; but sleep continued to evade him. He didn't fall asleep, but sank into a waking dose; his mind was clear, but not governed by his conscious will; it seemed to him that there was no Savina G

the breakfast table elaborate with repousse silver and embroidered linen and iced fruit; but, returning upstairs, he saw Savina in her biscuit-colored suit in the library. "William had to go to Washington," she told him; "he left his regrets." She

, it discharged itself, in a condition where it was no longer valid, in spite of him. Savina replied with a sile

he told him; "I have to go out for an hour, and

back in Eastlak

He kissed her. He didn't leave the library until a maid announced that lunch was ready and the fact of her return. At the table they spoke but little; Lee Randon was enveloped in a luxurious feeling-w

a spectacle: any one of the Follies. I am sick of Carnegie Hall and pianists and William's sol

sinking at the thought of Fanny, wou

be to

the massive lounge, they smoked and Savina talked. "I hardly went to sleep at all," she admitted; "I thought of you every se

," he lied

you married. No doubt because I don't want to; it makes me wretched." She hal

out my home is perfect, but, at times, and I can't make out why, it doesn't seem mine. It might, from the way I feel, belong to another man-the house and Fanny and the children. I stand in it all as though

pression of listening to the inflections of his voice rather than attending, considering, its meanings. She was more fully surrendered to the situation than he. The disorganized fragments of a hundred ideas and hints poured in rapid suc

continually and left him with the partly-formed whirling ideas. He named, to himself, the thing that hung over them; he considered it and put it away; he deferred the finality of their emotion. In this he was inferior, he became even

o think, dangerously approaching the abnormal. In addition to that, however, he was not ready, prepared, to involve his future; for that, with Savina Grove, was most probable to follow. Fanny was by no means absent from his mind, his wife and certain practical

servant arranged the pots and decanters and pitchers, the napkins and filled dishes, Le

od, he became talkative; he poured a storm of pessimistic observation over Savina; and she listened with a rapt, transported, attention. It stopped as suddenly as it had begun, in a silence coincident with dusk. The room slowly lost its sombre color and the sense of the confining walls; it became grey and ap

on't want you to go. Why can't you be with me? But then, the servants! Lee, I am going to die when you leave. Tell me, how can I live, what am I to do,

e; the mere excitation of the night before had gone. What was this, he asked himself, that he had got into? What had Cytherea to do with it? Ungallantly the majority of his thoughts were engaged with the possibility, the absolute ne

alled at the depths to which he had fallen, the ignominious appearance that interrogated him from the pier-glass; Lee saw himself in the light of a coward-a cheap, safe sensation-maker. Nothing was more contemptible. Damn it to hell, what was he? Where was he? Either he ought to go home or not, and the not carried the fullest possible significance. But he

d became pinched, stricken, with feeling. Lee Randon was possessed by a recklessness that hardened him to everything but the present moment: such times were few in existence, hours of vivid living which alone made the dull weight of years supportable. This belonged to Savina and him; they were accountable only to each o

g overlooking the sweep of the salle à manger, was precisely placed for their happiness. It was so narrow that the heels of Savina's slippers were sharply pressed into his insteps; when her hand fell forward it rested on his. Lee ordered a great deal, of which very little was eaten;

or the theatre?" he

sured him; "I can't imagine why we bought the s

te Folly." He

I'll ever have-I shall never think of anyone else like this again; and you'll go back, you'll g

ble to get you o

of movement, of the accommodation of her sight; her breathing was slow, almost imperceptible in its shallowness. "I am a part of you," Savi

thin azure smoke of the cigar.

understood. Why wasn't it long long ago, when I was a girl, twelve years old? Yes, quite that early. Isn't it queer, Lee, how I have been troubled by love? It bothers hardly anyone else, it scarcely touches the rest. There is a lot of talk about it, bu

oll into words because he could think of none that would make his meaning, his attachment, clear. Lee couldn't, very well, across the remnants of dinner, admit to Savina that a doll bought out of a confectioner's window on Fifth Avenue so deeply influenced him. He hadn't lost Cytherea in Savina so much as, vitalized, he had found her. And, while he had surrendered completely to the

g glow of the fire and, remote in her magical perspective, would see

ke?" Savina asked; and he replie

k at me, then, in

you eve

e," she

described and touched other special women. The words which had always been the indispensable property of such affairs were now distasteful to him. They seemed to have a smoothly false, a

replied; "yet I am doing well enough;

d a very great

azed at her

was not completely what was in her mind. "What I have," she went

very well in Cuba," Lee comm

osed to suit my heart better; but I know I should

the trade wind at night." His voi

hose dancing girls in gorgeous shawls, they haven't any clothes underneath; and that nakedness, the violence of their passions, the danger and the knives

what a contradiction the two women, equally vital, presented. And Fanny, perhaps no less forceful, was still another individual. Lee Randon was appalled at the power lying in the fragile persons of women. It control

t and nerve turned toward him

ees met. Savina, scarcely above her breath, said "Ah!" uncontrollably; she was so charged with emotion that her body seemed to vibrate, a bewildering warmness stole through him from her; and once more, finally, he sank into questionless depths. The brightness o

chemises slipping from breasts and the revelation of white thighs. It floated, like a vision of men's desire realized in beautiful and morbid symbols, above the darkened audience; it took what, in the throng, was imperfect, fragmentary, and spent, but still strong, brutal, formless, and

own sensuality, saw the pictorial life on the stage as an accompaniment, the visualization, of his obsession. It was over suddenly, with a massing of form and sound; Lee

son," she told Lee. Her ungloved fingers worked a link from his cuff and her hand crept up his arm. The murmur of her voice w

I love

Park, was unimportant, without power to contain him in its moment. They turned in at the Fifty-ninth Street entrance: through the glass there was a shifting panorama of black branches, deserted walks and benches and secretive water. He saw vaguely the Belvedere, the Esplanade fountain, and the formal length of the Mall, together with-flung against the sky-the multitudinous lighted windows of Central Park West, the high rippling

ing when.... It was Savina, at the speaking-tube, who commanded their return. They left the Park for Fifth Avenue, Sixty-sixth Street. L

r manner of mounting the stone steps. The maid came forward as they entered, first to help Savina, and then to

out another word, giving him no opportunity to speak, to r

ly through his pockets for a cigarette case which he had left, he knew, in his overcoat. Then, when the servant had retired, he softly cursed. However, the bitterness, his anger, were soon lost in bewilderment; that,

ssing-gown, and washed. The drink he discovered later untouched and he consumed it a

the words temporarily gave him more spirit; yet there was nothing he could do but go to bed. Nothing else had been even hinted at; he turned off the lights and opened the windows. Flares of brightness continued to pass before his eyes, and, disinclined to the possibilit

ed. Death could be no more dragging than this. Why, then, didn't he fall asleep? Lee went over and over every inflection of Savina's final words to him; in them he tried, but vainly, to find encouragement, promise, any decision or invitation. What, in the short passage from the

missed a directors' meeting today, and there was another tomorrow that he must attend, at his office. Then he grew quieter; the rasping of his nerves ceased; it was as though, suddenly, they had all been loosened, the strung wires unturned. What a remarkable adventure he had been through; not a detail of it would

t was not like the end of effort, but resembled a welcome truce, a rest with his force unim

as breathless in a strained oppressive attention. It was impossible to say whether his disturbance came from within or without, whether it was in his pounding blood or in the room around him. Then he heard a soft thick settling rustle, the sound a fur coat might make

are you? I